The Arcaded Courtyard
Francesco Fiorentino, Bartolomeo Berrecci and Benedykt of Sandomierz (early sixteenth century) · about 1507 to 1536
Step through the gate and the noise of the hill falls away. You are standing in one of the finest Renaissance courtyards north of the Alps, a wide rectangle enclosed on three sides by tiers of open arcades. The lower two storeys rest on slender columns with simple capitals, while the top storey rises on tall, thin shafts that carry a broad overhanging roof. The effect is light and airy, almost Italian, and that was exactly the point. King Sigismund the Old wanted a palace that spoke the language of Florence and Rome, and he brought in Italian masters to build it after a fire destroyed the older Gothic residence.
Look closely at the top floor. The columns there are unusually tall and are given a decorative ring, or collar, halfway up, a local solution to the problem of supporting the roof over a very high gallery. Between the arches you can still see fragments of painted friezes with busts of emperors and ornamental bands, a reminder that the whole courtyard was once far more colourful than the warm stone suggests today. The wing on the south side is only a screen wall with arcades, added to close the composition and make the space feel complete.
The courtyard was begun around the year fifteen hundred and seven under Francesco Fiorentino and finished by Bartolomeo Berrecci and Benedykt of Sandomierz by about fifteen thirty six. It saw royal weddings, tournaments and receptions of foreign envoys, and later served the Austrian army as a barracks yard before Polish restorers reclaimed it in the early twentieth century. Come back in the evening if you can, when the arcades are lit and the tour groups have gone, and the courtyard regains something of its original calm.
Did You Know? The columns of the top storey are so tall that the builders added a decorative collar halfway up to make them look more stable.
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