Florian Gate

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Brama Floriańska, Kraków.

Bas-relief of St. Florian, on his Gate.

Brama Floriańska, north exit toward the Barbican.

The Florian Gate (St. Florian's Gate, Floriańska Gate) in Kraków, Poland (Polish: Brama Floriańska w Krakowie), named after St. Florian, is one of the best known Gothic towers in Poland, and a focal point of Kraków's Old Town.

The Florian Gate was built about the 1300s as a rectangular Gothic tower of wildstone,^[1] part of the city fortifications developed under the watchful eye of Prince Leszek Czarny who issued his permit in 1285. The Gate was manned by the Krakow's Furriers Guild in anticipation of the Turkish attack on the city. According to records, by 1473 there were already 17 towers defending the city. A century later, there were 33 towers. Also, in 1565–1566 the city arsenal was built next to the Florian Gate.

The Gate tower is 33.5 metres tall, with the top Baroque helmet constructed in 1660 and renovated in 1694, adding one meter to its height. It is the only city gate of the original eight city gates built in the Middle Ages not dismantled during the 19th century "modernization" of Kraków. The adjoining walls together with two additional smaller towers had been preserved and today host the street display of amateur art available for purchase.

An 18th century bas-relief of St. Florian adorns the south wall. The tower's north side is decorated with a stone eagle carved in 1882 by Zygmunt Langman, based on a design by the renowned Polish painter Jan Matejko. Inside the gate is an altar with a late-Baroque copy of a classicist painting of Piaskowa Mother of God. At the Floriańska Gate Kraków's Royal Road begins. Through it entered the kings and princes, foreign envoys and guests of distinction as well as coronation processions and parades. They marched up Floriańska Street to the Main Market Square, and on down Grodzka Street to the Wawel Royal Castle.

By the beginning of the 19th century the expanding city had begun to outgrow the confines of the old city walls. The walls had been falling into disrepair for a hundred years already due to lack of maintenance after the Partitions of Poland. The stagnant moat fed by the Rudawa River was a dump for illegal garbage and posed health concerns for the city. Such dire circumstances inspired Emperor Franz I of Austro-Hungary to order the dismantling of the city walls. However, on January 13, 1817, Professor Feliks Radwański of Jagiellonian University managed to convince the Session of the Senate of the Republic of Kraków to legislate the partial preservation of the old fortifications, namely, the Florian Gate and the adjoining Barbican.

[edit] Medieval city walls

The inner city wall was about 2.4 metres wide and 6–7 metres high. There was also the outer, lower wall, ten meters ahead of it. The walls were interrupted by defensive towers, which were 10 m high. In the 19th century — just before they were demolished by the city — there were 47 towers still standing. Now there are only three Gothic towers left in all of Kraków: the Carpenters, the Haberdashers and the Joiners Towers, connected to Florian Gate by the several-dozen-meters-long stretch of walls.