Places

One of the most beautiful burgher tenements on Polish lands. A symbol of wealth and significance of the town. Built in the years 1570-1585, and then expanded in the years 1633-1646.

Wilhelm Orsetti was an Italian merchant and banker from Lucca, settled in Krakow. He traded in silk, Italian cloth, and also in copper and articles of iron and metal. In addition to Jarosław, he maintained businesses in Lviv, Warsaw, Lublin, Poznań and Gdańsk. Duchess Anna Ostrogska, the owner of the city, herself was interested in the appearance of the building; Orsetti had a task to expand it so that it serves as a ‘decoration of the town and to its benefit’.

The tenement from the year 1945 has been the headquarters of the Museum in Jarosław. Museum expositions were adjusted to the original character of the building (the living space was on the floor, while commercial and representative functions focused on the ground floor).
In the premises called the lower hallway, a historical exhibition was placed. Whereas upstairs, living rooms were arranged. In the lower hallway and in the store, among other things, portraits of town owners are exhibited, besides, local crafts products, swords and executioner fetters, paintings and sculptures depicting the patron saints of the town, portraits of Jarosław townspeople, views of the town, militaria and museum collections related to education.

The most representative interior in the tenement was and is the Great Chamber. Its importance is highlighted by the beautiful equipment: Italian Renaissance furniture, Gdańsk cabinets, monumental Gothic sculpture depicting the Madonna with Child, 17th-century Italian and Flemish paintings and products of artistic crafts placed in wall storage places. Stylised bourgeois interiors are presented upstairs: an eclectic lounge, dining room, biedermeier lounge, ‘striped’ room or a lady bedroom.

The Orsettis old tenement building has been perpetuated on one of thirty coins of 2-zloty denomination, commemorating towns and cities of particular importance in the history of Poland. Conditions for releasing a coin was to have at least 500-year tradition of self-governing, vital importance in the history of Poland and contribution to the development of culture. The ceremonial unveiling of the 2-zloty coin took place on January 26, 2006, in the Orsettis tenement involving then President of the national Bank of Poland – Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz.