House no. 97, The Unger House
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House No. 97In the early sixteenth century the house was owned by the Węgrzyn bourgeois family, known as the Ungers. In 1543 it became the property of Józef Struś, a physician and humanist and one of the most famous Poznanians, through his marriage to Poliksena Unger.
Born in Poznań, Struś studied in Kraków and Padua, where he also lectured for a short period of time. Upon returning to his home town, Struś forged bonds of friendship with the Górka family. Recommended to King Sigismund the Old, he travelled with his daughter Izabela, Jan Zapolyi's fiancée, to Hungary, where he administered a province and served as the envoy to Turkey. Legend has it that he cured Suleiman the Magnificent when the sultan was abandoned by his Arab and Indian doctors. A skilful practitioner, he made his name in the history of medicine by publishing a pioneering treatise "On the pulse" in Basle in 1555. Struś earned the great respect of his compatriots and was elected mayor of the city twice between 1557-1559 and assigned a tombstone in St. Mary Magdalene's Collegiate Church. A plaque commemorating Józef Struś is mounted on the façade of the house.
Rebuilt at the end of the nineteenth century, it was subsequently integrated with houses nos. 98-100 in 1942. The original form of the façades was restored after the war on the basis of Baeseler's lithography from the mid-eighteenth century.
The new and modern interior is the work of Piotr Hanschuh and Paweł Chlebowski, who adapted it for the Powszechny Bank Kredytowy some years ago. During the excavations carried out at the same time, some remnants of wooden dwellings were found and even some traces of human activity from the beginning of our era.