Muzeum Militariów, Wrocław

Muzeum Militariów fills two wings of Wrocław’s medieval Municipal Arsenal, with its displays spread through three floors. The museum shares this complex with the Archaeological Museum, while the Building Archive also has its home here. The Arsenal dates from 1459 and is one of the few medieval buildings in Wrocław to have survived intact.

Its Gothic origin means it comes from the medieval tradition of tall, functional masonry rather than later decorative showpieces. The exterior is notably austere, but the irregular four-sided building wraps around an inner courtyard. There, two tower forms and a draw-well made in 1620 give the complex its character.

Inside, the old-weapons gallery ranges from the Stone Age to the eighteenth century. It begins with part of a medieval penitential cross carved with a kord, a single-edged weapon used around the turn of the sixteenth century. You also find spiked clubs, sixteenth-century halberds, two-handed swords, and pieces of armour.

The firearms room moves from early eighteenth-century flintlock rifles to the Kalashnikov. Another gallery holds the helmet collection given to the museum by specialist Jacek Kijak in 1999, one of Europe’s larger collections. The ceiling alone carries dozens of Polish Model 50 helmets, each with small differences in finish and detail.