Czartoryski Museum
A princess saved a Leonardo da Vinci from confiscation after a failed uprising — and it ended up here.
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Princess Izabela Czartoryska began this collection in 1796 under the motto "The Past to the Future." After the 1830 Uprising, most holdings were rescued to Paris before arriving in Kraków in 1876. The centrepiece is Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, flanked by two Rembrandts, Renaissance tapestries, decorative arts, and paintings from Holbein the Younger to Mantegna — all gathered originally to preserve Polish heritage.
What to look for
- Lady with an Ermine — Leonardo da Vinci's portrait that anchors the entire collection
- Two Rembrandt paintings among the permanent galleries
- Renaissance tapestries and decorative arts alongside antiquities including sculptures
Reopened December 2019 after a nine-year restoration; now operates as a division of the National Museum in Kraków.
Czartoryski Museum is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Krakow, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Krakow pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Krakow
- Wieliczka Salt MineSeven centuries of miners carved chapels and statues out of grey rock salt — 327 metres underground.
- Wawel CathedralPolish kings were crowned here for centuries, and a young priest named Karol Wojtyła said his first Mass in its crypt on 2 November 1946 — thirty-two years before becoming Pope.
- Wawel Royal CastlePolish monarchs were crowned and buried here — the limestone hill above the Vistula is where a nation kept its memory.
- St. Mary's BasilicaEvery hour, a trumpeter plays from the taller tower and stops dead mid-note — commemorating a 13th-century trumpeter who was shot in the throat mid-signal before a Mongol attack on the city.
- Wawel CastlePolish monarchs were crowned and buried here — and their palace now holds Europe's largest collection of Ottoman tents.
- National Museum in KrakówPoland's largest museum holds 780,000 objects — and a Bruegel the Nazis stole in 1939 that never came back.