Pałac Lubomirskich, Kraków

Pałac Lubomirskich is the historic palace at number fifteen on Saint John Street, in Kraków’s Old Town. It took shape in the eighteenth century from three townhouses that had been joined and altered during the seventeenth century. At the entrance, notice the Baroque portal carrying the Lubomirski family’s Szreniawa coat of arms; the gate also retains its eighteenth-century metalwork and knocker.

The palace received the appearance you see today in eighteen seventy-three and eighteen seventy-four. Princess Lubomirska hired the Kraków architect Maksymilian Nitsch to enlarge the earlier Czartoryski residence, link the buildings, add a second floor, and create a Neo-Baroque façade—an ornate nineteenth-century return to Baroque display. The Lubomirski family owned it from the later nineteenth century and filled their residence with valuable paintings and furniture.

This was once a lively address for Kraków society. An exhibition of antiquities and art monuments took place here in eighteen fifty-eight. Inside, the grand carriage hall still has Baroque stucco, while the formal rooms of the first floor preserve much of their old splendour. After the Second World War, the French Institute occupied the palace from nineteen forty-six for fifty-three years.