Coat of Arms
The coat of arms of Nowy Targ should be considered strictly with the related sphragistic (seal) material in the form of iconographic representations imprinted on paper or wax.
The city's coat of arms originated from its original seal and was a symbol of municipal self-government, thus serving as a representative and proprietary sign, as well as a distinctive mark.
The heraldic seal was inseparably connected with documents produced in the municipal chancery, making the document credible. A document without a seal was invalid.
The seal of Nowy Targ was a heraldic seal, meaning it had (in its central part) an image of a coat of arms in the form of a religious symbol, namely the figure of St. Catherine, the patroness of the Nowy Targ parish church (the fair and indulgence were held on November 25th).
The second element making up the coat of arms was the inscription, in other words seal legend, usually placed around the central field of the seal or semi circularly around the image.
Saint Catherine depicted on the seal of Nowy Targ was St. Catherine of Alexandria (d. 307), as according to legend, she was born in Alexandria, Egypt. As the daughter of King Cursors, she received a thorough education in all fields of knowledge, including advanced studies in philosophy. As a result, she abandoned paganism and became a Christian. She was also renowned for her beauty. When the pagan emperor Maxentius demanded that she make sacrifices to the gods, she refused, defending her faith and the existence of one God. She was then imprisoned, and 50 philosophers (grammarians, scholars, and rhetoricians) tried to persuade her to return to paganism and refute her arguments. However, Catherine proved the truth of her faith. Enraged, the emperor sentenced her to cruel torture, starvation, and ultimately ordered her to be placed on a wheel covered with spikes and finally executed (beheaded). The cult of St. Catherine spread throughout the Christian world, reaching Poland from Western Europe in the early 14th century.
Source studies included the oldest impressions of the city's coat of arms, taking into account centuries of heritage in the form of historical records from the oldest, dating back to 1404, to 1938.
From the collected material, it appears that the coat of arms of Nowy Targ was indeed the aforementioned figure of St. Catherine of Alexandria. As can be seen on the sequentially preserved coats of arms, there were minor differences in the style of the tools, their shape, resulting from the specific drawing fashion or custom of the era in which the seal stamp was made.
Differences and changes also occurred in the legend, that is, the lettering of inscriptions; initially, inscriptions were in Latin in Gothic majuscules (capital letters), then in majuscule-minuscle (large and small letters, e.g., S civium novi FORI), Renaissance minuscules, in German, and Polish. Seals were not always precisely made, depending on the engraver's skill, who sometimes inaccurately drew the emblem he saw on the hard metal stamp, not always managing to perform the task at the highest woodcarving level.
Among the preserved seal images, an excellent illustration is the colorful coat of arms of the city preserved on a document from 1801 (kept in the State Archive in Nowy Targ under the signature NT 29). It depicts, on a blue background, the figure of St. Catherine standing on a gold pedestal in a white dress, belted with a red sash, with a purple cloak lined with ermine draped over her shoulders. She has a three-leaf crown in a halo of sanctity (gold color) on her head, holding a green palm in her left hand and a lowered sword in her right against the background of part of a wheel (3/4 of the wheel, gold color). At the bottom, under the pedestal, is a white eagle facing right.
According to the authorities of Polish heraldry, including Prof. Marian Gumowski and Prof. Zbigniew Perzanowski, who represent a view consistent with Polish tradition and custom, the color scheme was determined according to the basic heraldic principle: blue background, figure of St. Catherine in a white dress with a red belt and clad in a purple (red) cloak, halo of sanctity and three-leaf crown in gold (yellow), sword blade in silver (white), sword hilt in gold (yellow), wheel or its part in gold (yellow), palm in green.
Such presented and discussed considerations supported by source material include basic heraldic conventions that should be considered and applied in the current design of the Nowy Targ city coat of arms, namely:
1. Religious motif depicting the figure of St. Catherine of Alexandria with her inseparable attributes of sanctity, reflecting elements from her life:
- Sword and palm: symbolized martyrdom and fame of martyrdom,
- Belt on the dress: purity and abstinence,
- Crown on the head: symbolized reward and dignity as well as royal majesty,
- Halo of sanctity: recognized by the Christian Church as a holy martyr,
- Wheel: endurance and eternity.
2. Color scheme according to heraldic conventions: colors: blue (background), white-silver, yellow-gold, green, red (purple).
3. The inscription should be simple and natural: NOWY TARG CITY - whereas the inscription “Królewskie wolne miasto Nowy Targ” ("Royal Free City of Nowy Targ") is an uncritical copy of the seal from the years 1869-1918 and comes from the period of Habsburg captivity.
The image of the coat of arms, supported by the study of history, tradition, and historical sources, constitutes an authentic symbol of the city and a unique distinguishing mark.