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The highlights of the Muzeum Katedralne (Cathedral Museum; Tues-Sun 10am-3pm; 5zl), in the northeast corner, behind the sacristy, includes a collection of illuminated texts and some odd items of Polish royal and ecclesiastical history - St Maurice's spear (a present to King Boleslaw the Brave from Emperor Otto III when they met at Gniezno in 1000 AD), an eighth-century miniature of the four Evangelists, and King Kazimierz the Great's crown. An ascent of the fourteenth-century Wieza Zygmuntowska (Sigismund Tower; same hours and ticket as Groby Krolewskie), access again from the sacristy, gives a far-reaching panorama over the city and close-up views of the five medieval bells. The largest, an eight-tonne monster known as "Zygmunt", cast in 1520, is two and a half metres in diameter, eight in circumference, and famed for its deep, sonorous tone, which according to local legend, scatters rain clouds and brings out the sun. These days it doesn't get too many chances to perform, as it's only rung on Easter Sunday, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. Back in the cathedral, the crypt (in the left aisle) houses the remains of numerous Polish kings and queens, many encased in pewter sarcophagi, notably the Sigismunds and Stefan Batory. Also buried here are the poets Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Slowacki , while the early-twelfth-century Krypta sw. Leonarda (St Leonard's crypt), part of a long network of vaults reached from near the main entrance, contains the tombs of national heroes Prince Jozef Poniatowski and Tadeusz Kosciuszko. The equally sanctified prewar independence leader Jozef Pilsudski lies in a separate vault nearby. Standing with the crowds filing past this pantheon, you catch the passionate intensity of Polish attachment to everything connected with past resistance and independent nationhood. The exit from the crypt takes you back out of the building and onto the main Wawel courtyard.
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