Every day at 1:13 p.m. and 9:13 p.m., a window opens at the top of the townhouse at 15 Old Market Square, and amid unearthly laughter, the figure of Twardowski emerges. Is he reminiscing about his ties to Bydgoszcz, as described in legends, when he stayed here around 1560 at the mayor’s invitation, bestowing everlasting youth upon the local townswomen, or is he admiring the beauty and elegance of Bydgoszcz’s women from the very spot where, since 1884, a company has been sewing and selling women’s clothing?

According to legend, Twardowski arrived in the city riding a rooster (other accounts say he reached the Old Market Square in a chair). Upon arriving in Bydgoszcz, the Master made his way to the “Zgorzelec” inn, where, together with his servant Maciek and the little devils Smołka and Węgliszek, he lived and received visitors. Once word spread throughout the city that the Master knew the arts of magic, there was hardly a moment when some nobleman or townsman did not come asking for advice or help. One of them was the Mayor, who, though already a venerable old man, had a very young wife whom he could not keep up with in any way. He turned to Mr. Twardowski with a request to make him younger. With the help of devils, the master prepared a decoction of magical herbs in which he bathed the old man. After a few hours, he emerged from the cauldron looking much younger. Unfortunately, upon returning home, he was not recognized by either his wife or any of the servants.

On the site of the tenement building where Mr. Twardowski stayed in 1910, the then-owner, Leo Brückmann, built a modern department store covering an area of approximately 4,000 m². It impressed customers with its bright, spacious interiors and offered high-quality goods at low prices. After World War I, it housed a clothing store operating as a branch of a joint-stock company from Poznań. Then, starting in 1928, it housed the Matecki Brothers’ department store, where not only Bydgoszcz’s fashionable women shopped—especially since the store was famous for its elegant clothing and attractive sales. Unfortunately, the building, designed by Rudolf Kern, was destroyed during the fighting in 1945, and a modern, stylized apartment building was erected in its place.

Master Twardowski

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