Jan Dlugosz House, Krakow

About

Długosz House is a historic building in Kraków's Old Town, located at 25 Kanonicza Street, at the corner with Podzamcze Street, at the foot of Wawel hill. Erected in the 14th century, it housed a royal bathhouse. It was repeatedly rebuilt and transformed. Since the first half of the 15th century, it served as a residential house for cathedral canons, and it owes its name to one of them – Jan Długosz. It was not until the 19th century that its purpose changed, and during this century, Stanisław Wyspiański lived there. Currently, it serves as the seat of the rectorate of the Pontifical University of John Paul II.

The masonry building, which constitutes the oldest part of the preserved structure, was erected in the first half of the 14th century. Located near the Wawel Castle, it neighbored the Side Gate [ pl ]. By the end of that century, it served as a royal bathhouse, supplied with water from the Młynówka Królewska [ pl ] stream – an artificial watercourse flowing along today's Podzamcze Street, encircling the building from the south and west.

Most likely due to the gradual drying up of the Rudawka stream, maintaining the bathhouse at this location became impractical. In 1390, on August 9th, King Władysław Jagiełło gifted the building to Krystyn of Ostrów [ pl ], who established his residence there. He expanded the acquired house by adding the adjacent one, purchased from the townsman Tomek, known as Lewek, and his wife Morzka. Additionally, in 1408, he acquired a brick kitchen from the Archbishop of Gniezno, Mikołaj Kurowski. This kitchen was situated outside the city fortifications, so during the adaptation works, it was necessary to incorporate the defensive wall into the house (various parts of the residence were attached to it), thus rendering it devoid of its military function. This was the first instance in Kraków of attaching fortifications to a townhouse.

In 1413, with the consent and royal confirmation in a document dated August 25th, Krystyn transferred the building to the cathedral chapter in exchange for tithes from the villages of Kamyk and Sławkowice, granted by Bishop Wojciech Jastrzębiec from his own estates, for the endowment of the altar of Hedwig of Silesia, founded by the nobleman in the Wawel Cathedral. Henceforth, the building, known as the chapter house, was to serve as accommodation for the canons. It was given to Mikołaj Hinczowic [ pl ] of Kazimierz and Jan of Rudzica, who in either 1415 or 1430 carried out extensive renovations at considerable expense. The building, previously referred to as the "castle bathhouse" or "royal bathhouse", was henceforth known as the "House of Hińczy". Additionally, successive canons residing there annually paid two grzywnas for the anniversary, a commemorative mass for Mikołaj.

The house, vacant after the death of Jan of Radochońce, was transferred to Jan Długosz by the chapter's decision on 4 February 1450. Perhaps Jan Elgot, his relative, contributed to making this decision. The canon initially lived alone, with the chapter's custodian also entitled to use the house whenever he was in Kraków. In 1453, Długosz was joined by his namesake brother. The building proved too small for the two permanent residents, so a year later, renovations were carried out. A second floor was added to the existing house, and two-story wings were added to the south and west, connected at an angle to form an L-shape. From then on, the entire complex formed a horseshoe with a courtyard in the middle.

The fire of 1455 spared this tenement, unlike most of the buildings on Kanonicza Street, which burned down. In June 1461, the Długosz brothers had to leave the house as they were banished, like many supporters of Jakub of Sienno, during the dispute between the chapter and King Casimir IV Jagiellon over the appointment of the Kraków bishopric. Their residence on Kanonicza, during the tumult in which Andrzej Tęczyński was killed on July 16, became a place of brief refuge for the murdered man's son, Jan Rabsztyński [ pl ], who was also threatened with death. He reached there through the back of the Franciscan monastery, and from this building, he managed to make his way to the royal castle. The house of the proscribed brothers was plundered later that same year by the Kurozwęcki brothers, Stanisław [ pl ] and Dobiesław, acting with the king's consent (December 19). The Długosz brothers returned to Kraków in 1463, receiving ten grzywnas from the chapter for the repair of the building at that time.

