This beautifully illustrated book tells the story of Poland's most historic and architecturally ornate city. The two rival towers of the late Gothic St Mary's cathedral look down over the largest medieval piazza in Europe, whose Cloth Market Hall has been trading continuously for over 700 years. Nearby Wawel Castle, remodelled in the Renaissance style in 1504-48, functioned as the residence of the Polish rulers from the mideleventh to the early-seventeenth centuries. Krakow was the seat of secular and ecclesiastical power in Poland. Its golden age came during the reign of the Jagiellon dynasty (1384-1572), from Queen Jadwiga, who developed the Krakow Academy, through the most important monarch Sigismund I The Old and his Italian Queen Bona Sforza of Milan, until the death of their son Sigismund II August. In this period Krakow was the capital of a powerful state and became the flourishing centre of sciences and art. With Beata Moore's spectacular photography and a wealth of archive material, Krakow brings to life the historic and artistic riches of this little-known European gem.