Kraków Barbican

The Gothic-style barbican, built around 1498, is one of only three such fortified outposts still surviving in Europe, and the best preserved. It is a moated cylindrical brick structure with an inner courtyard 24.4 meters in diameter, and seven turrets. Its 3-meter-thick walls hold 130 embrasures. The barbican was originally linked to the city walls by a covered passageway that led through St. Florian's Gate and served as a checkpoint for all who entered the city.This article incorporates information available at the Polish Wikipedia, including English text at [http://cityguide.krakow.pl/zabytki_en.html Verbia – Guided tours of Krakow] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080531065849/http://cityguide.krakow.pl/zabytki_en.html |date=2008-05-31 }}

The Poles built the barbican fearing an attack by the Ottoman Empire after the defeat of King John I Albert at the Battle of the Cosmin Forest and on his way to Poland in Bukovina where 5,000 Polish soldiers were killed by the Turks. After these successive defeats, the Tatars and Ottomans, with the aid of their vassal Stephen of Moldavia, invaded the southeastern corners of Poland.{{cite book |last1=Suraiya Faroqhi, Bruce McGowan, Sevket Pamuk |title=An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 |date=1994 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9780521343152 |page=291}} This took place in the spring of 1498: after crossing the Dniester, the invaders ransacked Red Ruthenia and Podolia, capturing as much as a hundred thousand people and reaching as far as Przeworsk.{{cite journal |last=Smołucha |first=Janusz |author-link=:pl:Janusz Smołucha |date=2022 |title=Poland as the Bastion of Christianity and the Issue of a Union with the Orthodox Church |url=https://bibliotekanauki.pl/articles/2057960 |location=Krakow |publisher=Jesuit University of Philosophy and Education Ignatianum |page=41 |volume=36 |issue=1 |journal=Perspektywy Kultury |doi=10.35765/pk.2022.3601.04|doi-access=free }} The walls of Kraków were strengthened and additional fortifications such as the Barbican were built to defend the city in case the Ottomans reached it during the 1485–1503 Polish–Ottoman War.{{cite book |last=Nowakowska |first=Natalia |editor=Norman Housley |editor-link=Norman Housley |date=14 November 2004 |title=Crusading in the Fifteenth Century |chapter=Poland and the Crusade in the Reign of King Jan Olbracht, 1492–1501 |url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230523357 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230523357_9 |publisher=Springer Publishing |pages=128–147 |isbn=0230523358}}

The Barbican participated in the defense of Kraków in 1587 against the Siege of Kraków (1587) by Maximilian III, Archduke of Austria, in the Siege of Kraków (1655) and the Siege of Kraków (1657), and Russian troops during the Polish–Russian War of 1792.

The building was threatened with demolition early in the 19th century. However, in 1817 two senators of the Free City of Kraków, Feliks Radwanski and Jan Librowski, convinced the Senate to preserve the Barbican and other parts of the old fortifications.

The Barbican was originally a large, circular tower with an interior open space with a diameter of {{cvt|25|m|}}. It was built of brick and stone and stood four stories tall. It had seven watch towers. The walls were about {{cvt|3|m|1}} at their base and {{cvt|0.5|m|1}} at the top. The Barbican's exterior gate, the Kleparz Gate, was protected by a large, semi-circular moat {{cvt|26|m|1}} wide and {{cvt|6|m|1}} deep.

Considered a masterpiece of medieval military engineering, the circular fortress of the Kraków's Barbakan was added to the city's fortifications along the coronation route in the late 15th century, based on Arabic rather than European defensive strategy. On its eastern wall, a tablet commemorates the feat of a Kraków burgher, Marcin Oracewicz, who, during the Bar Confederation, defended the town against the Russians and shot their Colonel Panin, according to a legend, using a czamara button instead of a bullet.Beata Moore, [https://books.google.com/books?id=5h2zXFFr2j4C&dq=%22Royal+Road%22+Krakow&pg=PA146 Cracow: City of Treasures], 112 pages. Published by Frances Lincoln, {{ISBN|0-7112-2571-0}}[http://www.wieninternational.at/en/node/4756 Kraków – City portrait] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080608142246/http://www.wieninternational.at/en/node/4756 |date=2008-06-08 }} at Compress VerlagsgesmbH, Wien, Österreich

BASA-1771K-1-1163-29-Krakow, Poland.jpeg|Kraków Barbican in the 1930s

Krakau - Barbakan.jpg|Gate to the former fortified passage facing St. Florian's Gate to the south

Kraków 149.jpg|Kraków Barbican modern entrance

KR067.jpg|Barbican's defensive walls and the connecting bridge from before their 19th century dismantlement

• Planty Park, which encircles Kraków's Old Town (Stare Miasto)
• Warsaw Barbican

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• Marek Żukow-Karczewski, [http://pbn.nauka.gov.pl/sedno-webapp/works/509488 The Barbican (Barbakan), "KRAKÓW" Magazyn Kulturalny, Special Edition (English-language version), "KRAKÓW" Magazine, Kraków, 1991, p. 58-59.]

{{commons category-inline|Barbakan in Kraków}}

• [https://jakdojade.pl/krakow/trasa/?tc=50.06549:19.94164&tn=The%20Barbican How to get there?]
• [http://www.krakow-poland.com/Tourist-attractions/Barbican,bhi.html Kraków Poland]: information about and photographs of Kraków's Barbican

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Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1498

Barbican

Category:Barbicans

Category:Tourist attractions in Kraków