The Cathedral in Frombork

Frombork owes its fame to its great historic complex of the Cathedral Hill and Nicolaus Copernicus whose life and work was associated with the town. Here he wrote his main work „On the Revolutios of the Celestial Spheres”, which has changed our idea about the Universe’s construction.

In 1270 the bishops of Warmia built the Gothic fortified cathedral complex on a hill above the lagoon which was to be a seat of their chapter. The complex got an unusual form similar to a Cisterian monastery surrounded by the defensive walls with towers and a large main gate with two towers and a wooden bridge (relics of a barbican dismantled in the 19th century). The whole complex got its fortified form due to a permanent threat from the Prussians tribes and the Teutonic Order. The highest tower with a cupola houses a planetarium and a Foucault pendelum, while the northwest one called the Copernicus Tower is a place where the astronomer lived from 1522 till his death in 1543. The Bishop’s Palace houses now the Copernicus Museum. But the most important building of the whole complex is the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a jewel of the Gothic architecture with the beautiful stellar vaults, Renaissance and baroque altars and amazing 17th-century organs made by Daniel Nitrowski. In this largest church in Warmia Copernicus was buried under the Cathedral floor.
Worth seeing is also a medieval Water Tower which was providing a water to the Cathedral complex.