The story of Toruń Cathedral

This is where Nicolaus Copernicus was most likely baptised. Look for the thirteenth-century baptismal font in one of the side chapels, said to have been used for the future astronomer, together with a sixteenth-century epitaph to him and an eighteenth-century monument. The first church here, from the thirteenth century, was a small aisleless hall.

In the first half of the fourteenth century it was replaced by a brick hall church with aisles, which was rebuilt and extended until it reached its present form at the end of the fifteenth century, with its massive west tower. Inside, the earliest paintings in the chancel date from the fourteenth century and show the Crucifixion and the Last Judgement. Listen for the great bell in the tower: Tuba Dei, cast in 1500, is the third-largest bell in Poland.

The heart of King John I Albert, who died in Toruń in 1501, was buried here. Long the main parish church of the Old Town, it became a minor basilica in 1935 and a cathedral in 1992.