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and gingerbread...
The most beautiful monuments of Toruń presented by Benon Frąckowski, the leader of tourist guides from Toruń
Located in Rynek Staromiejski (Old Town Market) no. 7. It used to be a palace of the Mayor of Toruń and royal burgrave, Jakub Meisner. The palace was built in 1739 in late baroque style and reconstructed in classicistic manner in XIX. This representative building occupying several parcels of land was one of the grandest palaces of the XVIII century built in Toruń. The architect of the palace was probably Jan Chrzciciel Cocchi, a famous person at that time.
Samuel Thomas Soemmerring, son of a doctor from Toruń was born in this house on 28 February 1755. At first, he studied in the Academic Gymnasium in Toruń and then continued his studies in the University of Goettingen. In 1778 he wrote his doctor dissertation on brain anatomy. He was the greatest anatomist of that time. He wrote numerous scientific papers (circa 80 titles), there are also about 6 thousand of his letters, which certify his broad scientific contacts. One of his inventions was the first galvanic telegraph. After Nicolaus Copernicus, he is probably the most distinguished son of Toruń.
The house has lost its gothic structure due to numerous reconstructions, carried out particularly in XIX century. It is one of the oldest inns in the city. In 1697 queen Mary, wife of the late king Jan III Sobieski stayed at the inn with young princes. Also tsar Peter the Great with his son Aleksy visited the inn as guests of king August II Mocny. Patriotic meetings were organised in the house during the Prussian reign, for example a meeting in 1873, in the 400th anniversary of Nicolaus Copernicus birth, or in 1875 - to commemorate the founding of Scientific Society of Toruń . The present-day building with neoclassical facade returned to its former owners – Piotr and Jerzy Ruszkowski.
No. 19, medieval apartment house with renaissance elements – three-axle. No. 20, gothic apartment house from XV century, three-axle (three rows of windows), rebuilt in XIX century.
Gothic two-axle apartment house from late XII century, the gable of this house did not survive to the present.
Built between 1596-1601 during the office of distinguished mayor Henryk Stroband. After the famous "mutiny" in 1724, it also became the seat of Toruń Gymnasium. Today – building of the District Court, in Piekary street no. 34
These are three apartment houses in which arched passages have been built to allow easy traffic. House no. 37 has a baroque facade from XVIII century, the passage was made in 1911; remaining passageways date from 1936. The name of the Caesar’s Arch derives from the name of the architect, Karl Caesar, who executed the first passage. In building no. 39, a commemorative plate is mounted to celebrate the fact, that in the printing house of Ernst Lambech, the first edition of Adam Mickiewicz’s "Pan Tadeusz" to be published on Polish land was printed in 1858.
In 1812 it was shown to Napoleon Bonaparte as a supposed place of birth of Nicolaus Copernicus.
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