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 GOTHIC STYLE IN CRACOW ART traces of medieval structure and give us an idea of what profane architecture was like.

The royal castle on the Wawel had been an essentially wooden building till then; the fortifications consisted, in the thirteenth century, of low walls and towers which had been heightened and strengthened after the capture of the town by Bishop Tobias of Prague, general of the forces of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia. Ladislaus Lokietek then began to build a Gothic palace, which was continued by Casimir the Great, and completed by Ladislaus Jagello.

The oldest parts of the Castle are the following: the northeast corner called "Hen-foot" (Kurza stopa), the western and northern parts of the wall (which underwent some change at the time of the Renascence), particularly those on the ground floor, and the Lubranka tower. In the lower parts Gothic style generally prevails; here, e.g., we find, to the north side, an old square refectory of Ladislaus Lokietek, with an hexagonal pillar in the middle, on which the cross-vault rests; the room is lighted by two narrow windows with stone frames. On the east side of the aforesaid corner there is a royal bedroom, where Casimir the Great is reported to have died, then apartments that belonged to Queen Hedwig and her husband Ladislaus Jagello; both their arms are engraved on the keystones of the vaults. The decorations of these rooms have of course disappeared long ago. Only the outward wainscoting with trellis tracery of 1461, and the "Hen-foot" Tower with the arms of Ladislaus Jagello, are preserved in their Gothic form.

In its present shape the Castle is a Renascence building; accordingly its further development will be dealt with in the chapter on the Modern Period. The fortress buildings on Castle Hill form an independent, solid, isolated whole, a stronghold, part of which is visible to the present day. In 1399 Ladislaus Jagello had the whole of the Wawel girt with entirely new fortifications.

In order to consider what else there is of profane Gothic architecture, let us first turn to the market place. According to a