Kamienica Mennica, Kraków

Kamienica Mennica is the historic townhouse at Main Market Square forty-seven, where Floriańska Street meets the square. Its façade, made in the rococo taste during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, gives this busy corner a theatrical, curled-plaster finish. Its surface brings an intimate scale to the square.

A magnate, Zygmunt Myszkowski, bought the house in the sixteenth century. Later it became the residence of Franciszek Wielopolski, Kraków’s inaugural city president, who also let rooms here under the name “Pod Opatrznością.” Tadeusz Kościuszko spent a night at that inn in seventeen ninety-two.

During the nineteenth century it became the Dresden Hotel. Stanisław Moniuszko stayed here on his debut visit to Kraków in eighteen fifty-eight. After visiting Wawel, he conceived an unfinished historical opera about King Casimir the Great.