Casimir III the Great founded a studium generale in Kraków in 1364, the second university in central Europe after Prague. It faltered, and in 1400 Władysław Jagiełło refounded it using the jewels Queen Jadwiga had left for the purpose in her will the year before. The Academy’s first property was a corner tenement house on this site, and through the 15th century the university swallowed the houses around it and knitted them into one building around a single arcaded courtyard.
That courtyard is the reason to come and it costs nothing: open daily 09:00–18:00 as of August 2026, brick and stone arcades on two levels, a well in the middle, and a staircase called the Professors’ Stairs. On the odd hours — 09:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00 and 17:00 — a small green door opens and carved figures process out to Gaudeamus Igitur and a 16th-century piece from the tablature of Jan of Lublin: a beadle, Queen Jadwiga, Władysław Jagiełło, St John Cantius, Stanisław of Skalbmierz and Hugo Kołłątaj.
Inside, the standard route runs Stuba Communis – Treasury I – Treasury II – Libraria – the Globe Room – the Gallery of Medieval Sculpture. The Stuba Communis is the professors’ common room, with its long table; the Libraria is the old library hall; the Treasury holds the university’s ceremonial maces and sceptres. The object to find is in the Treasury: the Jagiellonian Globe, an armillary clock made in France before 1510 whose brass earth-sphere is engraved AMERICA NOVITER REPERTA — the earliest surviving globe carrying the name America. A longer tour adds the scientific-instrument rooms, including the astronomical collection from the period when Nicolaus Copernicus matriculated here in 1491.
The visiting rules matter more here than anywhere else on this list. As of August 2026 the museum opens Monday 09:00–17:00, Tuesday–Friday 13:30–17:00 and Saturday 10:00–16:00 — closed Sundays — with last entry at 16:30 on weekdays and 15:30 on Saturday. A guided tour is 26 zł normal / 14 zł reduced; a self-guided individual visit is 17 zł / 10 zł. Wednesday is free for individual visits. Guided tours in Polish or English run Tuesday to Friday in the morning, at roughly 09:00, 09:45, 10:30 and 11:15, with the extended instrument tour at 12:30 in English. Book at bilety.uj.edu.pl; this is a working university and the timetable is changed for its own ceremonies.
