Collegium Novum (latin: New College) is the main building of Jagiellonian University. It was built in 1873-1887 in neo-gothic style by Feliks Ksiezarski - in same style of Collegium Maius. Construction of this building was financed from Vienna when Krakow was a "property" of Austrian Galicia.
Collegium Novum was opened for the university's 500th anniversary after years of debates and discussions.
In addition to the gorgeous frontage, the building contains a beautiful assembly hall (called Aula) where a painting of Austria's Franz Jozeph I hung until a group of students violently ripped it in a symbolic act calling for the restoration of an independent Polish Republic in 1918.
Meanwhile, several important paintings remain, including portraits of university founders: kings Kazimierz the Great and Wladyslaw Jagiello, and Jan Matejko's Copernicus: Conversation with God.
A plaque commemorating "Sonderaktion Krakau" can be found in the first floor lecture hall from where the 183 university's professors were arrested during occupation by German Nazis. The plaque reads: "For the freedom of spirit and service to science and nation of Jagiellonian University professors deceitfully and forcefully taken away from this hall and imprisoned by the Nazi occupant on November 6, 1939."
Today the university's administrative centre, Collegium Novum is not open to tourists, but you can walk around if you feign as a student. A monument to Copernicus also stands nearby.
