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.

Authenticity has become a growing need of the contemporary world. Although the concept itself is hard to define, it has become one of the main criteria of quality with respect to cultural heritage issues. We think about authenticity while appreciating a historic object. We want to know what is genuine and authentic, we strive for a tangible connection with the past. Over the last two centuries, conservators, historians and architects have tried to respond to this need by defining, in different ways, the concept of historical truth present in architecture. From Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879), who strived to achieve stylistic purity, though frequently followed his own idea of the medieval form, to those who opposed him:  Alois Riegl (1858–1905) of the Viennese school and Max Dvořák (1874–1921), the future head of the Central Commission, who negated any interference in historic layers, recognising their equal value to one another.

Bogata kultura średniowiecznej Europy była mieszanką tradycji antycznych (grecko-rzymskich i bliskowschodnich) oraz północnoeuropejskich wierzeń ludów, które Rzymianie określali barbarzyńcami. W mitach wszystkich tych kręgów kulturowych występowały smoki, nic więc dziwnego, że w średniowiecznej literaturze i sztuce wielokrotnie pojawiały się te fascynujące stworzenia. Mieszana natura smoków pozwalała wiązać te bestie z każdym z czterech żywiołów: wedle wielu legend smoki żyły w wodzie, wedle innych chowały się w ziemi; ponadto zionęły ogniem oraz miały skrzydła, więc mogły się wznosić w powietrze.

The second tapestry in the series The Story of the Tower of Babel shows the consequences of human pride. The builders of the tower wanted it to reach the sky. Human pride angered God, who decided to destroy the work of sinful humanity. Bearded Nimrod, the initiator of the construction, stands at the foot of the tower with hand upraised, trying to shield himself from the Creator, who appears in the upper right hand corner of the textile. Builders working at ground level have scattered their tools and disperse in panic, while those who are on the scaffolding point the angry Creator out to reach other; furter in the background, work continues as if nothing has happened.

The tapestry has been preserved in two parts. Like other arcade tapestries of this type, which were designed to be put up above window recesses, it was damaged when it was kept in Russia in the nineteenth century. At that time, its central section was cut out.
In both sections of the textile, a goddess is shown with a palm wreath on her head. The seated figure holds a cornucopia in her hands, which allows us to identify her as Ceres, the Roman goddess of the harvest.

In this, one of the three largest tapestries in the collection of King Sigismund II Augustus, we can see the beginning of the story of the construction of the Tower of Babel as described in the Book of Genesis. The scene shows Nimrod, the legendary hunter, and people building a tower “whose top may reach unto heaven” (Genesis 11:1–9) under his leadership. The building under construction is situated in the background, on the right hand side of the textile, whereas on the left side, there can be seen workers erecting the tower. Thanks to the detailed presentation, we can see, among other things, what sixteenth-century stonemasonry tools looked like. On the vast plain, people bustle around carrying blocks of stone and building a scaffolding. God, barely visible to the right of the tower, watches their feverish work. As in the other biblical tapestries, there is no shortage of accurately rendered images of animals, insects and plants.
The Latin inscription placed in the upper border reads in translation: “Nimrod, the first powerful ruler in the world, built a huge tower of baked bricks. God confounded the builders’ languages, and the work was never completed.”

The outfit consists of a navy-blue coat with a wide cape reaching beyond the shoulders trimmed with a red border. The coat is single-breasted, with one column of buttons, and there is a stand-up collar around the neck.

Decorating walls with precious textiles added grandeur and significance to modest interiors. It is known from preserved descriptions and inventories that European rulers highly valued this artwork and loved being surrounded with tapestries since they added splendour to their owners. Tapestries were ordered for specific chambers of a ruler's residence as they performed relevant functions in a given space, expressed through the subject matter of their presentations. A special place in the entire collection of Sigismund II Augustus was occupied by monogram and heraldic tapestries, commissioned probably after 1553 (around 1555). Their subject matter and set of motifs expressed a precisely defined agenda directly related to the person of the ruler and his country.

In the 16^th century, Rome attracted artists from the North with a series of discoveries of ancient works, as well as with works of the Renaissance masters – Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo. This fascination brought a trend in paintings known as the Netherlandish Romanesque. Its sources were of two kinds.
 

This artistic photograph by Jan Motyka presents Wawel outlined with a white line, a side elevation of the Wawel cathedral with the Silver Bells’ Tower, Wawel itself, and Sigismund’s chapel. In the foreground, two men are standing in the alley; one is standing in front of the easel...