In the following years, the younger of the brothers occupied the eastern wing of the house, facing Kanonicza Street. Meanwhile, Jan Długosz the elder resided in the newly added section, where he worked on his works, Annales seu cronicae incliti Regni Poloniae (from 1455) and Liber beneficiorum dioecesis Cracoviensis (from 1470). Perhaps it was also one of the places where he imparted knowledge to the sons of Casimir Jagiellon, whom he tutored starting from 1467. After his brother's death in 1471, he shared the building with Jakub of Szadek [ pl ], a professor at the Jagiellonian University whom he knew well. In 1479, Długosz received a nomination as the Archbishop of Lviv and resigned from his canonry, yet he continued to reside in the chapter house. It was there that he died on 19 May 1480. Immediately after Długosz's death, Jakub of Szadek took over the house, and after some time, he was joined by Grzegorz Lubrański.

Among the subsequent canons who resided in the building, a notable figure was Maciej Miechowita, a professor and rector of the university, author of the Chronica Polonorum, a continuation of Długosz's chronicle. Miechowita lived there for a while, from 1514, sharing the residence with Maciej Drzewicki. He embellished the house, where he amassed a sizable library and a collection of works of artistic craftsmanship, coins, scientific and musical instruments, maps, and paintings.

Władysław Łuszczkiewicz associated the renovations of the building with the time of Miechowita (and the canons who occupied the house immediately after him), during which Renaissance elements were introduced, such as cornices above the windows or the portal of the main gate from Kanonicza Street, adorned with a Latin inscription. Although it is generally accepted that reconstruction took place at the beginning of the 16th century, the portal is dated to the second half of that century. Then, in 1571, renovations were carried out on the premises. The external walls were reinforced with buttresses, new window frames were installed, the interiors were decorated with paintings, a kitchen was arranged, and a new bathroom was built. The next renovation took place only in 1775 and included the galleries on the courtyard side and the replacement of the roof. It is possible that it was related to the repairs after the damage caused during the Bar Confederation conflicts.

After the Third Partition of Poland and the incorporation of Kraków into Austria by imperial decree in 1797, the chapter was deprived of most of the buildings on Kanonicza Street. Only eight buildings remained in its possession, including Długosz House, which continued to serve residential purposes. In 1825, it was placed under the administration of the chapter's procuratorship, but already the following year Canon Ludwik Łętowski moved into the building. Finally, in 1839, the house was designated as the seat of the procuratorship, which was located in the eastern wing on Kanonicza Street. Subsequently, it housed successive deputy procurators and chapter notaries.

Thirty-four years later (1873), Franciszek Wyspiański [ pl ] rented part of the building. It consisted of three rooms on the ground floor, in the southwest corner. Before moving in with his wife Maria and two sons, the sculptor had to carry out renovations, combined with adaptation for residential purposes. In the large, barrel-vaulted chamber in the southern wing, which had previously served as a coach house, he set up his studio, while in the western wing, he converted two rooms (former stables) into a bedroom for his wife and a kitchen. Some sources suggest that the residential function was fulfilled by a wooden, single-story cottage located near Długosz House (or in its annex), which was connected to it by Wyspiański.

The living conditions were quite typical for a significant part of Kraków's contemporary buildings – water available only from wells, lack of sanitary facilities, difficulties with heating the rooms. Over time, the inconveniences began to affect the Wyspiański family, especially the small size of the living area, so Franciszek divided his studio in half with a curtain, keeping one part for himself and allocating the other part for students and as a place to gather materials for work. Długosz House, after a successful period in the artist's life, became a place of creative crisis, alcoholism, depression, and family tragedies – the sudden death of his younger son, Tadeusz (1875), his wife's illness with tuberculosis, and her death (1876). His mother and sister tried to help Wyspiański run the household, moving in while Maria was still alive, which, however, increased the cramped living conditions. After four years (1880), the older son, Stanisław, left, passing under the care of his uncle and aunt, the Stankiewiczes. In the same year, the sculptor also moved from Długosz House to a building on Kopernik Street.

Living in the immediate vicinity of Wawel, with a magnificent view of the historic complex of the hill, strongly influenced Stanisław Wyspiański's later work, as did the time spent with his father in his studio, which was also a place for playing with school friends, as recalled later by Stanisław Estreicher and Henryk Opieński. The artist dedicated a poem to this place and the role it played in his life, written in 1903 under the title At the Foot of Wawel, my father had a studio...

