Arcaded galleries

The work was directed by Francesco Fiorentino, who arrived in Krakow in 1502 and introduced a system of arcaded galleries modeled on Italian Renaissance buildings. In subsequent phases, the east wing and the curtain wall closing off the courtyard from the south were built. Between 1516 and 1536, the work was led by another Florentine, architect Bartolommeo Berrecci, who executed the design of his predecessor.

In 1536, flames surging from a tile stove in a second-floor chamber caused a fire in the castle that destroyed the east and south wings of the castle. The roof and ceilings burned down and the galleries collapsed. The damaged sections of the residence were rebuilt between 1537 and 1549 under the supervision of Niccolò Castiglione and Matteo Italiano. With the memory of the fire still very much alive, water tanks were installed in the attics.

In spite of the changing roster of architects and a construction project encompassing over thirty years, the residence of the last Jagiellon kings achieved a coherent architectural form.

Accessed through the long tunnel of the gate house known as the Berrecci Gate, the courtyard is framed by open galleries running around all three floors. At ground level and on the second floor they are formed by rows of arcades supported by light columns. The gallery on the second, representative floor of the castle (piano nobile) has slender, double-height columns with distinctive shaft rings in the middle, iconic capitals, and terminate in vase-shaped baluster supports; they hold up a steeply sloping roof that meets the requirements of the harsh Polish climate.

Visible from the courtyard level, it comprised medallions holding busts of emperors and empresses from antiquity and the Middle Ages, and may have been designed by Hans Dürer, brother of the famous Albrecht. The surviving part of the frieze, in the east and south wings, was painted 1535–1536 by Dionizy Stuba and partially reconstructed by Julian Makarewicz in 1909–1916.

They cover the fireboxes of the tiled stoves that heated the chambers. The fireboxes did not have grates, but metal grilles, called sleds, which slid out and, filled with wood, were slid back into the depths of the firebox. The stoves were fed from the galleries to avoid smoking up and dirtying the chambers.

They also served as a kind of grandstand, where courtiers and royal guests sat during tournaments and other events held in the courtyard.