Kraków - Kościół Świętej Trójcy

A legend attributes Kraków's founding to the mythical ruler Krakus, who built it above a cave occupied by a dragon, Smok Wawelski. The first written record dates to 965, when Kraków was described as a notable commercial center captured by a Bohemian duke Boleslaus I in 955. The first ruler of Poland, Mieszko I, took Kraków from the Bohemians.

In 1038, Kraków became the seat of the Polish government. By the end of the 10th century, the city was a center of trade. Brick buildings were constructed, including the Royal Wawel Castle. The city was sacked and burned during the Mongol invasion of 1241. It was rebuilt and incorporated in 1257 by Bolesław V the Chaste who introduced city rights. In 1259, the city was again ravaged by the Mongols. The third attack in 1287 was repelled thanks in part to the newly built fortifications.

The city rose to prominence in 1364, when Casimir III founded the University of Kraków, the second oldest university in central Europe. But after Casimir´s death in 1370 the campus did not get completed.

As the capital of the Kingdom of Poland and a member of the Hanseatic League, the city attracted craftsmen from abroad, guilds as science and the arts began to flourish. The 15th and 16th centuries are known as Poland's "Złoty Wiek" (Golden Age).

After childless King Sigismund II had died in 1572, the Polish throne passed to Henry III of France and then to other foreign-based rulers in rapid succession, causing a decline in the city's importance that was worsened by pillaging during the Swedish invasion and by an outbreak of bubonic plague that left 20,000 of the city's residents dead. In 1596, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa moved the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from Kraków to Warsaw.
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The Dominicans, led by St. Jacek (aka "Hyacinth of Poland"), came to Krakow from Bologna in 1222. The first church of the monks was a wooden one.
The new, gothic church and monastery were built after the invasion of the Tatars in 1241. Originally it was a three-nave hall, which was then rebuilt into a basilica church around 1400. Until the mid-nineteenth century, one of the characteristic elements of the church was a brick belfry tower, standing freely in front of the church façad. After the town fire in 1850, only the burnt walls remained of the bell tower, which were pulled down. In 1876, in place of the tower, a neo-Gothic porch was added to the facade of the temple. It covered the gothic, 14th-century main entrance portal, which was renovated in 1893.