Piotrków's Old Town, around the medieval Rynek Trybunalski where 15th- and 16th-century parliamentary sessions and the Crown Tribunal once met, links three historic churches with a 16th-century royal castle.
Starówka Piotrkowa is a heritage urban complex of the Old Town in Piotrków Trybunalski, laid out around the medieval Rynek Trybunalski. For several centuries this was the heart of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; today it is a place for walking through narrow streets, churches and townhouses with history stretching back to the 14th century.
Władysław Jagiełło confirmed city rights to Piotrków in 1404, though the exact date of the original foundation is not entirely certain. Between 1438 and 1492, around 50 noble assemblies were held here, and between 1493 and 1567, around 38 general diets. The diet of 1493, convened with a separate chamber of nobles and senate, is considered the beginning of Polish parliamentarism. From the end of the 16th century, after the Crown Tribunal was established in 1578, sessions of the highest appeal court for the nobility from Greater Poland, Mazovia, Kuyavia and Royal Prussia were held in Piotrków - hence the city's name and that of the marketplace itself.
Rynek Trybunalski measures approximately 45 by 65 metres and is the central point of the checkerboard street layout of the Old Town, with eight streets running out from the square. The medieval city occupied approximately 8 hectares and was surrounded by an irregular defensive wall with a perimeter of 1050 metres, thickness of 1.8 metres and height of 5 metres, completed at the end of the 14th century. The wall was reinforced by 10 towers and three gates: Wolborska from the east, Sieradzka from the west and Krakowska from the south. In 1817-1824 the walls and gates were demolished; only fragments remain to this day, including sections near the Dominican and Jesuit complexes.
By the marketplace and in its immediate vicinity stand three heritage churches worth seeing one after another: the parish church of Saint James the Apostle from the end of the 14th century, the Dominican church dedicated to Saints Hyacinth and Dorothy, erected around 1331-1340, and the Jesuit church of Saint Francis Xavier from 1701-1727. Close to the marketplace also stands the church dedicated to Saints Hyacinth and Dorothy, one of the oldest in the city.
On the edge of the old town rises the Royal Castle in Piotrków Trybunalski, built in 1512-1519 on the orders of Sigismund I the Old according to a design by Benedict of Sandomierz. Today it houses the Regional Museum in Piotrków Trybunalski, where you can learn about the history of the city and region from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.
The entire old town complex was entered as a historical monument under number 89-IX-35, first in 1948, and over 50 individual buildings, including churches, monasteries and townhouses, have separate entries in the heritage register. Between 2007 and 2013, the main streets of the Old Town were revitalised: granite cobble surfaces were laid and small architectural elements in a historicising style were installed, whilst preserving the medieval street layout.
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