Muzeum Katedralne im. Jana Pawła II, Kraków

The John Paul II Cathedral Museum occupies the Cathedral House on Wawel Hill, formed from two fourteenth-century buildings. Created by Cardinal Karol Wojtyła in nineteen seventy-eight, it displays Wawel Cathedral treasures, royal regalia, grave finds, and personal objects associated with Pope John Paul the Second.

The building before you is the John Paul II Cathedral Museum, housed in the Cathedral House on Wawel Hill. Its home joins two buildings from the fourteenth century, between the Vasa Gate and the former Castle Seminary. In nineteen seventy-five, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła chose these rooms for a museum devoted to objects from Wawel Cathedral.

On the twenty-eighth of September nineteen seventy-eight, he opened and blessed it, exactly twenty years after becoming a bishop. It was his final official occasion at Wawel before his election as Pope John Paul the Second. The collections bring together royal gifts, church treasures, art, and papal keepsakes in four rooms.

In the Royal Room, you encounter such potent emblems of Polish monarchy as Saint Maurice’s spear, coronation garments and swords, and the crown, sceptre, and orb of Casimir the Fourth. Another room preserves objects recovered from the grave of Bishop Maurus, including a silver chalice and paten. The Papal Room makes this museum’s namesake feel particularly close: it holds John Paul the Second’s cassocks, skullcap and sash, along with the chair used by both him and Benedict the Sixteenth in the cathedral. Wojtyła also gave the museum a coconut-and-silver cup on its opening day; tradition connects it with Queen Jadwiga.