Wieże mieszkalne na Zamku Wawelskim - badania nad chronologią gotyckiej architektury rezydencji królewskiej

After a period of more than one hundred years of scholarly research on Wawel Castle, one gets the impression that the history of the royal residence’s medieval architecture is fairly well known, at least as far as material and written sources allow it to be. It seems that the only thing left to future generations of researchers is to provide modest additions to the present body of knowledge, small voices on the margins of earlier findings. But this is a false impression and although some gaps in our knowledge of the medieval Wawel will probably never be filled, on the other hand, the currently recreated history of the building of the royal residence requires at least a partial correction. This article focuses on the Gothic fragments of the castle, which in previous studies aroused the most controversy, and at the same time are among the best preserved remains of medieval architecture in Wawel. They consist of a complex of buildings embedded in the north-eastern part of the later, early modern residence, i.e. the so-called early Gothic palatium together with a quadrilateral annexe, which according to most researchers has the shape of a tower referred to in sources as Hen’s Leg. It occupies the eastern part of the northern wing of the castle, with the Danish Tower adjacent to the south-east corner of the annexe, and the elongated pavilion overhanging the high, arcaded foundation. The results of the study of architectural detail presented in this article prompted a significant correction to the dating of the tower of Hen’s Leg, which should be amended by at least half a century, to the late 1350s. On the other hand, the alterations of the interiors, which were fitted with Gothic vaults, can be dated as late as the end of the fourteenth century. This correction also affects the chronology of the buildings adjacent to the Hen’s Leg, above all the Danish Tower.