The problem of emptiness has been an important issue in the history of thought. The first attempts to define it and, above all, to prove its existence or non-existence date back to the 5^th century BC. Among the many philosophical assumptions, there was the view maintained for a very long time, right up until the 16^th century, which was in line with the Aristotelian concept formulated as: “nature abhors a vacuum,” or horror vacui. Aristotle understood emptiness as a space devoid of a body (matter); however, he rejected its existence, not seeing any reason for it.

A round box with a cover; it was probably used as a powder box, in the colour of milk, decorated with medallions and a blue floral painted pattern. The glass inside the powder box was painted with cobalt, hence the blue colour.

A mace, that is a blunt weapon consisting of a handle and a head created of vertically placed flangs (feathers), was commonly used in the Polish army of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, as an insignia indicating the rank of rittmeister or colonel. According to tradition, the presented mace was owned by Stefan Czarniecki, the Castellan of Kiev, later the Field Crown Hetman.

A decorative and portable piece of furniture in the form of an angular box closed with a pair of small doors and containing eight drawers.
Furniture of that type, made of exotic materials, was not commonly used in Poland of the 17^th century.

Guild maces symbolised the power of guild seniors. They looked like the military maces of the officers back then.
The mace consisted of a shaft and a head composed of radially arranged insets called feathers. The exhibit presented here belonged to the Kraków guild of bricklayers, masons and carpenters. It was made of brass, the handle was covered with decorative, gilded metal plates; the feathers with openwork floral decorations were silvered.

On one of the seven hills of Rome – the Esquiline Hill – caves full of ancient paintings were excavated around 1480 under the foundations of medieval buildings. Their walls were decorated with fantastic, light and symmetrical structures created of figural, animal and floral motifs. La grotte, or caves, were in fact ruins of the villa of the Emperor Nero. It was called Domus Aurea because of the extraordinarily rich decoration of the walls and the inner part of the dome, which were covered with gold and paintings. They were created between AD 54 and 68 and related to the turn of the Third Style and Fourth Style of Pompeian painting.

The exhibit comes from the collection of the Field Museum No. 2 established by Polish soldiers who fought in Egypt during the WW II. The creator and spiritus movens of this unique project was Jarosław Sagan.
The head, with relatively shallow sculpting is a simplified form of a Corinthian capital. It could have been based on classical extended examples from Byzantine architecture. It consists of two zones, with the lower row made in a shallow relief resembling stylised acanthus. The leaves in the upper row, which are carved deeper in marble, spread towards four edges under the rectangular abacus.

The grotesque tapestry with a monogram of King Sigismund Augustus (SA – Sigismundus Augustus) and a globe is part of a series of decorative textiles in which the royal monogram plays the major role. Before our eyes, an extravaganza unfolds of ancient gods, birds, animals, fruit and flower garlands. On the axis of the composition is placed an oval shield with the monogram of the king, covered with a closed crown. A richly decorated frame is surrounded by a wreath of fruit. Aside from apples, grapes and lemons, there is also a pineapple, brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus.

A tapestry of the same size and the same function as the tapestry with the Monogram of Sigismund Augustus in Cartouche. It belongs to a group of three monogram grotesques with the initials SA inscribed within an oval medallion. In the middle of the composition, there is a blue convex medallion with the entwined initials SA under a closed crown, placed against a background of a drapery supported by two angels sitting on crosspieces of a metal frame (a motif typical of Netherlandish grotesque).

The fashion of taking snuff, common in Europe of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, sparked the creation of a separate category of containers. Maiolica pharmaceutical vases were used for selling snuff, various other tins for storing it, and different forms of snuffboxes, including those made of porcelain, were used for taking it.