Kilka uwag o pierwszym zegarze mechanicznym na wieży Ratusza krakowskiego

Abstrakt

SOME REMARKS ON THE FIRST MECHANICAL CLOCK ON THE TOWN HALL TOWER IN KRAKÓW

Based on archival sources, as well as literature on clockmaking, the history of the Town Hall and the iconography of Kraków, the paper is an attempt to present the issues of the construction of the first clock on the Town Hall Tower in Kraków, the repairs, the design of the clock faces, the construction of the clock’s mechanism and the role it played in the life of the people of Kraków. This attempt is undertaken in the context of the latest reconstruction of the Town Hall building (which has been nonexistent for 190 years) and the construction of the 1:50 scale model which reveals the form of the building as it was before the fire of 1680. The construction of the scale model was commissioned by the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków to Studio Projektowe Modeli Architektonicznych (an architectural design firm run by Jan Gottwald) who started to work on it in 2005. The scale model was created as part of the jubilee exhibition entitled Kraków – the European City of the Magdeburg Law. The 1:50 scale allowed for the detailed presentation of the clock faces (including iconographic motifs which are typical for the time when the clock was made), since the size of the shields on the four sides of the tower, between the tower roof and the guards’ porch was relatively large. The clock was commissioned in Nuremberg by the city treasurer – Jodokus Glaca – on behalf of the City Council of Kraków. The clock, installed on the tower, measured time according to the system known as horae communes (“common hours”) – an equal-hour system divided into two groups of 12: one beginning at midnight, and the other at midday. The system is still used in our contemporary clocks. Midday and midnight is always signalled by the last strike of the 12th hour. The mechanism of our clock, similarly to other tower clocks produced at that time, was not equipped with the classic pendulum which appeared as late as 1657. The power for the clock was supplied by falling weights hanging on hemp ropes, the escapement was regulated by a horizontal pendulum. Every hour (and every quarter of an hour) was signalled by different tones of the three bells situated in the tower roof. The mechanism was protected by the walls of the tower. The results of its work appeared on the four clock faces (one on each side of the tower) which were painted probably with “azure”. The clock faces were decorated with gilded images of the sun in the middle surrounded by rings with gilded gothic digits (from 1 to 12). One of the gilded hour hands on each clock face was designed in the form of a hand. The clock face on the most stately, south side of the tower was additionally decorated with polychrome, sculpted figures supporting it (probably a pair of angels). The original clock, together with the gothic lead-covered tower roof burnt after the tower had been struck by lightning on May 25, 1680.