Palace and Court Architecture in the Present Lublin Voivodeship in the 16th and 17th Centuries: Outline of the Issues

Abstract

At the end of the 15^th century, a new system of land estate management in the form of a manor house was introduced in what is now the Lublin Voivodeship. The nobility and magnates who owned the landed estates began to transform their medieval fortified manors in line with Renaissance trends. The popular two-storey, single-bay tower manors were extended by adding extreme living quarters. Over time, side alcoves were added to the tower manors, between which arcaded loggias were erected. There were also transformations of single-storey manor houses, to which side alcoves were added. The course of change in manor forms continued through the 17^th century. In the 16^th century, in the area of the present-day Lublin Voivodeship, the process of transforming old castles and building new palaces began. In the first half of this century, there was a Renaissance reconstruction of the Firlej palace in Dąbrowica, and in Lubartów a palace of Mikołaj Firlej with Renaissance features was built. Italian architects were employed to work on these buildings. Santi Gucci built for Andrzej Firlej a residential wing in the Mannerist style in the castle of the Firlej family in Janowiec. A Mannerist building was the palace of Jan Zamoyski in Zamość, designed by Bernardo Morando. Mannerist and early baroque elements were present in the representative gallery of the palace in Dąbrowica, the model for which should be sought in the tradition of Venetian architecture, and built by builders from the Lublin guild. The villa of Bishop Henryk Firlej in Czemierniki had a Palladian layout, as did the Radziwiłłs’ palace in Biała Podlaska, built by Paweł Negroni. In the second half of the 17^th century, Baroque dominated residential architecture, whose representative was Tylman of Gameren. For the Lubomirski family, the architect carried out construction works in Janowiec and Lubartów. Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski commissioned Tylman to build a Baroque residence in Puławy, with an unusual architectural form and sculptural decoration with allegorical and mythological themes. Between the 16^th and 17^th centuries, in the area of the present-day Lublin Voivodeship, a gradual transition could be observed in manorial architecture from the forms of medieval castles and defensive mansions to comfortable dwellings. This was also the time of the appearance of palaces modelled on modern European architecture, especially Italian.