The fragment taken from Tadeusz Kantor’s Writings is an invitation.
More than 770 objects, which you will find on the portal, are also 770 stories, 770 separate yet intertwined worlds.
Małopolska’s Virtual Museums constitute a large library, which, as Umberto Eco wanted, is a place to hide (to store), but also to find; a labyrinth of various, often transient, objects and meanings. They can also be a space for the dialogue and discovery of the secret language of relics which, although once part of someone’s life, have been placed in museum collections. Now they breathe a different air – museum cabinets and storerooms...

W Polsce przedrozbiorowej nie funkcjonowała żadna wyższa szkoła artystyczna, mimo że planowano stworzenie tego rodzaju placówki. Marzenia o akademii snuł już u schyłku XVII wieku Jan III Sobieski. Najbliżej do urzeczywistnienia tych planów było w czasach stanisławowskich...

What did the dragonflies and other insects that lived millions of years ago look like? Their shapes can now be accurately recreated thanks to the impressions preserved in the lithographic limestone.

Marian Gorzkowski was born in Biała Cerkiew [Ukr. Bila Tserkva] in 1830 in Ukraine. He studied at the University of Kiev. He travelled to Greece and Italy. He came from Russia and was strongly attached to his homeland region; he collected documents and books dealing with the history of Russia. In 1870 he came to Kraków for the first time, and two years later he settled there permanently. He was a journalist by trade; he belonged to the editorial staff of “Czas” [“Time”] magazine. He also worked part-time for the Czartoryski Museum. Together with Matejko, he shared a passion for history of the old Polish Commonwealth and love for collecting, which resulted in their friendship.

As short-lived as a blade of grass... And yet this common comparison does not always turn out to be true. In the collection of Małopolska’s Virtual Museums you can see blades of grass that have survived over 5 million years! Frozen in a halite crystals, they are like jewels in a transparent frame. Although the green hue has lost its vibrancy...

The notion of otherness – i.e. something foreign – functions in almost every culture, often synonymous with evil, and is burdened with negative connotations and responsibility for what the members of a given community experience (disease, poverty, conflicts, acts of violence)...

According to medieval tradition, the laymen who gathered around churches organised themselves into fraternities and confraternities, which was supposed to consolidate their faith, build a community and also celebrate the moments important to society, including funerals for fellow brothers.

At the Regional Museum of the Association of Piwniczna Enthusiasts in Piwniczna Zdrój, you can find a pair of skis which might appear akin to fence boards to a shrewd eye. They are straight and do not feature tapered tips, characteristic of skis.

Feliks Jasieński collected art for thirty years of his life. The collection numbered about 15,000 items and included paintings and graphics from the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, a set of Asian art objects, carpets, kilims, furniture and arts and crafts, as well as a library. The unique collection became a testimony to the time of its creator, who initially collected works in his apartment, and then, on 11 March 1920, donated them to the city of Kraków...

Brussels weaving workshops worked for the wealthiest clients: popes and rulers. These were large enterprises, employing from a few to a dozen qualified weavers, capable of bearing the very high costs of making fabrics. Expensive materials — the best wool, often Spanish or English, silk and the most expensive threads of gold and silver — constituted a very serious expense, not only for the workshop, but also for the client.