At twelve noon at the Zamość Great Market Square you can listen to a bugle call resounded at the 50-meter Town Hall Tower. The bugler in a robe and a red cape blows a golden trumpet to the three directions of the world. He avoids the west, because this is the direction of Cracow. Ambitious rivalry between the former capital of Poland and Zamość has lasted for 400 years. And even though it has lost much of its old emotions, Zamość still has not much in common with beauty and magic of Cracow.
It is the best preserved city with Renaissance layout in Europe. Not without a reason, in 1992 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Names such as “Renaissance pearl” and “Padua of the North” stimulate the pride and imagination not only of Zamość residents.
Everything started with a dream. In 1580, Chancellor of the Crown, Jan Zamoyski, and Italian architect Bernard Mornado got an idea to build an ideal city from a scratch. And they did it!
In the 16-17th century, in the middle of nowhere, a city was built which delights with harmony, order, peace, but also with fast development of trade and fortifications which withheld the invasions of Swedes, Tatars and Cossacks.
It is the Renaissance symmetry, simplicity and ideal proportions that you can notice walking in the Great Market Square. Its size is 100 by 100 meters, and at every frontage where a street starts, there are 8 tenements. Today they are hosting coffee houses and shops. In the past, they were houses of Poles, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Russians and Italians.
They left here historical traces – a cathedral, a synagogue, an Orthodox church. It's also worth to see the building of Zamość Academy (now a high school), the Zamoyski Palace (court seat), the Arsenal, the church of the Franciscans, Old Lviv Gate and many other precious monuments.
However, visitors are most surprised by the rising over everything Town Hall with fan-like stairs and a clock, which, as it seems, made time stop. In today’s busy chaotic world, moderation, harmony and peace of Zamość are especially precious and advisable to everyone.
www.zamosc.pl (English, Deutsch, Russian)
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