The present-day Gothic church comes from 15th century (circa 1445). It was raised in place of a wooden church having existed before the town was given municipal rights in 1253, founded by duchess Grzymisława – Boleslaus the Chaste’s mother, and instead of a later bricked structure which burnt down in a great fire in Bochnia in 1440.
The main altar with the painting of St. Nicolas comes from 1772 and was created by Piotr Kornecki. There are Baroque stalls with pictures illustrating St. John the Baptist’s and St. Stanislaus’s lives. The interior contains a Gothic St. Kinga chapel with wall paintings and a neo-Gothic altar with a picture of the saint painted by Władysław Rossowski in 1893 on the base of Jan Matejko’s sketch, the God Mother of Rosary chapel erected in 1778 on the model of the Marian chapel in the Dominicans’ church, St. Anthony altar with a Renaissance relief of St. Jack and many others. Outside just next to the Basilica there is a campanile (a reconstruction - the real one from 16th century burnt down in 1987). In 1999 Pope John Paul II gave the parish the title of Basilica the Smaller.
