Kamienica Pod Złotym Słońcem, Wrocław

Kamienica Pod Złotym Słońcem is a baroque townhouse on Wrocław’s Market Square. Let the elaborate façade hold your attention for a moment: this is the public face of a house whose fabric reaches much further back than its showy finish. The building replaced a pair of dwellings from the thirteenth century, and window recesses from that medieval phase remain.

Later alterations repeatedly enlarged the property, with the present baroque character taking shape during work in 1694 and 1695, followed by further repairs in 1727 and 1740. The wealthy Boner family lived here and installed a secure strongbox during the fifteenth century; archaeologists uncovered it long afterward. This house also accommodated exceptionally important visitors.

Internal passageways linked it with neighbouring houses, creating lodging for King Vladislaus Jagiellon, Emperor Rudolf the Second, and Ferdinand the Second. The market frontage here suffered only limited damage during the war. From 1965 until December 2004, the house provided exhibition rooms for Wrocław’s Medallic Art Museum. After a complete renovation, it reopened in 2010 as the Pan Tadeusz Museum, preserving and displaying the manuscript of Pan Tadeusz, alongside rooms devoted to Jan and Jadwiga Nowak-Jeziorański and to Władysław and Zofia Bartoszewski.