House no. 42
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House No. 42The first mention of the house is from 1439 when it was owned by stall-keeper Michał Burchart. It remained in the hands of the Burchart merchant family, who had an established position in mediaeval Poznań, until the 1520s when it was purchased by doctor Walenty of Starogard, also known as Reszka.
Doctor Walenty, one of the first physicians and humanists to be repeatedly elected mayor of Poznań, was held in high esteem thanks mainly to his excellent education and knowledge. He graduated from the University of Bologna where he also gave lectures (we learn from his diary that he specialised in surgery and orthopaedics). Having spent some time at the court of Paweł Holszański, the bishop of Łuck, he settled in Poznań in 1520. His son and namesake inherited his father's profession and office.
Several elements of the interior design have been preserved to this day: the coffered hall ceiling from the first half of the sixteenth century, the late Baroque balustrade in the staircase, the eighteenth-century ceiling in one of the upstairs room and the ornamented chequered floor. The façade, which is a reconstruction based on seventeenth-century forms, features a piece of a Gothic portal.