The four-hundredth anniversary of the chronicler's death in 1880 aroused interest in the building, then still rarely referred to as "Długosz House", more often as "Under the Madonna", from the image on the facade. Texts discussing its history appeared. In connection with the anniversary celebrations, the chapter renewed the building and also decided to commemorate the chronicler in this place. During the First Congress of Polish Historians (May 18–21, 1880), a stone, fifteenth-century commemorative plaque from the demolished Psalterists' house (Psalterium), founded by Długosz, was embedded in the facade of the southern wing, facing Wawel. In the same year, on July 12, the chapter and the conservator of monuments, Józef Łepkowski [ pl ], placed an additional plaque there, commemorating the fact that the greatest Polish chronicler of the late Middle Ages lived and worked in this building. The interest in the historic house, which persisted after 1880, was manifested in the depiction of its views, in drawings or photographs. In this way, the building gained a rich iconographic documentation.

Until his death in 1900, Professor Władysław Ignacy Wisłocki [ pl ], the custodian of the Jagiellonian Library, lived in Długosz House with his family. At the end of the 19th century, the chapter relinquished the building to the episcopal curia. In 1900, a neo-Gothic building for the seminary [ pl ] of the diocese was erected at the back of the house, in place of the garden. This marked the biggest changes in the interior of Długosz House, which was adapted for the needs of the curia and the seminary's economic facilities (a kitchen was arranged in its annex). A renovation of the building took place in 1906.

The interwar period brought plans to change the purpose of the building. In 1927, the CEO of Radio Kraków, Bronisław Winiarz [ pl ], proposed to establish a museum dedicated to Stanisław Wyspiański there as a branch of the National Museum. However, this idea was not implemented at that time, just as it was in 1932 when it was reconsidered.

In the second half of the 20th century, historical documentation of Długosz House was developed based on earlier literature and archival materials (Andrzej Fischinger, 1966), and architectural research was also conducted to determine the successive phases of its construction (Waldemar Niewalda and Jerzy Kossowski, 1969). After 1980, renovation work on the building began, and there was once again a proposal to establish a museum there, this time dedicated to Franciszek Wyspiański. The comprehensive restoration of the house was completed in the 1990s, with major work completed by 1990. In 1991, the building was handed over to the then- Academy of Theology, and it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II. The university's rectorate is located there.

The masonry building, which constitutes the oldest part of the preserved structure, was erected in the first half of the 14th century. Located near the Wawel Castle, it neighbored the Side Gate [ pl ]. By the end of that century, it served as a royal bathhouse, supplied with water from the Młynówka Królewska [ pl ] stream – an artificial watercourse flowing along today's Podzamcze Street, encircling the building from the south and west.

Most likely due to the gradual drying up of the Rudawka stream, maintaining the bathhouse at this location became impractical. In 1390, on August 9th, King Władysław Jagiełło gifted the building to Krystyn of Ostrów [ pl ], who established his residence there. He expanded the acquired house by adding the adjacent one, purchased from the townsman Tomek, known as Lewek, and his wife Morzka. Additionally, in 1408, he acquired a brick kitchen from the Archbishop of Gniezno, Mikołaj Kurowski. This kitchen was situated outside the city fortifications, so during the adaptation works, it was necessary to incorporate the defensive wall into the house (various parts of the residence were attached to it), thus rendering it devoid of its military function. This was the first instance in Kraków of attaching fortifications to a townhouse.

In 1413, with the consent and royal confirmation in a document dated August 25th, Krystyn transferred the building to the cathedral chapter in exchange for tithes from the villages of Kamyk and Sławkowice, granted by Bishop Wojciech Jastrzębiec from his own estates, for the endowment of the altar of Hedwig of Silesia, founded by the nobleman in the Wawel Cathedral. Henceforth, the building, known as the chapter house, was to serve as accommodation for the canons. It was given to Mikołaj Hinczowic [ pl ] of Kazimierz and Jan of Rudzica, who in either 1415 or 1430 carried out extensive renovations at considerable expense. The building, previously referred to as the "castle bathhouse" or "royal bathhouse", was henceforth known as the "House of Hińczy". Additionally, successive canons residing there annually paid two grzywnas for the anniversary, a commemorative mass for Mikołaj.