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Head west from the Rynek on any of the three main thoroughfares - ul. Szczepanska, ul. Szewska or ul. sw. Anny - and you're into the university area . The main body of buildings is south of ul. sw. Anny, the principal Jewish area of the city until the early 1400s, when the university bought up many of the properties and the Jews moved out to the Kazimierz district. The Gothic Collegium Maius building, at the intersection of ul. sw. Anny with ul. Jagiellonska, is the historic heart of the university complex. The university got off to something of a false start after its foundation by King Kazimierz in 1364, foundering badly after his death six years later, until it was revived by King Wladyslaw Jagiello in the early fifteenth century, when the university authorities began transforming these buildings into a new academic centre. Through the passageway from ul. Jagiellonska you find yourself in a quiet, arcaded courtyard with a marble fountain playing in the centre, an ensemble that, during the early 1960s, was stripped of neo-Gothic accretions and restored to something approaching its original form. The cloistered atmosphere of ancient academia makes an enjoyable break from the city in itself, though actually getting into the building is not so easy. Now renamed and known as the Muzeum Uniwerzytecki (University Museum), the Collegium is open to guided tours only (every 30min Mon-Fri 11am-2.20pm, Sat 11am-1.20pm; 7zl, free on Sat), for which you theoretically need to book places in advance (tel 012/422 0549). In practice you can usually just turn up and talk your way onto a tour, although this can prove more difficult in summer. While most tours are in Polish there are usually a limited number of English- and French-speaking guides on hand, so it's worth waiting to try and get on their tours. The shop in the courtyard arcade has caught onto the logo craze, selling mugs, pens, sweatshirts and other items sporting the Jagiellonian University crest. Entrance is via the first floor ticket office, reached via the staircase on the far side of the courtyard. Inside, tours proceed through the elaborately decorated first-floor rooms, several of which retain the mathematical and geographical murals once used for teaching, as well as an impressive library of old books. The professors' common room, which also served as their dining hall, boasts an ornate Baroque spiral staircase and a Gothic bay window with a replica statuette of King Kazimierz. In the Treasury rooms, the most valued possession is the copper Jagiellonian globe, constructed around 1520 as the centrepiece of a clock mechanism and featuring the earliest known illustration of America - labelled "a newly discovered land". Additionally, there's a collection of old scientific instruments thought to have been used by Copernicus during his astronomical experiments, a venerable old astrolabe and a prototype telescope from the 1480s included. The Aula , the grand principal assembly hall, has a Renaissance ceiling adorned with carved rosettes and portraits of Polish royalty, benefactors and professors; its Renaissance portal carries the Latin inscription Plus Ratio Quam Vis - "Wisdom rather than Strength". Bizarrely, there's also a carved wooden door leading onto the street that's never opened: to get out you have to make your way back through the rooms. If you find old scientific instruments interesting, ask the guide if you can see the other old laboratories and globe rooms. Several other old buildings are dotted round this area. The university Kosciol sw. Anny (St Anne's Church), was designed by the ubiquitous Tylman of Gameren. A monumental Baroque extravaganza, built on a Latin cross plan with a high central dome, it's widely regarded as Gameren's most mature work, the classicism of his design neatly counterpoised by rich stucco decoration added by the Italian sculptor Baldaggare Fontana. The Collegium Minus , just round the corner on ul. Golebia, is the fifteenth-century arts faculty, rebuilt two centuries later; Jan Matejko studied and later taught here. On the corner of the same street stands the outsize Collegium Novum , the neo-Gothic university administrative headquarters, with an interior modelled on the Collegium Maius. The Copernicus statue , in front of the Collegium Novum, on the edge of the Planty, commemorates the university's most famous supposed student - some local historians doubt that he really did study here.
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