A palace at the foot of the Royal Castle is about to open its doors after a decade of plans and counter-plans. The so-called Bishop Ciolek Palace, raised by its namesake in the late fifteenth century, has been given the magic wand treatment ahead of its rebirth as a branch of the National Museum.
The Ciolek Palace lies on one of Cracow's most picturesque streets (ul. Kanonicza), opposite the swish Hotel Copernicus. Both buildings had fallen into miserable states of disrepair by the mid-1990s, scarred by boarded up windows and blackened facades. Yet with the completion of the Ciolek Palace - which opens for business on October 18th - the street will finally return to its former glory.
As it goes, the charms that travellers enjoy on Kanonicza Street (Canons Street) didn't come about by accident. Some of the country's highest ranking clergymen built residences here over the years, and the street is honeycombed with arcaded courtyards and other unexpected details. Much of the cobbled street remains in church hands - the future Pope John Paul II lived at No. 21 as a young man of the cloth.
The Bishop Ciolek Palace will house one of Poland's finest collections of Polish medieval and baroque art. The works will be divided thematically into two main sections. The first will be 'Art of Old Poland', which draws back the curtain on a host of treasures from the 12th to the 18th Centuries. Amongst the most precious artifacts will be a large collection of medieval and Renaissance sculptures. The second exhibition focuses on Greek Catholic and Orthodox Art from the former Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. The core of this collection will be a number of Ruthenian icons from the Western Carpathians.
The Bishop Erazm Ciolek Palace,
Ul. Kanonicza 17
*Open from October 18th*
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