The newly reconstructed interiors of the Palace of the Commonwealth are home to a permanent exhibition of nearly 200 unique treasures from the National Book Collection. On display are the most valuable objects from Polish and global written history, dating from the eight century to the present day, including a number of items inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

The exhibition is arranged chronologically. It opens with the oldest surviving Polish written history, the Old Annals of the Holy Cross, which includes the famous sentence „Dubrovka venit ad Miskonem” („Dobrawa came to Mieszko”). The exhibition ends with Zbigniew Herbert’s The Message of Mr Cogito, and its exhortation „Bądź wierny, idź” („Be faithful, go”).

Important objects relating to Polish Nobel Prize winners are also on display: handwritten copies of Quo vadis? and The Knights of the Cross by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a letter from Maria Skłodowska-Curie, journals kept by Czesław Miłosz and even his Nobel Prize Medal. Also included are manuscripts and first editions of works that are well known to every Polish schoolchild, including masterpieces by Jan Kochanowski, Mikołaj Rej, Jan Chryzostom Pasek, Jan Potocki, Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Eliza Orzeszkowa, Bolesław Prus, Stefan Żeromski, Maria Konopnicka, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, Zofia Nałkowska, Bruno Schulz, Kazimierz Moczarski and Witold Gombrowicz.

A distinct part of the exhibition is dedicated to the legacy of Frederic Chopin, which notably includes a score of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor. The musical collection of the National Library is proudly represented in the Palace of the Commonwealth with scores such as The Oath by Feliks Nowowiejski, The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs by Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, Walls by Jacek Kaczmarski, Małgośka by Agnieszka Osiecka, The Watchmaker of Light by Tadeusz Woźniak, as well as sketches composed by Krzysztof Komenda for Roman Polański’s film Rosemary’s Baby.

Naturally, the exhibition includes a first edition of the book that changed the world: On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres by Nicolaus Copernicus. Also on display is the most valuable of the four luxury copies that were produced of La Sforziada, one of the most famous books in Renaissance Italy.

In addition, the exhibition features the oldest surviving records of the Polish language, including the Holy Cross Sermons and the Sankt Florian Psalter, and unique histories such as the above-mentioned Old Annals of the Holy Cross, the chronicles written by Gallus Anonymus and Wincenty Kadłubek, and the Annals of Jan Długosz. There are showcases displaying legal codes which formed the foundation of Polish and Lithuanian law, such as the Statutes of Casimir the Great, Łaski’s Statute, the two oldest Statutes of Lithuania, key pieces of legislation such as the Constitution of 3 May 1791, and Wojciech Jastrzębowski’s A Constitution for Europe, as well as the only surviving copy of the first edition of the pamphlet Can Poles win their independence? by Józef Pawlikowski. Polish scientists, besides Copernicus and Skłodowska-Curie, are represented by: the Orientalist and pioneer of ethnography Wacław Seweryn Rzewuski, author of the monumental work on the culture of the peoples of the Middle East Concerning the Horses of the Orient and Those Originating from Oriental Breeds; John Jonston, who wrote the first Polish zoology textbook, dating from the mid-seventeenth century; and Michał Boym, author of one of the first European albums on the natural history of East Asia.

Visitors can also view magnificent works written in gold and silver on purple-stained pages, and beautifully illuminated manuscripts – handwritten codices, silver bindings, huge mediaeval liturgical books, miniature prayerbooks, priceless Old Church Slavonic and Armenian texts, one of the oldest-surviving records of Cyrillic writing, an important early example of Jewish printing, volumes from the Library of King Sigismund II Augustus, manuscripts from the Orient and treasures of ancient cartography, including a luxurious Renaissance manuscript of Ptolemy’s Geografia, and portolan charts by Angelo Freducci and Antonio Millo. The exhibition even includes a love letter written in the year 1444.

The exhibition is open to visitors six days a week from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., with the exception of Tuesdays.

Audio guides in English and Polish are available.

We also offer guided tours of the exhibition in English. To book a tour, please email us on m.szablewski@bn.org.pl

QUIET HOURS: Wednesdays from 5.30 to 7 p.m. are „quiet hours”. All monitors and other sound-emitting devices in the exhibition are switched off and we ask you to please speak quietly. No groups are permitted. Mobile phones and other devices must be turned off at this time.