Hippolytus House
Kraków Monuments
A branch of the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków on St Mary's Square, home to the permanent exhibition "The Townhouse", which shows how the people of Kraków lived from the 17th to the 19th century. The former home of the Hippolytus family was rebuilt many times and, after a thorough restoration, was handed over to the museum in 2003. The entrance hall keeps its stone portals, one Gothic and one Renaissance, and the steep stairs with a partly preserved grille show that the house was once fortified. The study upstairs is decorated with stuccoes by Baltazar Fontana.
History
The townhouse on Mariacki Square is named after the Hipolit family of merchants, who owned it in the 17th century. In the second half of that century it passed to the Zaleski merchant family, and later it changed owners and tenants many times. The building itself, however, is much older, as its beginnings go back to the 14th century: the cellars and stone portals date from that time.
In the first half of the 17th century the townhouse stood out from its neighbours thanks to its exceptionally rich sgraffito decoration. The façade was adorned with images of saints and with plant ornaments, unusual for Kraków at the time, featuring grotesque elements such as small human heads, hanging fabric motifs and decorative vases. Sgraffito involves covering a wall with several layers of different-coloured plaster and scratching them away with a stylus to create a picture. Part of the old decoration was recreated during conservation work in 2016.
The building was remodelled many times, and each era left its own mark. The Renaissance added a column between the windows and painted decoration, the Baroque brought stuccowork by Baltazar Fontana and a frieze below the ceiling, and the Rococo period and the 19th century added further paintings. After many years of thorough conservation the townhouse was handed over to the museum in 2003. Today it is a branch of the Museum of Kraków, where interiors from the 17th to the 19th century show how the people of Kraków lived.
Two stone portals await you in the entrance hall: a Gothic one, red with a black keystone, and a Renaissance one with a carved ox-eye motif. The steep stairs with a partly preserved grille are a reminder that the townhouse also had a defensive function. Upstairs, take a look at the study with Fontana's stuccowork, the grand Rococo-style bedroom and the collector's room, which holds one of the largest clock collections in Polish museums.
Did you know?
In the hallway a horseshoe has been nailed above the threshold to bring the household luck. In 2006, during the Night of Museums, life in the old days was re-enacted in these rooms, with actors playing characters from past eras.