Collegium Novum

The Collegium Novum (Latin: "New College") is the Neo-Gothic main building of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, built in 1873-1887. Based on a design by architect Feliks Księżarski to match the oldest building of the University, it was opened for the 500th anniversary of the University's foundation. The Collegium Novum replaced a former academic boarding school called Jeruzalem, consumed by fire in the mid-19th century.

The building contains lecture rooms including an impressive assembly hall (called Aula), Rector's, Deans', and other university authorities' offices as well as those of a number of prominent professors. It is the Jagiellonian University's administrative centre.

Collegium Novum was opened on June 14, 1887, commencing several years of debate and construction. The decision regarding the allocation of subsidies was made in the Austro-Hungarian capital of Vienna, with the University's vital interests defended by Julian Dunajewski, the then Austrian Finance Minister. The work might not have begun at all had it not been for his commitment, as well as that of his brother Cardinal Albin Dunajewski.

Already at the time of its grand opening, the assembly hall (Aula) of the new building was too small to accommodate all guests on all occasions, even though the number of students did not exceed 1200 with approximately one hundred professors. A debate arose whether it was necessary to invite professors' wives to grand ceremonies. Most academics, in keeping with the prevailing trend of the time, were against the inviting of women guests. In the University's archives there is a formal invitation reading: “Zoll requires no ticket and wishes the ceremony to be exclusively male.” In another statement, Edward Janczewski “expresses his opposition to the idea of admitting ladies to the ceremonies.”

Until the end of First World War, a portrait of emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, painted by Kazimierz Pochwalski, hung in the Aula of the Collegium. On October 31, 1918 a group of University students tore it to pieces, manifesting their determination for the recreation of an independent Republic of Poland. However, a number of other paintings did survive, including portraits of the University's founding fathers Casimir the Great and Władysław Jagiełło dating back to the early 1860s, a picture of Queen Jadwiga painted in 1900 to celebrate her Jubilee, as well as the works of Jan Matejko, including his painting entitled Copernicus: Conversation with God. The chairs in the assembly hall were designed by Tadeusz Stryjeński.

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