Krakow Info website
doesn’t use cookies nor gathers personal data but advertisers and
services providers may do it on their own responsibility.
Privacy policy.
The
Jagiellonian University's gothic grand college,
Collegium Maius,
is a unique example of medieval academe still standing.
Krakow
University, founded in 1364, moved into the corner building at
today's Jagiellonska street and Sw. Anny street in the year 1400.
The Gothic architecture of Collegium Maius, the Great College, dates
back to 1496. Nowadays it contains Museum of the Jagiellonian
University (Muzeum Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego), a small
interactive science museum for children, a museum shop, and a cellar
coffee shop.
Central courtyard of the Collegium Maius
with surrounding Gothic arcades dates from the 15th century. It
has been modeled on the oldest Italian universities of Bologna
and Padua. Its central marble well is of 1517.
Clock show
takes place on the courtyard of the Collegium Maius at 9 a.m.,
11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and 5 p.m. Launched in 1999 it features
a procession of wooden representations of historical figures
connected with the Krakow university - a beadle, Saint Queen
Jadwiga, King Vladislav II Jagiello, St. John of Kety, Hugon
Kollontaj, and Prefessor Stanislav of Skalbmierz (in order of
appearance). The statues were made in the 1950s by Wladislaw
Kozyra, a village artist. The music consists of the traditional
academic anthem Gaudeamus Igitur and fragments of the
16th-century Polish composition by John of Lublin.
Libraria (Library)
dates from the 16th
century. With time the university library had outgrew its
original premises and in the 19th century it took up the entire
Collegium Maius. Now the
Jagiellonian
Library occupies two large purpose-built modern edifices at
23 Mickiewicza avenue outside the historic center of Krakow.
Stuba Communis (the Common Room)
served as a dining
room and a drawing room for professors who lived upstairs and
taught students downstairs.
Aula (Senate Hall)
with a wooden Renaissance ceiling and portraits of the Polish
kings was the oldest lecture hall of the the Collegium Maius.
Now it's the venue for sessions of the Jagiellonian University's
governing body called senate and various ceremonies such as
awarding of doctorates.
