Wolnica Square and the City Hall of Kazimierz

Today Wolnica Square is part of the former market square of the city of Kazimierz. The name (wolny means free in Polish) comes from the Latin forum liberum, that is the right of free trade, which let merchants sell meat outside shambles, in the market square, once a week, on Saturdays. The market was staked out with real panache soon after the chartering of the city in 1335. Its size was only a little smaller than that of Kraków. To the west, it reached today’s ul. Augustiańska, and to the south – ul. Skawińska and Esterki House (at ul. Krakowska 46). Its eastern and northern walls have remained unchanged. The Salt Route, being a major trade route running towards Wieliczka and Bochnia, bisected the Market Square along today’s Krakowska Street. The Swedish invasion of 1655 and the Northern War (1704-1705) left Kazimierz in utter ruin. The progressive destruction of the buildings rendered the entire urban layout, including the Market Square, hardly legible.

At the time, the high, ruined, City Hall standing in the centre of Wolnica bore testimony to the former splendour of the city. Originally Gothic (with relics of the 14th-century walls preserved in the cellars), it burnt down and was rebuilt twice. The renovation works conducted in 1578 and 1623 reinforced the Renaissance form of the building with crenellated façades to the attic floors (a rarity in Kraków) and a tower capped with a modest dome.
After the inclusion of Kazimierz into Kraków in 1800, new streets were laid out as a part of the “beautification” programme which gave Wolnica Square its current limits. Thoroughly rebuilt in 1876, the City Hall became a school, and after the second world war – the seat of the Ethnographic Museum. A plaque commemorating the arrival of Jews in Poland was placed in its eastern wall in 1907.

A fountain with a sculpture of “The Three Musicians” by Bronisław Chromy was added in 1970.