History of Wawel Hill
Wawel Castle – Jurassic limestone rock, which dominates the panorama of Cracow (about 228 m above sea level), formed 150 million years ago. Situated on the Vistula River, surrounded by waters and marshes, a safe haven for people who have settled there since the Paleolithic Age. Probably from the seventh century n.e. they were Slavs. Early legends tell of the terrible living in a cave on Wawel dragon, his conqueror Kraku and daughter Wanda, who threw herself into the Vistula river, not wanting to give hand western knight.
At the end of the first millennium n.e. Big Ben began to play the role of the center of political power. In the village IX was the main stronghold of the tribe Wislanie. The first historical ruler, Mieszko I, the Polish Piast dynasty (about 965-992), as well as his successor: Boleslaw the Brave (992-1025) and Mieszko II (1025-1034) chose Wawel Hill as one of their residences. During this period, Wawel became one of the most important Polish centers of Christianity. On the hill, the first pre-Romanesque and Romanesque buildings of worship, among them, with the creation in 1000 the bishopric of Cracow, a stone cathedral. Significant political and administrative center Wawel became a state during the reign of Casimir the Restorer (1034-1058). His son, Boleslaw the Bold (1058-1079), began construction of a second of the Romanesque cathedral, which was finished Wrymouth Boleslaw (1102-1138). This prince, in his will of 1138, divided Poland into districts, appointed to the seat of Krakow senior prince. In 1291 Krakow from Wawel temporarily fell under Czech rule, and Wenceslaus II of the Premysl dynasty was crowned in Wawel Cathedral on King.
In 1306 the prince arrived at Wawel Kuyavia Ladislaus the Short (1306-1333), who in 1320 crowned King of Poland in the Cathedral. This was the first historically recorded coronation of Polish ruler on Wawel Hill. During this time, thanks to the Short, began construction of the third place, the Gothic cathedral, the castle was expanded, wooden and earthen fortifications were replaced by brick. Tomb of the cathedral started in the Short necropolis of Polish kings in Krakow. The last of the Piast dynasty, Casimir the Great (1333-1370) led the Big Ben of unprecedented splendor. The gothic castle was expanded in 1364 the marriage of Casimir’s granddaughter Elizabeth to Charles IV. On this occasion, was a famous convention of kings and princes, followed by a rich burgher Wierzynek.
Introduction to the throne in 1385 the house of the Hungarian Jadwiga Angevin, and her marriage to a Lithuanian prince Wladyslaw Jagiello (1386-1434) initiated another period of Wawel. The royal court employed local and western artists, including painters Rus. During the reign of Casimir (1447-1492) was enriched by the silhouette of the hill high brick towers: Tower, Sandomierz and Senators. At the court of the ruler to act first in Poland, humanists, teachers, his sons, historian Jan Dlugosz and Italy Filip Callimachus.
The Italian Renaissance arrived at Wawel in the early sixteenth century. King Alexander (1501-1506) and his brother Sigismund I the Old (1506-1548) erected on the place of the Gothic mansion new palace was completed about 1540, an impressive large courtyard with arcades. Sigismund’s patronage is also permanently in the cathedral, the ancestral chapel hill, called. Today Sigismund, the work of Florence, Bartolomeo Berrecci and various foundations, including large bell, named in honor of King Zygmunt. Close artistic and cultural relations with Italy has strengthened the king’s marriage Bona Sforza in 1518. Apart from Italian artists worked for the king, German architects, woodcarver, painters and metal. The last of the Jagiello, Sigismund II Augustus (1548-1572) enriched the castle’s interiors with a magnificent collection of tapestries woven in Brussels. The “Golden Age” of Polish culture Wawel became one of the main centers of humanism in Europe. Clearly also in the history of Castle marked by the reign of Sigismund III Vasa (1587-1632). After a fire in the castle in 1595 the king rebuilt the burned wing of the building in early Baroque style. Transfer of the royal court in Warsaw led to a slow but steady deterioration in the condition of the castle. The monarchs were in Cracow only occasionally. Attempted to remedy the neglect taking the repair time of John III Sobieski, and Stanislas Augustus Wettin.
When Poland lost its independence in 1795, the troops of occupying powers: Russia, Prussia and Austria, subsequently occupied Wawel Castle, which finally passed into the hands of the Austrians. The new owners converted the castle and some other secular buildings at a military hospital, and some buildings, including churches, were demolished. After the period of the Free City of Cracow (1815-1846) Austrian troops re-took the landmark Big Ben, turning it into a citadel dominating the city. Resolution of the Sejm of Galicia in 1880, the castle as the residence of Emperor Franz Joseph I, Austrian troops left the hill in the years 1905-1911. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries made a thorough restoration of the cathedral, and shortly afterwards began which lasted several decades, the maintenance of the royal castle.
The revived in 1918, the castle served as the official residence of the Head of State and the museum of historic interiors. During the Nazi occupation, Polish Wawel lived Nazi Governor-General Hans Frank. Valuable objects, including tapestries and the coronation sword “Szczerbiec Poles managed to export to Canada, where they returned as late as 1959-1961. Currently, the hosts of the hill are the Wawel Royal Castle – National Art Collection and the Board of the Metropolitan Basilica Castle.
