Paweł Popiel as the Conservator of Galicia: Nationalism within a Multinational Empire

<jats:p>The beginnings of institutional and academic preservation of monuments, including the urgent problem of compiling inventories, are deeply political. This chapter analyses the role of Paweł Popiel, a conservative lawyer, politician and theorist. As a lead conservator of Western Galicia and a collaborator of Vienna’s Central Commission, he played a crucial role in developing the history of Polish art as well as in the restoration of monuments. Within the multinational Habsburg Empire, the restoration projects of the Cloth Hall and St. Mary’s Church in Kraków were central for the revaluation of monuments in terms of promoting Polish national identity.</jats:p>