Pałac Tarnowskich, Kraków

Pałac Tarnowskich is the one-storey palace at 71 Szlak Street in Kleparz, and the balcony portico on its façade belongs to the rebuilding that gave it its present form in 1878. Antoni Łuszczkiewicz designed that transformation for the Tarnowski family, who had acquired a badly deteriorated earlier palace. The story reaches much further back: the first palace buildings here were completed in 1613 for the Montelupis, an Italian-rooted merchant family.

They established Poland’s postal institution and served as royal postmasters for more than a century. Polish monarchs used this palace as a final halt before entering Kraków. It also became the departure point for royal funerals: on the fourth of February 1633, the procession for King Sigismund III Vasa and Queen Constance set out from here.

That role earned the palace its old nickname, the Royal Mortuary. Its owners have included Jesuits, the Badeni family, the Tarnowskis and the Salvatorian Fathers. During the German occupation it housed Hitler Youth headquarters.

From 1950 until 1998, these rooms served Radio Kraków. The building entered the regional heritage register on the ninth of October 1989, and it has belonged to the Józef Tischner European University since 2015.