Poznań Town Hall
History
Poznań's Town Hall was first documented in 1310 as 'Domus Consulum.' The building was completed in 1300 under the reign of Wacław II Czeski. It was a one story building built upon a raised quadrangle. The cellars remain from this period of construction. Renovations were made in the 15th century. The interior was remodeled 1504-1508.
The eagle, which survived WWII in hiding, returned to the tower in 1947. The current mechanism behind the goats from the end of the 20th century. The goats bump heads each day at 12:00.
External Description
The Town Hall faces west - toward the Warta River. Its characteristic loggia is ornately decorated. Between the arcade columns are paired female allegories to virtues:
- Patience (paciencia) - with a lamb and prudence (pruencia) with a mirror
- Kindness (charitas) with two children and Justice (iusticia) with a weight and sword
- Faith (fides) with a chalice and sword and Hope (spes) with a thurible and the sun
- Masculintity (fortitudo) with a broken column and (emperancia) pouring water from a vase into a bowl
The last pair is of two famous women from the Ancient World:
- Lucretia (Lucrecia) with a spear through her own breast Cleopatra (Cleapairi) with snakes twisted around her arms.
Between the ground and first floors runs a fresco in Latin text serving as a warning to judges
Below the first floor runs a strip of medallions with famous faces from the Ancient World:
- brothers Gaius Gracchus and Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus
- Lucius Junius Brutus
- Archimedes
- Vitruvius
- Virgilius
- Homer
- Justinian I
- Horace
- Spartacus
- Heraclitus
The attic shows a list of rulers of the Jagiełło Dynasty from Władysław II Jagiełło and Jadwiga of Poland to Sigismund II Augustus. In the middle of the parapet there is a small tower with a clock and a mechanism that controls two goats. Below that is the monogram of Stanisław August Poniatowski.
Legend of the Crow King
One day Bolko, son of the tower's trumpeter, found a crow whose wing had been shot through. The boy felt pity for the crow, took him to his home and took care of him. One night the boy was awoken by a gnome wearing a crown and purple cape. He thanked the boy for his kindness and handed him a small gold trumpet. The gnome told the boy to blow it when he was in danger. After these words he changed himself into a crow and flew away. A few years later, when Bolko took the place of his father as the tower's trumpeter, Poznań was attacked by a foreign army. When the attackers were already climbing up the city walls, the boy remembere about the Crow King's present. He ran to the top of the tower and began to play the trumpet. Dark clouds began to gather on the horizon, which turned out to be an enormous murder of crows. They fell upon the attacking army, forcing it into retreat. The golden trumpet was lost as Bolko dropped it due to his astonishment.