Beauty bequeathed. Works of art donated to the Jagellonian University held in the Collegium Maius collection.
Opening hours:
Monday: 10.00-15.00
Tuesday: 10.00-18.00
Wednesday: closed
Thursday: 10.00-18.00
Friday: 10.00-15.00
Saturday: 10.00-15.00
Sunday: 11.00-17.00
The history of donates for Cracow University goes back to its very foundation. The University was able to develop thanks to the generosity of royalty, social elites, both clerics (bishops, canonic priests) and laymen (magnates, gentry, rich townsmen), and also professors. Even the main university edifice – Collegium Maius – was a donation funded by the monarch, and its development became possible as a result of the dedication of various benefactors. In the building one may find various keepsakes – portals or plaques - collected purposefully from other academic houses, ones no longer in existence , which too were donations to the university.
The goal of this exhibition, prepared to commemorate the 650th anniversary of the University's foundation, is to show selected objects from the museum and archive collection, which all illustrate the concept of patronage and the many forms it has taken. Part of the goal is to serve as a memorial to the bequeathers themselves and the good they left within the walls of the oldest university building: the precious collection that arose from their contributions. The exhibition is also to remind one of the 50th anniversary of the opening celebration of the Jagellonian University Museum, which took place in Collegium Maius in 1964, on the 500th anniversary year of the University's foundation.
The current exhibition shows that the University grew, and still grows, from the devotion of people and institutions, this beginning in the Old Polish period, when benefactors were only the wealthy and powerful, and in present times, when donors are not only influential representatives of the state, business, culture and science, but equally ordinary citizens. The University needs this support and displays its pride in such - in the proof of the gratitude and devotion of its alumni, of the respect shown by the state and nation, repaying the said with work and achievements.
Today we warmly invite you to visit the exhibition, which is to be opened in the JU Museum Collegium Maius on 7th May this year.
Published by: Paweł Siemianowski