Summer Refectory

The neo-Gothic portal leads from the Winter Refectory to the Summer Refectory – the most magnificent hall of the Palace. The architecture of this interior, important mainly due to the innovative radial vault supported on one central pillar, is one of the top achievements of art not only in the Teutonic state. In the Middle Ages, the Summer Refectory witnessed many important ceremonies and meetings – it served as an audience hall, where the grand master received foreign messages and distinguished guests. Today we know that the walls of the hall were painted red at the time, and the vault was covered with lush plant tendrils, painted red and green. Large areas of rectangular windows were filled with colorful stained glass windows that were lost during the last war. On the part of the northern wall and the eastern wall, figural paintings from the mid-nineteenth century, depicting several great masters and national masters of the Order, have been preserved in the blendes at the top of the walls.

On the eastern wall, next to a massive fireplace, there is a counter for serving meals, closed with a carved door designed in the 19th century, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The work of this one of the most eminent German architects in this interior is also a black and white glazed floor and the door to the High Vestibule. In the eastern wall of the room, above the fireplace, there is a stone cannonball. According to legend, a bullet hit here during the shelling of the stronghold during the siege by the troops of Władysław Jagiełło after the Battle of Grunwald.