Mały Rynek, Kraków

Mały Rynek is a compact rectangular square behind St Mary’s Basilica, created as a supporting market for Kraków’s Main Market Square. Once a place for meat and second-hand goods, it was redesigned in two thousand seven with historic paving, an illuminated fountain, and space for cultural events. The Szober House was the printing site of Poland’s first newspaper.

Mały Rynek is the small rectangular market square behind St Mary’s Basilica, created east of the Main Market Square as Kraków’s supporting marketplace. At about a third of a hectare—roughly one hundred and ten by thirty metres—it feels like a narrow urban room, bounded by Mikołajska Street and Sienna Street. Its business was once far tougher than today’s paving suggests.

Meat was sold here, then second-hand goods joined the trade from the sixteenth century; butcher stalls occupied the square until their final removal in eighteen twenty. A charitable kitchen also operated here. The square acquired names reflecting those trades, including the Butchers’ Market in the later eighteenth century.

In fifteen thirty-nine, eighty-year-old Katarzyna Weiglowa was burned here for abandoning Catholicism. Notice the illuminated fountain in the paving. Until two thousand seven, this surface functioned largely as car parking and a taxi rank.

A redesign for the seven hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Kraków’s charter restored historic cobbles, added lamps and benches, sharply reduced vehicles, and made this a companion venue for exhibitions, performances and civic events. At number six, the Szober House marks where Poland’s first newspaper, Merkuriusz Polski, was printed in sixteen sixty-one.