The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Poland will be known as the Złoty Wiek or Golden Age.

Many works of Polish Renaissance art and architecture are created, including ancient synagogues in Kraków's Jewish quarter located in the northeastern part of Kazimierz, such as the Old Synagogue.

During the reign of Casimir IV, various artists had come to work and live in Kraków, and Johann Haller had established a printing press in the city after Kasper Straube had printed the Calendarium Cracoviense, the first work printed in Poland, in 1473.

The press first publishes works in the vernacular in 1513.

A yeshiva had been established in Krakow in 1500, at which time there were an estimated twenty thousand to thirty thousand Jews living in Poland.

King Sigismund, although a devout Catholic, nevertheless grants religious freedom to Protestants, and accords religious toleration to Greek Orthodox Christians and royal protection to Jews, thereby making Poland the most tolerant state in Europe.