The Old Market Square of Bydgoszcz in the light of iconographic and cartographic sources (from the 17th to the third quarter of the 19th c.)

Abstract

The article explores the history of the Old Market Square in Bydgoszcz on the basis of iconographic and cartographic sources. It reproduces street plans of the city and pictures of the Market Square from the period between the 17th and the third quarter of the 19th c. by Erik Jönsson Dahlbergh, Johann Rudolf Storn, Julius Greth, Wojciech Gerson, Paul Berthold Jaekel and August Wolff. From the town-planning perspective the Old Marked Square had several unusual distin-guishing features: the town hall, the monument to Frederick II the Great and buildings with stalls in the middle of the square. From the second half of the 17th c. the townscape of this area was dominated by the Jesuit church, its two spires towering over the buildings around the Square. In the 1840s modernity came to the Square with the first shop-signs on elevations, street gaslights and pumps. Sources abound in reliable and detailed information on the history of the develop-ment of the Square, shop windows, door and window frames, the road surface, street lighting, new devices and monuments. Iconographic sources have a historical, documentary, research, artistic and aesthetic value. With some old buildings disappearing and being replaced by new ones, the image of the Square was constantly evolving.