Pilzno was burned twice. First in 1474, during the Polish – Hungarian war, and then in 1498, during a Tatar raid. The painting was destroyed in 1474, and ca. 1500, it was re-created, by a German artist Lazarus Gertner. At that time, Pilzno was one of the most important towns of southeastern Lesser Poland. Several artisans of different skills were active here, and town council profited from tolls collected for crossing the bridge over the Wisłoka. There were fairs which attracted a number of people, and local merchants traded with merchants from Hungary, buying from them Hungarian wines, which were very popular in Poland. Due to its Magdeburg rights charter, Pilzno has a medieval town square, in the middle of which there was a town hall, which does not exist now. Apart from parish church, Pilzno had a second church, founded by King Jagiełło, and built in 1403. On March 18, 1657, troops of Transilvanian Prince George II Rakoczi, together with their Cossack allies, attacked Pilzno, plundering the town and burning it to the ground. Like in virtually all towns and cities of Lesser Poland, the Deluge had a disastrous impact on Pilzno. Furthermore, there were several epidemics (1641, 1652, 1665, 1675), which decimated town’s population. In 1772, when Pilzno was annexed by the Habsburg Empire (see Partitions of Poland), it had 82 houses. Its historic town hall was in such a bad shape that it was demolished in 1774. Pilzno remained part of Galicia until late autumn of 1918. In the mid-19th century, when the Galician Railway of Archduke Charles Louis was built, it was designed to be some north of the town, and as a result, Pilzno failed to develop. Also, the area of Pilzno was a center of the Galician slaughter. In 1869, Pilzno County was re-created. In the late 19th century, town’s market square was paved, the complex of a high school was built, and in 1914, the population of the town was 2,400, with a significant Jewish minority, which made one-third of residents and which owned most local stores. During World War I Pilzno was occupied by Russians from September 1914 to May 1915. The Russians were driven away on May 6, 1915, and on November 1, 1918, Pilzno became independent, when local civil servants destroyed Austrian symbols. In 1931, the seat of the county was moved to Ropczyce (later to Dębica), despite protests of