Page:Cracow - Lepszy.djvu/146

 MODERN TIMES Adrian Baraniecki, with the concurrence of the community, founded the Technical Museum. In 1893, immediately after the death of the great painter Matejko, his house, at the suggestion of Professor Marian Sokolowski, was transformed, the arrangements and furniture being left unaltered, into a permanent exhibition of the masters' great historical collections. The Archaeological Cabinet, founded by Professor Joseph Lepkowski, and adjoining the University, contains many precious relics of art and civilization, ancient and modern, especially Polish. Finally, in 1902, Count Emmerick Czapski founded a museum called by the name of his family; its numismatic cabinet and collection of engravings are among the richest in Poland.

The province of Galicia bought for a heavy sum the royal castle on the Wawel from the military (who had occupied it as barracks), and made a present of it to the Emperor of Austria for residence whenever he would stay in Galicia. The liberal monarch ordained the greatest part of the castle, when restored, to contain the National Museum thus meeting the wishes of his subjects. The restoration of the castle is in progress, and at a not very distant period the precious relics of the Polish nation's glorious past will have found a worthy repository in the ancient mansion of its kings.