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| 50 Zlotych |
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| Currency of Poland |
Polish banknotes 50 Zlotych note 1994, issued by the NBP
National Bank of Poland - Narodowy Bank Polski
Polish złoty, Polish banknotes, Poland banknotes, Polish bank notes, Polish paper money, Poland bank notes, Poland paper money.Front design: Portrait of King Casimir III the Great in centre area, with inscription, "KAZIMIERZ I WIELKI", in decorative medallion. Left of portrait - at top, inscription, "NARODOWY BANK POLSKI"; below that - depiction of eagle, emblem of Polish Republic; below that - inscription, "WARSZAWA 25 MARCA 1994 r."; below that - inscription, "PREZES", and signature; below that - inscription, "GLOWNY SKARBNIK", and signature. In background of inscriptions and emblem - stylised Gothic rosette. On left-hand side of note, in area of watermark - composition of guilloche lines. In top left-hand corner, arranged vertically - number "50", with line underneath and inscription below, "PIECDZIESIAT ZLOTYCH". In bottom left-hand corner - marking for the visually impaired, consisting of diamond with raised edges. Right-hand side of note contains two separate fields, upper and lower. Upper field bears number "50", with drawing of crown in oval below and four "50"s around crown, and monogram, crowned letter "K", underneath. Number "50" in top left-hand corner, line below that, marking for the visually impaired and upper right-hand field are all filled with white ornamentation. Background of note consists of guilloche mesh with intersecting lines of blue, light violet and beige.
Back design: Depiction of eagle from royal seal of Casimir III the Great in centre area, with royal insignia, orb and sceptre, underneath. At top - inscription, "NARODOWY BANK POLSKI". Below seal - rectangular field of ornamentation bearing number "50" to left and inscription, "PIECDZIESIAT ZLOTYCH", to right. To left of eagle, on decorative guilloche ribbon - drawing of crown in oval and four "50"s around crown, with fragment below of panorama of town of Kazimierz. On right-hand side - fragment of panorama of Cracow, constituting background for legend, "BANKNOTY EMITOWANE PRZEZ NARODOWY BANK POLSKI SA PRAWNYM SRODKIEM PLATNICZYM W POLSCE". Below legend - composition of guilloche lines making up repeated number "50". In top right-hand corner - number "50" filled with white ornamentation, and in bottom corner - initials "NBP". In area of watermark - composition of guilloche lines.
Watermark: portrait of King Casimir III the Great
Polish złoty banknotes, "Sovereigns of Poland", (1994)
In 1995, notes were introduced in denominations of 10 złoty, 20 złoty, 50 złoty, 100 złoty and 200 złotych.
Casimir III the Great (Polish: Kazimierz III Wielki; 30 April 1310 – 5 November 1370) who reigned in 1333–1370, was the last King of Poland from the Piast dynasty, the son of King Władysław I ("the Elbow-high") and Duchess Hedwig of Kalisz.
Born in Kowal, Casimir first married Anna, or Aldona Ona, the daughter of Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania. The daughters from this marriage were Cunigunde (d. 1357), who was married to Louis VI the Roman, the son of Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Elisabeth, who was married to Duke Bogislaus V of Pomerania. Aldona died in 1339, and Casimir then married Adelaide of Hesse. He divorced Adelaide in 1356, married Christina, divorced her, and while Adelaide and possibly Christina as well were still alive (ca. 1365), married Hedwig of Głogów and Sagan. His three daughters by his fourth wife were very young at their father's death, and regarded as of dubious legitimacy because of Casimir's bigamy. Because all of the five children he fathered with his first and fourth wife were daughters, Casimir left no lawful male heir to his throne.
When Casimir, the last Piast king of Poland, died in 1370 from an injury received while hunting, his nephew King Louis I of Hungary succeeded him to become king of Poland in personal union with Hungary.
Kazimierz
Kazimierz (Latin: Casimiria; Yiddish: קוזמיר Kuzimyr) is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. Since its inception in the fourteenth century to the early nineteenth century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, located south of Kraków Old Town and separated by a branch of the Vistula river. For many centuries, Kazimierz was a place of coexistence and interpenetration of ethnic Polish and Jewish cultures, its north-eastern part of the district was historic Jewish, whose Jewish inhabitants were forcibly relocated in 1941 by the German occupying forces into the Krakow ghetto just across the river in Podgórze. Today Kazimierz is one of the major tourist attractions of Krakow and an important center of cultural life of the city.
The boundaries of Kazimierz are defined by an old island in the Vistula river. The northern branch of the river (Stara Wisła – Old Vistula) was filled-in at the end of the 19th century during the partitions of Poland and made into an extension of ul. Stradomska Street connecting Kazimierz district with Kraków Old Town.
Three early medieval settlements are known to have existed on the island defining Kazimierz. The most important of these was the pre-Christian Slavic shrine at Skałka (“the rock”) at the western, upstream tip of the island. This site, with its sacred pool, was later Christianised as the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in the 11th century and was the legendary site of the martyrdom of St. Stanisław. There was a nearby noble manor complex to the southeast and an important cattle-market town of Bawół, possibly based on an old tribal Slavic gród, at the edges of the habitable land near the swamps that composed the eastern, downstream end of the island. There was also a much smaller island upstream of Kazimierz known as the “Tatar Island” after the Tatar cemetery there. This smaller island has since washed away.
On 27 March 1335, King Casimir III of Poland (Kazimierz Wielki) declared the two western suburbs of Kraków to be a new town named after him, Kazimierz (Casimiria in Latin). Shortly thereafter, in 1340, Bawół was also added to it, making the boundaries of new city the same as the whole island. King Casimir granted his Casimiria location privilege in accordance with Magdeburg Law and, in 1362, ordered defensive walls to be built. He settled the newly built central section primarily with burghers, with a plot set aside for the Augustinian order next to Skałka. He also began work on a campus for the Kraków Academy which he founded in 1364, but Casimir died in 1370 and the campus was never completed.
Perhaps the most important feature of medieval Kazimierz was the Pons Regalis, the only major, permanent bridge across the Vistula (Polish: Wisła) for several centuries. This bridge connected Kraków via Kazimierz to the Wieliczka Salt Mine and the lucrative Hungarian trade route. The last bridge at this location (at the end of modern Stradomska Street) was dismantled in 1880 when the filling-in of the Old Vistula river bed under Mayor Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz made it obsolete.
Kraków - Cracovia & Kazimierz - Casmirvs in a 1493 woodcut from Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle
