The Cloth Hall is the central building on the Main Market Square and one of the most recognizable structures in Kraków. Most of us associate it with the Golden Age – the 16th century – and the Jagiellonian dynasty. It was the time when, thanks to the Italian Masters’ activity, marvels of Renaissance art were being created. The Cloth Hall isn’t just about Renaissance though.
At the beginning, in the 13th century, ‘the hall’ was just 2 rows of merchant stands and an aisle in-between. This arrangement was established at the order of King Bolesław the Chaste. Later, but still during the Gothic period, the stalls were replaced with a single building which unfortunately burnt down in 1555. The reconstruction process was carried out by Jan Maria Padovano, Santi Gucci and master Pankracy among others. The most distinctive Renaissance element of the Cloth Hall is its attic – a decorative wall overreaching the roof of a building. This particular attic became an exemplar copied not only in other buildings in Kraków but even in the neighboring countries. It wasn’t purely decorative – it’s practical purpose was to cover the roof and prevent the spread of fire between adjacent buildings. The Cloth Hall is adorned with telltale mascarons, weird faces of creatures half human and half monstrous. Some say they were portraits of the city council’s members…
The arcades, that are another interesting feature of the Cloth Hall, are much newer than the other parts as they were built in the late 19th century. They were designed by Tomasz Pryliński while the capitals of the columns were authored by Jan Matejko himself.
In the Cloth Hall’s cross section, which is, at the same time, a gateway from one half of the Main Market Square to the other, there is a certain knife on display. According to a local legend it was used by the builder of the St. Mary’s Basilica’s higher tower to kill his own brother – the builder of the lower one. He did it out of pride and jealousy, afraid of being surpassed by his own kin. The knife is medieval in origin – it was likely used to maim thieves by cutting their ears off. At the very center of the Cloth Hall there’s a commemorative tablet dedicated to the city’s location according to German law in 1257.
Nowadays the Cloth Hall can be roughly divided to 3 parts: the ground floor, the upper floor and the underground. The ground floor is full of stalls selling mainly souvenirs and other goods bought by tourists. The first floor houses an art gallery displaying 19th century Polish paintings and sculptures. Historically speaking it’s the National Museum’s first building on the territory of Poland (1879). The paintings of Jan Matejko can be found here. In 2010 the gallery was made available to public once more after 4 years of renovation. Finally the underground contains a famous museum – section of the Kraków Historic Museum popularly called the Market Square Underground.
The nam “Cloth Hall” comes, of course, from cloth – one of the most common goods sold here during the Middle Ages and later. Cloth is a kind of fabric made from wool in a special way. It’s rarely used today, but still can be seen on the surface of billiard tables… Or in the Market Square Underground, where a cloth stall was reconstructed.