House of Esterka

Although Esterka made it into history thanks to Jan Długosz, she has always caused major controversies among historians. There are, however, many grounds for not questioning the existence of the Jewish lover of King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) described in such a friendly and convincing manner by the royal chronicler.

There are, however, hardly any grounds, apart from tradition, to connect her with the house standing at ul. Krakowska 46. This house, originally Gothic (of which the cellars and stone window frames have been preserved), used to stand by the southern wall of the Market Square of Kazimierz from the time of its charter. In the 16th century, it belonged to the architect, constructor, and alderman of Kazimierz, the Italian Bartolommeo Berrecci. It owes its contemporary look to the reconstructions carried out at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Worth attention is its broken-form roof, now a rarity, yet which was so popular locally that it came to be known as “the Kraków roof”.

Today, the building houses a branch of the Ethnographic Museum.

It is worth adding that another place believed to be connected to the person of Esterka is the Palace in Łobzów. There was even a mound devoted to her built nearby, but this was removed around 1925.