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 GOTHIC STYLE IN CRACOW ART decree of the senate in 1817 the old land-mark of civic liberty, the Town Hall, was pulled down in 1820; only the old tower, though mutilated, still stands there, proudly uplifting its spire (illustration 6). About the year 1383 a brick Town Hall had been built instead of the old wooden one. Of the magnificent Aldermen's Room in the old building, only a Renascence door remains, which has been transferred to the University Library. The tower is a structure of ashlars, preserved, up to the gallery, in its original state, with only the tracery of the windows wanting. Its decorative part was formed by oriels demolished, however, at an early period; at the four corners of the tower there stood statues on large consoles.

In the interior there is, down to the present day, a square room with a cross-vault, on the east side an old window of a pleasant shape frequently to be met with at Cracow (e.g., in the Castle, in Canons' Street, &c.), strongly bevelled in the upper part. The doorway, which is still preserved, shows in the inter-lacings of the jambs, the Eagle of Poland and the Town Arms of Cracow on escutcheons placed in the corners. The door itself, studded with iron, is made in a fashion peculiar to Cracow. The topmost part of the tower, and its spire, were only erected in the years 1683-1686, after a great fire, on the plans of the royal architect, Peter Beber. Its style shows the influence of the Flemish Renascence, which was transplanted to Poland and Cracow by way of Danzig. In 1783, the seventeenth century spire was somewhat deformed.

At the very refoundation of the town in 1257 the necessity had become apparent of building wooden shop-stalls, and, in the middle of the market-place, a large hall, originally likewise of wood. This has in course of time been changed to the present large bazaar or market-hall, known by the name of "Drapers' Hall" (Sukiennice). The original building, occupying the very centre of the square, consisted, in fact, of four rows of booths severed by a narrow gangway, now replaced by the hall. In the second half of the fourteenth century the middle space was