DOI Artikel:
Estreicher, Karol: Collegium Maius, dzieje gmachu
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26700#0357
275
The actual walls of the Pencherz house have been preserved in their foundations
and in the Collegium Maius Corner-Room (over-looking Jagiellońska Street). This
is easily traceable by observing the wild-stone composition, so typical of the four-
teenth century (Fig. 1).
The house was not large and hardly could hold all University activities. It was
a typical middle-class residence, with a big hall (the „palatium”) on the first floor.
In the course of the first half of the fifteenth century the University was able
to purchase the houses contiguous to the College and to combine them into one.
During the first half of the century the Common Room was arranged on the first
floor. It had manifold uses, serving originally as Aula, refectory, and a place of
professorial meetings and debates. Now in the eastern faęade it is destignated by the
oriel, originally destined for the lecturer. Both the Stuba Communis and the oriel
(but only that part of the house) were in all probability built after 1430, after the
pattern of the Carolinum University House in Prague. No wonder, considering the
number of professors who had come from Prague to Cracow at that time (Fig.
44—46).
During the second half of the 15th century Collegium Maius was extended,
according to one design but at considerable intervals in time. The numerous chan-
ges brought to the structure of the house made of it a compound which is not uni-
form, but having several architectonic aspects; varying as it is in its spaces and
constructions, faęades and roofs, ornament and details.
Even material is not uniform: brick combining with stone and roughcast in
a quite inpredictable way. The roofs are of uneąual height, the holes and openings
of varying size, dispersed at random. Ono who standing at the corner of Jagielloń-
ska and St. Ann’s (św. Anny) Streets observes Collegium Maius as it is now after
its most recent restoration, will see a varying picture of a widely-set and yet
steeply-silhouetted house, apparently without inner rhythm or symmetry. The ge-
neral impression is that of the massive walls, their colouring and weight. But these
freedcms are only apparent, as well as the casualness.
Collegium Maius, finally constructed towards the end of the fifteenth century
(except the Library Hall, now the Senate Hall built in between 1515 and 1519), was
erected upon a rectangular plane. Whoever enters the Collegium Maius courtyard
will at once grasp its inner harmony. In fact, the activities of the house are not
turned outwards, to the surrouding streets and garden, but inwards. The arcades
surround the courtyard, surmounted with porches leading to lecture-rooms and
private rooms. This is the p’ace where all are bound to meet, those who have come
to attend or deliver lectures with the inmates of the place. All here is calm and
silent (the University has been always against noise and disturbance), although the
courtyard is not a monastic courtyard. (It is larger than they usually are, and has
a side staircase leading up to the porch above the arcades.) The courtyard is the
focusing centre, where directions are issued for students to obey, from wher their
work is supervised. Thence the clock-balcony and a place for the usher whose bell
summons the students to the lecture (Fig. 49—53).
When one observes Collegium Maius from the standpoint of the University tradi-
tions and reąuirements, the architectonic shape of the building will acąuire deeper mea-
ning, and its seemply haphazard character disappear. Admittedly, the architecture
of the College is functional to a high degree. The College is a building. of purposeful
and well-founded construction, one may venture to say, of humanistic desti-
nation. More so than the above mentioned Carolinum of Prague (14th century), though
the latter has richer Gothic ornament, in conformity to the Czech architectural
style. One must not wonder that our College is more „modern”, more to the point,
since it is nearly a century younger than the Czech one.
The names of the architects who were working on Collegium Maius during the
18*
The actual walls of the Pencherz house have been preserved in their foundations
and in the Collegium Maius Corner-Room (over-looking Jagiellońska Street). This
is easily traceable by observing the wild-stone composition, so typical of the four-
teenth century (Fig. 1).
The house was not large and hardly could hold all University activities. It was
a typical middle-class residence, with a big hall (the „palatium”) on the first floor.
In the course of the first half of the fifteenth century the University was able
to purchase the houses contiguous to the College and to combine them into one.
During the first half of the century the Common Room was arranged on the first
floor. It had manifold uses, serving originally as Aula, refectory, and a place of
professorial meetings and debates. Now in the eastern faęade it is destignated by the
oriel, originally destined for the lecturer. Both the Stuba Communis and the oriel
(but only that part of the house) were in all probability built after 1430, after the
pattern of the Carolinum University House in Prague. No wonder, considering the
number of professors who had come from Prague to Cracow at that time (Fig.
44—46).
During the second half of the 15th century Collegium Maius was extended,
according to one design but at considerable intervals in time. The numerous chan-
ges brought to the structure of the house made of it a compound which is not uni-
form, but having several architectonic aspects; varying as it is in its spaces and
constructions, faęades and roofs, ornament and details.
Even material is not uniform: brick combining with stone and roughcast in
a quite inpredictable way. The roofs are of uneąual height, the holes and openings
of varying size, dispersed at random. Ono who standing at the corner of Jagielloń-
ska and St. Ann’s (św. Anny) Streets observes Collegium Maius as it is now after
its most recent restoration, will see a varying picture of a widely-set and yet
steeply-silhouetted house, apparently without inner rhythm or symmetry. The ge-
neral impression is that of the massive walls, their colouring and weight. But these
freedcms are only apparent, as well as the casualness.
Collegium Maius, finally constructed towards the end of the fifteenth century
(except the Library Hall, now the Senate Hall built in between 1515 and 1519), was
erected upon a rectangular plane. Whoever enters the Collegium Maius courtyard
will at once grasp its inner harmony. In fact, the activities of the house are not
turned outwards, to the surrouding streets and garden, but inwards. The arcades
surround the courtyard, surmounted with porches leading to lecture-rooms and
private rooms. This is the p’ace where all are bound to meet, those who have come
to attend or deliver lectures with the inmates of the place. All here is calm and
silent (the University has been always against noise and disturbance), although the
courtyard is not a monastic courtyard. (It is larger than they usually are, and has
a side staircase leading up to the porch above the arcades.) The courtyard is the
focusing centre, where directions are issued for students to obey, from wher their
work is supervised. Thence the clock-balcony and a place for the usher whose bell
summons the students to the lecture (Fig. 49—53).
When one observes Collegium Maius from the standpoint of the University tradi-
tions and reąuirements, the architectonic shape of the building will acąuire deeper mea-
ning, and its seemply haphazard character disappear. Admittedly, the architecture
of the College is functional to a high degree. The College is a building. of purposeful
and well-founded construction, one may venture to say, of humanistic desti-
nation. More so than the above mentioned Carolinum of Prague (14th century), though
the latter has richer Gothic ornament, in conformity to the Czech architectural
style. One must not wonder that our College is more „modern”, more to the point,
since it is nearly a century younger than the Czech one.
The names of the architects who were working on Collegium Maius during the
18*