Collegium Maius is the oldest surviving university building in Poland. The university was founded in 1364, and the building took its present shape in the second half of the fifteenth century, when several neighbouring houses were joined around a shared courtyard.
The arcaded courtyard is open without a ticket and is often the quietest spot in this part of town. Several times a day a clock with moving figures plays there. Inside is the university museum, with a collection of historic scientific instruments, including astronomical devices from the period when Nicolaus Copernicus studied here.
In November 1939, in nearby Collegium Novum, the German authorities arrested the university’s professors in the operation known as Sonderaktion Krakau.