History

A first brick building was erected on this plot in the second half of the 13th century. The property was owned by the commune and housed one of the municipal government bodies. The house was remodelled in the last quarter of the 14th century. At that time, a rear, brick annexe was erected; it was extended in the following century. The building underwent thorough upgrades in the 16th and 17th centuries. It had four floors, so it rose above other lower buildings of the frontage.

At the beginning of the 16th century, a side annexe was built, expanded in the following centuries. The name of the building comes from the last name of the 16th-century owner, writer and councillor Ludwik Kromer. Before, the house was known as the Vonwadtowska after Hector von Vadt (recorded in 1547). The previous owner was the tailor Krzysztof Henning - his daughter Anna married von Vadt. When she became a widow, she remarried with Ludwik Kromer and the house was part of the dowry. Ludwik Kromer held the house in the years 1598-1609; after his death, it returned to Anna. Ludwik and Jerzy Kromer encumbered the mortgage with considerable amounts. In 1609 Ludwik Kromer bequeathed 250 Polish złotys to a hospital for poor students and 600 Polish złotys to St Stephen’s Hospital in 1619. In 1641 Jerzy Kromer bequeathed 3000 Polish złotys to the Collegiate Church of All Saints and 1000 Polish złotys to the Discalced Carmelites in 1649. From 1610 the ground floor housed a bookstore run by Franciszek Jakub Mercenich, a Kraków merchant originally from Cologne, Germany, under his own name. The premises rented by Mercenich were very spacious. “The bookstore opens wide to the street. The room above the store on the first floor has a window onto the street; next to the room, there is a kitchen and another store; above the store, there is a chamber for servants in the loft; the store has a basement; the merchandise is stored in the entrance hall.” After Mercenich’s death in 1613, the bookshop was taken over by Bernard Kuik and Antoni Hierat. They imported books from Frankfurt am Main, famous for its international book fairs. Yet, they closed the business in 1625. It is worth noting that also books printed in Kraków were exhibited at Frankfurt. However, there were only few of them. The Kromerowska house was passing from one owner to another while falling to disrepair. At the turn of the 17th century, it was one of the many tenements in Kraków. In the 18th century, the house belonged to the Zajfreds and Sonners. Antoni Feistmantel purchased the property from Grzegorz Sonner around 1780. In 1791 Dominik Wielandt opened a confectionery on the ground floor. It was known for its cakes, pastry, and vodkas. His son Jan purchased the leased house from Feistmantl in 1806 for 23,000 Polish złotys. Further owners were Jan’s son, Gaweł Wielandt (1823), and Gaweł’s son, Kasper Wielandt (1842). In the 1840s, the building was so dilapidated that the owners decided to carry out a thorough renovation. In 1850 the building was partially consumed by fire. The roof of the main house and the roofs and the second floors of the annexes were damaged. So, reconstruction was needed. In 1851 the house was purchased by the confectioner Teodor Wassali. Paulina Jaworska, a bookseller’s wife, inherited part of the house later on. In 1872 Władysław Jaworski acquired the property. He invited Walery Wielogłowski to open his bookshop in the house. The business had previously operated at the corner of ul. św. Anny and ul. Wiślna. In 1870 two additional windows were made in the annexe on the first floor. In 1875 the storeroom was made in the attic, and in 1883 a two-storey porch was added in the yard outside the annexe. In 1900 brick latrines were built, and in 1909 a water supply system was installed. At the beginning of the 20th century, the basement housed an antiquarian bookstore called Bibliofil Polski. When, after 1914, the ground floor was converted into a bookshop, the same level of the side annexe was also altered. Wielogłowski’s heirs sold the bookshop to a Warsaw-based company, Gebethner and Wolff. It opened its first Kraków branch here. The ground floor was renovated again in 1937, according to the design by Stefan Świszczowski. In 1942 the Germans renamed the bookshop as Deutsche Buchhandlung. He was run by Alfred Fritzsche, a bookseller from Wrocław, who started with a major renovation of the entire building. After WW2, the store was nationalised. In 1950 it was taken over by the state-owned publishing company Dom Książki. Books have been sold here to this day (the bookstore is part of the Matras chain). In 1998 a private owner purchased the front section of the house at Rynek Główny 23 (basement and ground floor) and part of the annexe (ground floor).

Description

A three-storey townhouse with a three-window façade. It is adorned with simple pilasters adding some rhythm to the articulation of the first and second floors. In the underground level, there are rib-vaulted rooms preserved with carved keystones, which is rare in secular buildings. In mid-1914, the house management requested the Kraków City Council’s permit to “build a brick passage with glass roofing.” The permit was granted. The staircase is covered by a glass skylight, clearly standing out against the line of the roof, which is considered undesirable given the overall look of the house. This is also true about new ventilation systems, necessary for the catering function implemented in the ground floor of the house.

The site is partly available: freely from the outside but inside only during the working hours of the stores and institutions.

Author of the note Roman Marcinek, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kraków 20/04/2016

Bibliography

• Dyba O., Kraków. Zabytki architektury i budownictwa, Warszawa 2007
• Encyklopedia Krakowa, Warszawa – Kraków 2000.
• Fabiański M., Purchla J., Historia architektury Krakowa w zarysie, Kraków 2001
• Komorowski W., Sudacka A., Rynek Główny w Krakowie, Ossolineum 2008
• Rożek M., Przewodnik po zabytkach i kulturze Krakowa, Kraków 1993
• Marcinek R., Kraków, Kraków 2001