Visit Toruń

ℹ We are currently celebrating Toruń Days. Today, June 24th, is the feast day of St. John the Baptist – the patron saint of Toruń and Florence.
St. John the Baptist's patronage of Toruń dates back to the city's founding in the 13th century and the construction of its first church – the parish church of St. John the Baptist. First, it was a church in today's Old Toruń, and from around 1236, the current Cathedral on Żeglarska Street and St. John Street in the Old Town, which is also the patron saint of St. John the Evangelist.

ℹ St. John the Baptist became the hero of, among other things, the so-called secret seal of Toruń. The oldest surviving documents bearing this seal date back to 1339.
The seal depicts a bearded Saint. John the Baptist, dressed in leather, stands between an oak and an elm (or maple) tree, bearing the inscription: Secretum Burgensium in Thorun (the secret seal of the citizens of Toruń).

ℹ This seal was used to authenticate Toruń city documents and international treaties, in which the city of Toruń acted as a witness or guarantor. Therefore, it could not be missing from the Second Peace of Toruń of 1466, which ended the Polish-Teutonic Thirteen Years' War and abolished the Teutonic state in its previous form.

ℹ Why was John the Baptist chosen, among many saints, as their patron saint by the ancient people of Toruń? Was it John's moral radicalism and uncompromising nature, which first caught the attention of King Herod Antipas, and later also the attention of the people of Toruń? Perhaps the defiance of Herod Antipas, the steadfastness, the courage, the martyr's death, the entire moral dimension of this story—all of this could have contributed to the choice of the city's patron saint: https://toruntour.pl/6036/patron-torunia
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Did you know that today we have the 514th anniversary of the Tuba Dei (God's Trumpet) bell, the gratest Medieval bell in Poland?

Since 1500 St. Johns’ Cathedral tower has accommodated an unusual bell - Tuba Dei (God’s Trumpet). Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it is not only the biggest medieval bell in Poland, but also one of the biggest Polish bells in general (until recently the second biggest). Before casting the famous Sigismund Bell in Krakow (1521), Tuba Dei had been recognized as the biggest in the Kingdom of Poland.
Today it is no small attraction for tourists, especially when it sounds, which takes place several times a year. Not once in its over 500-year-old history had it been subject to destruction or plunder during war.

In Memory of All British Prisoners of War
Held at Stalag XXA Thorn - Fort XIII
1940-1945

One of the oldest post stamps with the Toruń theme was the one issued in 1933 to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Toruń city rights.
More Toruń post stamps here: http://www.visittorun.pl/339,l2.html

200 years ago - on June 2nd Napoleon arrived in Toruń on his way to Moscow, exploring the city and searching for traces of Copernicus. Although the great Emperor stayed in Toruń only in 1812, the Napoleonic period for the city started as early as the late 1806 and lasted until the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The period proved utterly disastrous to the city, leading it to ruin. Read more on: http://www.visittorun.pl/277,l2.html

In the period following the Middle Ages, a large number of Gothic facades in Toruń were remodelled in the Renaissance style. Thus, in the second half of the 16th century, according to the latest fashion, exquisite wrought iron decorations were added on top. Like those in Gdańsk or Elbląg, Toruń’s facades were patterned after the Netherlandic ones – the Italian Renaissance had no influence here. The tenements still retained some of their Gothic elements such as the gables and stoops, as the Gothic style did not cease to be enormously popular here. Toruń was unwilling to renounce the style: hence the Renaissance forms were adapted to Gothic buildings.
In the first half of the 17th century, the Renaissance evolved into the Netherlandic Mannerism. Decorations of the gables became somehow softened. It was still the brick architecture, though; only the window decorations, frames and cornices were made of stone (or plaster). The dark cherry-red bricks pleasantly contrasted with the light grey stone (or light plaster) ornaments.
Photo: the typical Mannerist house of Toruń, Małe Garbary Street, New Town.

Did you know that the Digitus Dei clock face on the tower of this church in Torun is the second largest historic clock face in Poland? It has a diameter of 5 m. The oldest dated information on it comes from 1494, while the clock mechanism itself has already been installed around 1433.

There are not many artefacts left out of the former interior furnishings of the Artus House in Toruń. Among the preserved objects there are elements such as the tile of the second half of the 16th century depicting King David. Toruń in the period of Renaissance was particularly drawing on the tradition of Old Testament, and figures such as David - the characteristics of excellence (the king of caring for his subjects, cares for justice, an excellent military leader) - were to be a role model for the patrician class - urban aristocracy - and the authorities of the Respublicae Thorunensis.