Precious, Most Precious. Works from the Princes Czartoryski Library

The so-called autograph of Jan Długosz’s Annals, the first edition of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus, Rej’s Zwierzyniec and Chopin’s own manuscript of a Krakowiak share a single room at the Czartoryski Museum. The Czartoryski Library, whose own building is being rebuilt, is showing its treasures here until 25 October 2026, on the standard branch ticket.

The National Museum in Krakow on the exhibition (the museum’s own English text):

The impressive collection of the Princes Czartoryski Library is part of Polish national and European heritage. Started by Adam Kazimierz and Izabela Czartoryski in the 18th century and expanded by subsequent generations, it includes manuscripts and printed works from the Middle Ages to the present day, including the greatest treasures of literature, science and culture.

The works shown at the exhibition, both manuscripts and printed works from the 15th to the 19th century, constitute only a small but very valuable part of the collections assembled over the centuries. These are works on the history of Poland and Europe, monuments of Polish writing and literature, works on astronomy and mathematics, cartography, music, prayer books, including books of royal provenance.

The exhibition is an opportunity to see, among other things, the autograph of Jan Długosz’s Annals, the most valuable historical work of the Polish Middle Ages, which describes the history of Poland from the earliest times to 1406. Among the 15th-century prints is the most famous medieval book, Hartmann Schedel’s richly illustrated Liber chronicarum (1493). The most numerous are 16th-century Polish works, including the first edition of Nicolaus Copernicus’ epoch-making work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543), containing his treatise on heliocentric theory. Another first edition is Mikołaj Rej’s Zwierzyniec (1562), which contains one of the most famous quotations in Polish literature: “And let the neighbouring nations know that Poles are not geese, that they have their own language.”

What to expect

The show fills the library room on the second floor; that is where the museum’s own Museum Night 2026 programme placed it, as the exhibition page itself names no room. The programme does not say which of the branch’s three buildings the room is in, so the simplest thing is to ask at the ticket office. The curator is Jadwiga Klima, who was billed to lead a tour of it on Museum Night, 15 May 2026.

The museum gives no object count and announces no rotation during the run, but it names about a dozen items. These are the ones to find first:

• Jan Długosz’s Annals - the manuscript known as the autograph, the key historical work of the Polish Middle Ages, taking the story up to 1406.
• Hartmann Schedel’s Liber chronicarum (Nuremberg, 1493) - the illustrated world chronicle better known in English as the Nuremberg Chronicle; worth looking at together with Długosz, for reasons explained under Context below.
• Marcin Bielski’s Kronika polska (1597) - a copy rebound in the 19th century to a design by Izabela Czartoryska, with hidden symbolism. The exhibition page does not say what the symbolism is.
• Fryderyk Chopin’s Krakowiak (1829) - an autograph dedicated to Princess Anna Czartoryska, née Sapieha, the wife of Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski.
• Royal bindings - books once owned by Sigismund II Augustus, Henry III of France, Stanisław Leszczyński, Stanisław August Poniatowski and Marie Antoinette, and by Princess Maria Amparo Muñoz Czartoryska. Here the binding is the point, not the text.

Alongside them are maps with views of Krakow from 1618, prayer books, and works on astronomy and mathematics. This is an exhibition for reading: manuscripts and early printed books say little without their captions, so allow time for them.

Context

Adam Kazimierz and Izabela Czartoryski began the library in the 18th century, first at the Blue Palace in Warsaw and, after 1783, at Puławy. By 1830 it held about 70,000 printed books and 3,000 manuscripts. After the failed November Uprising of 1830-1831 the collection was scattered across several family estates and Paris. It was reassembled only by Prince Władysław Czartoryski, who installed it in Krakow’s former municipal Arsenal in 1874.

In 2016 the library and the rest of the Czartoryski collection became the property of the National Museum in Krakow (per Wikipedia). In January 2026 the local news site LoveKraków put its size at more than 230,000 volumes.

