Tarnów, sometimes referred to as the 'pearl of the Renaissance', was one of the most beautiful cities in Poland in the 16th century. A cathedral, an impressive Town Hall, houses of the burgers with interesting architecture and lavish murals on the external walls made an impressive mark. In the Renaissance, the city was the property of an excellent politician and military leader, Grand Commander of the Crown, Jan Tarnowski.

Situated in the centre of the market square, the Town Hall is, apart from the Cathedral, the oldest and the most remarkable of the city's historic structures. Although its beginnings reach to at least the mid-15th century, its form and décor mean that it is considered as belonging to the architecture of the Renaissance. It received its current form in the reconstruction and extension of 1567-1594 which impressed the brunt of Italian architecture on the town hall.

A compact building of brick, the town hall is crowned with a tall, bare-brick parapet wall, modelled on that of the Kraków Cloth Hall and decorated with a crenellation composed of 14 stone gargoyles and pinnacles. The tower of the town hall, which dominates the entire city, is of square cross-section in its bottommost, older section. It is cylindrical above this, and topped with a guards balcony covered with an octagonal roof. The first floor consists of two huge halls: the House of Commons and the House of the Council, reached by impressive stairs in a Renaissance staircase. Today, the town hall is used for exhibitions of the Regional Museum in Tarnów.