The tour usually starts on the first floor with the Library and ends with the Assembly Hall.

LIBRARY

The first library in Collegium Maius with late gothic lamella vaulting that consists of 30 sections. Visitors enter the Library through a gothic portal, dated 1492, called Porta Aurea, the Golden Gate. Here, in addition to marble and plaster busts of scientists and artists, portraits of professors and donors, three reconstructed instruments of Nicolaus Copernicus are displayed, namely, the triquetrum, the armillary sphere and the quadrant.

STUBA COMMUNIS

Meeting room and refectory for the professors living in the Collegium Maius until the end of the 18th century. Behind the reconstructed table rises an oak staircase from Gdańsk, dated early 18th century. The impressive baroque wardrobe (18th century), displaying silber objects (17th-19th century) and the turret clock from the 17th century, also came from Gdańsk. Reconstructed wood-panelling provides a background to a pewter collection from 17th-19th century. In the gothic bay widow (15th century) a sculpture of King Kazimierz the Great (dated around 1380), the University's founder.

TREASURY

In a glass-panelled safe, amoung numerous valuable objects, the Rector's insignia are displayed: three sceptres from 15th century, a chain and rings. The Jagellonian Globe (first half of the 16th century), actually a mechanical armilar sphere with a small globe inside, occupies a prominent place in the safe. For the first time in the history of globe cartography the newly discovered America was shown, with an inscription America noviter reperta. By the window is the only preserved drawing by Veit Stoss, a design of an altar for a Carmelite church in Nuremberg, today in the Bamberg cathedral.

In the other part of treasury two persian rugs (17th century) called les tapis polonaises, numerous objects associated with King Stanisław August Poniatowski, as well as a Venetian chalice from the 15th century with King Jan Olbracht Jagellon's or Aleksander Jagellon's coat of arms.

PROFESSORS' CHAMBERS

Two reconstructed professors residences. Professor Antoni Żołędziowski (died 1783), the University's Rector during Kołł±taj's reforms (1777-1780), once lived in the first of these. His portrait, painted by T.Konicz (1767), hangs on a door courtain shielding the former entrance from the gallery. The second room is furnished with numerous objects that used to belong to Ambroży Grabowski, General Józef Chłopicki and poet Kazimierz Brodziński.

COPERNICUS' ROOM

The name of the room comes from the permanent exhibition dedicated to Copernicus, who studied at the University from 1491 to 1495. In addition to several of his portraits, a unique set of astronomical and astrological instruments from the 80s of the 15th century (an astrolabe, a torquetum and a celestial globe) as well as a mauretanian astrolabe (Cordoba, 1054) are on display.

THE ASSEMBLY HALL

Called the Jagellonian Hall, the oldest assembly hall of the University. Today it is where honorary doctorates are conferred and where some academic conferences are ceremonially opened. Along the wall are stalls for the audience, opposite are stalls for University Senate members, in the middle is the Rector's lectern. On the walls are portraits of Polish Kings, Bishops of Cracow and most of all rectors and professors of the University.

The museum displays several more series of collections, like art, globes and ancient scientific instruments in the following rooms: Green, National Education Commission, Clocks, Telescopes, Olszewski's, Phisics, Chemistry. Access to the rooms is limited due to climatic conditions and little space left for visitors. Consequently, they are reserved primaraly for people with professional interests. In addition to paintings by J.Matejko, J.Malczewski, L.Wyczółkowski, Witkacy, J.Massys, G.D.Tiepolo, Rosa da Tivoli, J.Kupetzky, E.Delacroix and others objects associated to Chopin and Paderewski, antique clocks, furniture, collections of china and glass, tapestries, rugs, the most important are old scientific instruments. The collection is one of the most esteemed in Europe, containing old astronomical instruments, Professor Olszewski's chemical laboratory, alchemical equipment, weights and measures, physical instruments, microscopes, globes, anatomical models and others.