Mauzoleum Piastów Śląskich, Wrocław

Mauzoleum Piastów Śląskich is the historic mausoleum where Silesian rulers of the Piast dynasty are buried. It occupies the former main nave of the Church of Saints Clare and Hedwig on Plac Nankiera. That setting gives this stop an unusual double identity: a dynastic burial place enclosed within a church that belongs to the Catholic school of the Ursuline Sisters of the Roman Union.

The Piasts were central to Wrocław’s medieval story. After Duke Mieszko the First took the city in the year 990, Wrocław became part of the Polish realm. In 1138 it became the capital of the Silesian principality, and the Silesian branch of the Piasts made the city one of its principal centres.

The dynasty’s presence here is therefore not abstract history: this mausoleum preserves the burial place of the rulers who shaped Silesia’s political life. The city itself has passed through many political eras, but Wrocław remains the historic capital of Silesia. Here, inside this former church nave, its Piast past is given a particularly direct and personal form.