Szydłowiec Town Hall

A white town hall with four corner turrets stands alone in the middle of the Main Market Square and can be seen from several kilometres away. Built of local stone between 1602 and 1629, it is one of the best-preserved late Renaissance town halls in Poland, even though wars twice left it in ruins. The mayor still works here, and visitors can climb the tower.

History: a town hall built by an Italian from Mesocco

The townspeople raised the money in three years, and the work was led by Kasper Fodyga, a builder and stonemason from Mesocco in northern Italy who had settled in Chęciny. He was sent to Szydłowiec by Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł "the Orphan", for whom he had worked in Nesvizh; the same master also extended the town's castle. His brother Albrecht helped, and in the final year Jan Herbek, later the builder of the Kraków bishops' palace in Kielce, worked on the vaults.

The building housed the town reeve, the archives and a courtroom. Defendants stood under a large crucifix and saw four inscriptions on the walls: "God sees", "Time flies", "Death pursues" and "Eternity awaits". In 1809 Austrian troops wrecked the building, and in October 1914 Austrian soldiers blew up the upper storeys of the tower. After bombing in January 1945 the town hall was rebuilt in the 1950s, using an 1854 painting by Józef Szermentowski as a guide.

What to see

• The attic – three tiers with blind arcades, pilasters and battlements. The windows in the arcades were only cut in the 19th century, when the loft was converted.
• The tower – square below, octagonal above, with a gallery on stone brackets, four clock faces and a domed cupola topped with an eagle. You reach it by an outside staircase on the south side.
• Władysław Aleksander Malecki's studio – this landscape painter of the Munich school, who won a medal in London in 1874, moved into the tower in 1898 with the support of mayor Dominik Dereń. He died here on 5 March 1900; a plaque on the town hall bears his name.
• The pillories – there are two on the square. One is a column with a ball, grotesque masks and iron shackles; the other, nicknamed "Zośka", is a Mannerist column with a female figure representing pride.

Did you know?

Following Magdeburg town law, the town hall was placed exactly in the centre of the rectangular square, with its main front facing east. Originally the doors ran straight through the building and the upper floor was reached by stairs inside the tower; today's outside stairs date from the post-war rebuilding. A jail lay beneath the tower, and a café was set up in the cellar cut into the rock. A chronicle from the Radziwiłł era records the sentence for a townswoman accused of adultery: she was to be "flogged and banished".

Tripto tip

Tower visits are handled by the Municipal Tourist Information of the Szydłowiec Culture Centre – a standard ticket costs PLN 7, reduced PLN 5. There is also a Joint Ticket for PLN 35 that covers, among others, the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko and the historic ironworks in Chlewiska. Check opening times before you go. Allow 30–45 minutes for the town hall and square; the castle and St Sigismund's Church are a few minutes' walk away.