Collegium Maius

One house that became a college

The museum history page places Collegium Maius on the corner of ul. Św. Anny and ul. Jagiellońska and calls it the oldest university building in Poland. In 1400 King Ladislaus II Jagiełło bequeathed a town house bought from the councillor Piotr Gerhardsdorf, also written Gersdorf. What remains of that house, the page says, is cobblestone wall in the foundations and on the corner, both on Jagiellońska and in the courtyard. The house was too small. Through the 15th century the college bought neighbouring houses and built new ones. Fires in 1462 and 1492 were followed by joining the separate houses into one arcade courtyard, galleries with the diamond vaults of the late Gothic, and the Professor staircase up to the first-floor balcony set into that arcade.

Lecture rooms, the lectoria, were on the ground floor: long, low, poorly lit, often damp. On the first floor were the library, the Libraria, the common room, Stuba Communis, the treasury, and the theologians’ lecture room, now the Aula. Professors lived on the first and second floors. The page says the look and the layout held until the mid-19th century. Between 1840 and 1870 the building was given a neo-Gothic face and became the seat of the Jagiellonian Library. The library left in 1940. From 1949 to 1964 Karol Estreicher ran a renovation that took the neo-Gothic additions off. In that same stretch the decision was made to put the Jagiellonian University Museum here, with the old university art and keepsakes and a large holding of scientific instruments.

Two routes through the same building

A guided tour of the main exhibition, as printed now, runs Stuba Communis, Treasury I, Treasury II, Libraria, the Globe Room marked also as the Copernicus Room, the Medieval Sculpture Gallery, and the Libraria again. Tuesday to Thursday the starts are 9:00 in Polish or English, 9:45 in English, 10:30 in French, Spanish or Bulgarian, and 11:15 in Polish. Friday is 9:00 in Polish or English, 9:45 in English, 10:30 in French, and 11:15 as an extended tour in Polish. The extended tour adds the Chemistry Room, the Physics Room, the Karol Olszewski Room, the Telescope Room, the Commission of National Education Room and the Clock Room. English extended tours are Tuesday to Friday at 12:30. The Friday 11:15 Polish tour is the extended one. A separate guided visit to the temporary exhibition Born of Passion is Monday to Friday at 12:00. The page does not describe that show.

A self-guided ticket does not walk the same rooms. The printed individual route is Libraria, Stuba Communis, Treasury I, Treasury II, the Antoni Żołędziowski Room, the Ambroży Grabowski Room, and Stuba Communis again. The Globe Room, the sculpture gallery and the science rooms are on the guided list, not on this one. The courtyard is a third visit: open every day from 9:00 to 18:00, and it is not the museum rooms. The Professor Garden and Estreicher’s Corner are closed, with no reopening date on the page. The cafeteria U Pęcherza is open daily 9:00–18:00. The university shop stand is Monday to Saturday 9:00–17:00. The museum says it can change the route and the hours for university ceremonies. On the page now, 30 October the main exhibition opens at 12:30 except tours already booked, and on 3 November the last main-exhibition tour starts at 14:00.