Saint Mary's Basilica

The first building of the basilica was wooden. In 1221-22, it was rebuilt in stone, but was almost immediately destroyed by the Mongol-Tatars during their invasion. However, even before this basilica, there was already a wooden structure here. The construction of the basilica was completed in 1397, and the towers acquired their characteristic spires only in the 15th-17th centuries.

During the reign of Casimir III the Great, the church was rebuilt again, adding high windows and a presbytery. In the 15th century, side chapels and a north tower, which served as a watchtower for the entire city, appeared.

In the 16th century, King Sigismund I made Polish the language of sermons in the basilica, moving away from German. In the 18th century, the church's interior was renovated in the late Baroque style, including the replacement of all altars and the decoration of walls with polychrome. Works by Italian artists were also added.

In the 19th century, Maria Square was created next to the basilica in place of a cemetery, and the church itself was restored in the Neo-Gothic style under the direction of Tadeusz Stryjeński. The interior was adorned with frescoes and stained glass created by famous artists of the time.

In September 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, to save the basilica's altar from destruction, it was dismantled and floated on a barge down the Vistula to Sandomierz, where it was stored in the local cathedral and seminary. After the occupation of Poland, German authorities were able to discover the altar in October 1939 and transported it to Germany, where it was stored in the cellars of Nuremberg Castle. On April 30, 1946, the altar, along with the Balthasar Behem Codex, was returned to Krakow.

From the beginning of the 1990s, comprehensive restoration works were carried out, as a result of which the church regained its magnificent splendor. The last touch of renovation was the replacement of the roof covering in 2003.

On April 18, 2010, the funeral ceremony of the tragically deceased President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, and his wife Maria took place in Saint Mary's Church, whose coffins were then buried in one of the crypts of the Wawel Cathedral.

A visit to the church should start from the outside. On the walls of the church, one can find numerous epitaphs of Krakow citizens – a memory of the parish cemetery that surrounded the temple until the end of the 18th century.

At first glance, it's clear that the cathedral's towers are different. The taller one, 81 meters high, is covered with a Gothic helmet crafted by Matias Heringkan. The helmet consists of an octagonal pointed spire surrounded by a crown of eight small towers. A gilded crown with a diameter of 2.4 meters and a height of 1.3 meters is placed on the spire.

This tower, known as the "watchtower" or "hejnalica", has always belonged to the city: since the late middle ages, a guard has been vigilant day and night, watching for fires, approaching enemies to Krakow, and other dangers. His duties also included playing the hejnal on the trumpet, initially only at dawn and dusk as a signal to open and close the city gates, and from the 16th century – every hour. The hejnal has become a musical symbol of Krakow and is still played to this day: performed in all four cardinal directions, every full hour around the clock. The peculiarity of the play is that the melody abruptly stops. According to legend, in the 13th century, a guard began to play the alarm signal upon seeing the approaching Tatar hordes. He managed to warn the city of the attack, but a Tatar arrow pierced his throat. This is why the melody of the hejnal abruptly ends – at the exact moment the guard stopped playing it.

The second, lower tower (69 meters), serves as the church's bell tower and houses an ensemble of five bells, the oldest of which, "Half-Sigismund", dates back to the 15th century. The tower contains the Renaissance Chapel of the Conversion of Saint Paul. The tower is topped with a late Renaissance helmet, built in 1592, consisting of a dome resting on an octagonal drum and a latticed lantern. Small domes on low hexagonal bases are located at the corners of the tower's upper platform.

The difference in height of the towers is not based on architectural considerations, and there are several legends about why they are different. One of them says that the towers were built by two brothers. When the younger realized that his tower could not compare with the other in either height or beauty, out of envy, he killed his elder brother with a knife. Tormented by guilt, on the day of the temple's consecration, he pierced his heart with the same knife and threw himself from the top of the church tower.

The walls of the church are richly decorated with 21 sculptural figures. On the outer side of the wall of Saint John of Nepomuk's chapel, there are sundials, made in the sgraffito technique.

The entrance to the temple from the main facade is through a Baroque porch. It was built in 1750–1753 according to the design of Francesco Placidi. Its prototype was the architectural form of the Holy Sepulchre. Above the porch, there is a large arched window with stained glass designed by Józef Mehoffer and Stanisław Wyspiański.

On the south wall of Saint Mary's Church, right at the entrance, there are iron shackles in which sinners were locked. One could end up in them for adultery, drunkenness, evasion of taxes, failure to observe fasts, working on Sundays and holidays, and even for petty theft. Those locked in the stocks could be freely ridiculed by those entering the church, and only at the end of the 18th century was this church punishment abolished.

The interior of Saint Mary's Basilica combines various architectural styles, from Gothic to Art Nouveau, captivating with its magnificence. As the main parish church of the city, it was supported by the patronage of wealthy urban families, thus housing many valuable works of art.

However, the most important and valuable ancient artifact of Saint Mary's Basilica is the main altar, a masterpiece by Veit Stoss, the highest sculptural achievement of the late Middle Ages. In 1442, the vault of the presbytery of Saint Mary's Basilica collapsed, destroying the then altar, and the city authorities decided to build a new altar worthy of a capital city. They chose Veit Stoss, who was living in Nuremberg, as the artist. The sculptor worked on the altar for 12 years and received the equivalent of the city's annual budget for his work. This altar is the largest wooden altar in the world. It is 13 meters high and 11 meters wide. Its figures are taller than human height. The central ones are true giants, standing 2.5 meters tall. In total, the altar depicts about 200 figures.

The lower part of the central panel features the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, surrounded by the apostles, and the upper part shows the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven. At the very top of the central panel, under a filigree canopy, the Coronation of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Trinity is depicted. The altar wings feature scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary. A unique feature of Saint Mary's altar is not only its astonishing beauty but also its realism. Stoss gave the figures the features of Krakow's inhabitants, his contemporaries, reproducing various details.

The polychromy of the 19th century in the basilica, a work by Jan Matejko (whose idea was, among other things, the starry vault) and his students, including Stanisław Wyspiański and Józef Mehoffer, outstanding artists of Young Poland, who also designed the stained glass window in the west wall, is also noteworthy.

On both sides of the presbytery are canopied stalls. They were created in 1586, and in 1635 they were supplemented with relief images from the life of Christ and Mary, executed by Fabian Meller.

In the Church of Saint Mary, an organ appeared by the end of the 14th century. The current main organ is the result of numerous reconstructions of the instrument and has retained little of its romantic sound, making it quite problematic to perform music from the Baroque and modern periods on it. This is the consequence of the last, largely unsuccessful reconstruction, which continues to cause numerous disputes to this day.

In addition to the main organ, the basilica houses two other interesting instruments with a typically romantic sound: the organ by Kazimierz Żebrowski in the presbytery (12 stops, 1912) and the organ by Tomasz Fał in the south chapel (7 parts, 1898).