Galleria Academica Cracoviensis

The Collegium Maius has a rich collection of painting, consisting of 1423 paintings. Both Polish and foreign paintings on diverse themes are represented. Among them there are 832 portraits, while the remaining 591 paintings represent religious themes, genre painting and landscape. There are portraits of various personages connected with the history the Kraków Alma Mater: Polish rulers, Chancellors of the Kraków Academy, professors, their families and other persons connected with the university in some ways. The aim of this article is to present the Academy Gallery - in this case exclusively portraits of professors. There are 307 portraits of outstanding professors of the Jagiellonian University - from the earliest works dating from the 16th century to contemporary paintings. Neither in Poland nor abroad portraits of academics have been subject of more comprehensive studies so far. It is only for two decades that interest in academic portrait has been growing. Catalogues of university collections containing portraits of university professors have been published in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and other countries. Among the earliest such catalogues is the one representing the collection of the University of Helsinki. This paper refers to the article by Pia Vuorikoski, tiled Galleria Academica: a Portrait Collection of the University of Helsinki, which appeared in the same issue of Opuscula Musealia (20). The most recent publication on academic portraits is the book which saw print in Kraków in 2010, presenting a study on a group of portraits of the Kraków Academy professors. The term: "phenomeon of academic portrait" was used for the fi rst time in that publication. The surviving portraits of professors in the Jagiellonian University collection testify to the long-established tradition of creating portrait galleries. The tradition is still continued. Regardless of their artistic value, they are unique pieces of historical evidence which, through the history of persons portrayed, document the history of the earliest Polish university – the Kraków Alma Mater