Two objects in this room are more closely linked than they first appear. Schedel’s chronicle devotes a few pages to Poland, most of them to Krakow, and its woodcut view of Krakow and Kazimierz is regarded as the oldest known picture of the city. Its author may well have taken his Polish history from Długosz’s Annals. The museum does not say whether the copy on show is open at the Krakow page.

These books are on view in a museum gallery rather than a reading room because the library’s building on ul. św. Marka is closed. The museum’s project to extend and rebuild it, worth over 56 million PLN, runs from March 2024 to March 2028. For the duration, the collections have been moved to other branches and to Spytkowice Castle (LoveKraków, 23 January 2026 ). For now, this exhibition is the easiest way to see anything from the library in person.

Tickets and time

There is no separate ticket: the museum’s Polish exhibition page says admission is included in the branch ticket, 65 PLN standard, 50 PLN reduced. A family ticket is 130 PLN, and children under 7 go free. Tickets are sold for a set date and time, at the ticket office and online at bilety.mnk.pl; the museum encourages buying ahead. The National Museum’s 12-month pass, valid at its other branches, does not cover this one.

The same ticket opens other branches. According to the museum’s answers to frequently asked questions, a Czartoryski Museum ticket also admits you to the Czapski, Mehoffer, Wyspiański, Matejko, Szołayski, Ciołek, Arsenal and Szymanowski branches (the last of them in Zakopane), once to each exhibition, and is valid for three months from the date of purchase. The price list specifies that this means the permanent exhibitions of those branches, and does not include Wyspiański in its list.

A warning about the museum’s English page. The price box on the English version of the exhibition page shows 18 and 14 PLN. Those are the prices of the Arsenal branch, not of the Czartoryski Museum; the branch price list of 65/50 PLN is what applies.

Free Tuesdays and the 1 PLN ticket: check at the ticket office. The museum words the Tuesday rule in two ways. The branch page says “Tuesday: free admission” and “every Tuesday, visiting the Museum is free”, while the price list calls Tuesday “a day of free admission to the permanent exhibitions” (our translations). This show is temporary, but admission to it comes with the branch ticket, and the free Tuesday tickets are issued by the branch ticket office for a set date and time. Whether they cover this room is unclear, so ask at the desk before you collect one. Free tickets are limited in number and issued only at the branch ticket office on the day of the visit.

The 1 PLN ticket is, in the museum’s words, a pupil and student ticket available “only to people in education up to the age of 26, on presentation of a valid student card”; the museum’s page on the 1 PLN scheme gives the age range as “8 to 26” (our translations). Here the answer is clearer: that page says the scheme “does not cover temporary exhibitions”, so our reading is that the 1 PLN ticket does not get you into this show, although the exhibition page itself does not say so. If this show is why you are coming, ask at the ticket office.

The branch is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00-18:00, closed on Mondays. Last admission is at 17:00, one hour before closing - an exception, since the museum’s other branches let visitors in until half an hour before closing. The museum has announced no changed hours or closures between now and the end of the show on 25 October.

In our estimate, 30 to 45 minutes is enough for this exhibition. For the whole branch, including Leonardo’s “Lady with an Ermine”, the museum advises setting aside 2 to 3 hours, since the displays occupy three buildings.

English on site: the museum publishes an English version of the exhibition page, but says nothing about English captions for the show. The branch rents out audio guides in English and seven other languages for 15 PLN; the museum does not say whether they cover this exhibition.

Who it is for: readers, history enthusiasts, and anyone who wants to stand over a first edition of Copernicus or a manuscript by Długosz. Who should skip it: parents with small children, since this is a show for reading rather than looking, and anyone with only an hour in the branch who came mainly for the Leonardo.

See also

• Princes Czartoryski Library - the profile of the library every object here comes from, including the state of the rebuilding work.
• Czapski Museum - the National Museum branch with the coin cabinet and a collection of early printed books that it puts on show in rotation.
• Under Sails and Stars - Seas, Ports and Sailors - early printed books, maps and atlases at the Czapski Museum until 7 February 2027; the natural next step if the maps and the astronomy held you longest.

Tickets, opening hours and current details are on the National Museum in Krakow website .

Museum profile: Czartoryski Museum .