Archdiocesan Museum in Wroclaw

What to expect

The Archdiocesan Museum in Wroclaw is a church museum where an Egyptian mummy from the Ptolemaic period and a Cranach painting of 1510 share the rooms. It occupies three former buildings on Cathedral Square (plac Katedralny): the chancery, the chapter house and the ducal archive. After about ten years of closure and a rebuild, it reopened to visitors on 12 December 2024.

Among its most important objects the museum lists the mummy of a boy from the Ptolemaic period, clay tablets with cuneiform script, and Etruscan and Greek collections. From later periods there is the bell of Abbot Świętosław from 1300, which the museum calls the oldest in Poland, and Lucas Cranach the Elder’s “Madonna under the Fir Trees” (“Madonna pod jodłami”) of 1510.

The building itself is an exhibit too. The rebuild took in three buildings from different periods, medieval, baroque and neo-Gothic, joined by a new underground link. In the chapter’s meeting hall, under a rib vault from the late 14th century, there is now a facsimile of the Księga Henrykowska (the Book of Henryków), made by the municipality of Wroclaw.

Sources differ on the size of the collection. The “O muzeum” (About the museum) page, the Polish Wikipedia and “Gazeta Wrocławska” write of over six thousand objects, while the museum’s home page gives about 8000 exhibits; none of the sources read explains the difference. On Google Maps the museum has 4.6 out of 5 from 118 reviews (read on 4 November 2026).

Who it suits: anyone interested in antiquity and church art, because the full ticket covers the whole museum, from the mummy and the cuneiform tablets to the medieval bell and the Cranach painting. Also anyone curious about architecture: the chapter hall with its late-14th-century vault is a reason to come in itself. The museum is adapted to the needs of people with reduced mobility, sight and hearing, and a person with a disability may come with a companion or a guide dog.

Who should skip it: anyone with less than an hour and a half for the museum - slots in the ticketing system usually last two hours, and there are three buildings to get round. A teenager under 16 cannot come in alone, without an adult, either.

How long: allow about two hours. That is how long most slots in the museum’s ticket system last, and there are three buildings to walk through, joined by an underground link.

Tips

• A ticket for a chosen slot. The ticket system sells entries for several slots during the day. You can buy a ticket at the till, at a ticket machine in the museum or on the museum’s website and pay in cash, by card or online, so you can pick your entry time before you leave home.
• Do not come at the end of the day. The last slot in the ticket system is shorter than the others, so a late entry leaves less time for the three buildings.
• A separate ticket for antiquity. If you are mainly interested in antiquity, the ticket system sells a separate, cheaper ticket for the antique exhibition. The full ticket for the whole museum is standard ticket 30 PLN (about 7 EUR), reduced 25 PLN (about 6 EUR).
• Family ticket and discounts. The family ticket covers one or two parents or guardians and at most three children aged 7-18. A reduced ticket is available on showing a document to, among others, pupils, students, old-age and disability pensioners, people with disabilities and their carers, and participants in the “Nasz Wrocław” (Our Wroclaw) programme.
• Leave your backpack in the cloakroom. Coats, backpacks, bags and umbrellas go into the cloakroom by the reception before you enter the exhibition. There are deposit lockers for valuables, as long as one is free.
• A guide in a foreign language. A tour in a foreign language has to be arranged in advance by phone (71 327-13-61) or by e-mail (recepcja@tumwroc.pl ). Group visits are for groups of five or more; an organised group is booked in advance by phone or by e-mail and may have at most 25 people.

Getting there

• Address: Plac Katedralny 16, 50-329 Wrocław.
• Tram and bus: according to the timetable in the open data of Wroclaw City Hall (Urząd Miejski Wrocławia), the nearest stop is “Katedra”, about 225 m from the museum as the crow flies. It is served by trams 2 and 10 and buses A, N, 111, 115, 145, 146, 914 and 924.
• More trams: the “Ogród Botaniczny” stop, about 310 m as the crow flies, is served by trams 9, 17 and 19 and buses A, N, 111, 128, 146, 914 and 924.
• Other stops: according to the same timetable, “Świętokrzyska” (about 370 m; buses 111 and 128) and “Pl. Bema” (about 380 m; trams 9, 17 and 19, buses 111 and 128).

Background

The chapter’s meeting hall, where the facsimile of the Księga Henrykowska lies today, has a vault from the late 14th century, according to “Gazeta Wrocławska”. The Polish Wikipedia dates the first written mention of the chapter house, today the museum’s seat, to 1382.

The museum itself, formerly the Diocesan Museum (Muzeum Diecezjalne), dates its beginnings to 1898, and its first exhibition opened on 29 October 1903. Wikipedia counts it among the oldest archdiocesan museums in Poland.

After the changes of 1989 the museum received the whole former chapter building of 1756 at plac Katedralny 16, officially handed over on 30 August 1994. About ten years before it reopened, it was closed because of a fire risk. In 2019-2024 the Fundacja dla Ostrowa Tumskiego (Ostrów Tumski Foundation) renovated, rebuilt and extended the museum, and it reopened on 12 December 2024.