RUINS OF KRZYŻTOPÓR CASTLE SEEN FROM THE WEST

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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hen we ad­mire the pic­turesque ru­ins of Krzyż­to­pór Cas­tle, it is hard to be­lieve that this mag­nif­i­cent build­ing, which was the largest res­i­dence in Eu­rope be­fore the cre­ation of Ver­sailles, func­tioned in its full glo­ry for on­ly eleven years! It was the mag­num opus of the San­do­mierz cham­ber­lain and lat­er the voi­vode Krzy­sztof Os­so­liń­ski, coat of arms To­pór (d. 1645), who, af­ter gain­ing wealth from mil­i­tary de­liv­er­ies, built a res­i­dence more splen­did than any oth­er mag­nate palaces, in­clud­ing the cas­tle in Os­so­lin, which be­longed to his step­broth­er Je­rzy Os­so­liń­ski (d. 1650). The idea for this pro­ject came from the owner's pas­sion for Ital­ian ar­chi­tec­ture, and its archetype is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered to be the Vil­la Far­nese, the pen­tagon-shaped sum­mer res­i­dence of Car­di­nal Alle­san­dro Far­nese.

BASTION "SMOK (DRAGON)" IN THE EASTERN PART OF THE CASTLE FORTIFICATIONS

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he con­struc­tion work, whose to­tal cost is es­ti­mat­ed at a 30 mil­lion zlo­tys, be­gan in 1620 and has been con­tin­ued un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the ar­chi­tect Lau­retius de Sente un­til 1644. Ac­cord­ing to some his­to­ri­ans, de Sente was al­so re­spon­si­ble for the ar­chi­tec­tural de­sign of the palace, but the lack of oth­er sim­i­lar con­cepts in his bi­og­ra­phy leads to the con­clu­sion that he was en­trust­ed on­ly with the su­per­vi­so­ry work, while the au­thor of the con­cepts and plans was some­one else. It is pos­si­ble that the founder him­self was the cre­ator or at least co-de­sign­er of the pro­ject - Os­so­liń­ski had ap­pro­pri­ate ed­u­ca­tion and shown some lit­er­ary and artis­tic tal­ents. He may al­so have been as­sist­ed by Ital­ian ar­chi­tects Matea Cas­tel­lo of Me­li­de and Ago­stin Loc­ci the El­der.

BRIDGE AND RUINED GATE ON WATERCOLOUR BY ZYGMUNT VOGEL, THE END OF THE XVIII CENTURY

DRAWING BY WOJCIECH GERSON FROM AROUND 1860

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on­struc­tion work be­gan with lev­el­ling the ter­rain and lay­ing sol­id foun­da­tions - ac­cord­ing to leg­end, some of this work was done by Turk­ish and Ta­tar pris­on­ers of war. The cas­tle walls were built of quartzite sand­stone and dolo­mite, while the bricks need­ed for fin­ish­ing were man­u­fac­tured from near­by clay de­posits. The in­ves­tment was ba­si­cal­ly com­plet­ed in 1644, as sug­gest­ed by the in­scrip­tion on the walls. It seems, how­ev­er, that some work on the façade, in­te­ri­or dec­o­ra­tion and gar­den de­sign took much longer, so the founder prob­a­bly didn't live to see the full boom of his work - be­cause he died in Febru­ary 1645. A year ear­li­er he gave Krzyż­to­pór to his on­ly son Krzysz­tof Bald­win (d. 1649) as a gift on the oc­ca­sion of his wed­ding with Te­re­sa Tar­ło (d. 1648). Krzysz­tof Bald­win didn't live here very long, be­cause al­ready four years af­ter his fa­ther's death he was killed by the Ta­tars in the bat­tle of Zbo­rów. His body was nev­er found.

VIEW OF THE PALACE ON OLSZYŃSKI'S DRAWING FROM THE MID-XIXTH CENTURY AND THE PRESENT STATE

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he cas­tle was in­her­it­ed by his un­cle Je­rzy Os­so­liń­ski, Grand Crown Chan­cel­lor, who died of a stroke in 1650. Af­ter him, the es­tate was tak­en o­ver by his daugh­ter Ur­szu­la Bry­gi­da and her hus­band Sa­mu­el Je­rzy Ka­li­now­ski (d. 1652), the son of the Lithua­ni­an prin­cess He­le­na Ko­rec­ka. How­ev­er, the curse hang­ing o­ver the own­ers of the palace was felt again, and on­ly two years lat­er Ka­li­now­ski died fight­ing with the Cos­sacks at the Bat­tle of Ba­toh. In Oc­to­ber 1655, when Krzyż­to­pór was prob­a­bly in the hands of the Wiś­nio­wiec­ki fam­i­ly, Swedish troops un­der the com­mand of Gen­er­al Ro­bert Dou­glas (d. 1662) en­tered the cas­tle. Here the Swedes ar­ranged a com­fort­able quar­ters, where the re­gion­al gov­er­nor Jo­hann von Es­sen (d. 1661) was sta­tioned with a group of 400 re­it­ers. Two years lat­er King Carl Gus­tav vis­it­ed Ujazd and per­son­al­ly ad­mired its mon­u­men­tal walls while wait­ing for a meet­ing with Prince of Tran­syl­va­nia Rá­kó­czi Györ­­gy: Here His Roy­al High­ness, as he was in­spect­ing the beau­ti­ful cas­tle Krzyż­to­pór, re­ceived a mes­sage that the Prince of Tran­syl­va­nia, Rákó­czi, was ready to come to kiss the roy­al hand. The res­i­dence al­so made a great im­pres­sion on Erik Dahl­berg, the quar­ter­mas­ter of the Swedish army and a bril­liant draughts­man, who drew a sketch of Krzyż­to­pór and ac­com­pa­nied it with a com­ment El­e­gan­tis­si­ma iet bene mu­ni­ta arx, which can be trans­lat­ed as The most beau­ti­ful and well for­ti­fied stronghold.

PLAN OF THE CASTLE BY ERIK DAHLBERG, SAMUEL PUFENDORF "DE REBUS A CAROLO GUSTAVO GESTIS", 1656

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he Swedes left Krzyż­topór in the au­tumn of 1657, but be­fore that they robbed it of its valu­able fur­nish­ings, dec­o­ra­tions and rich book col­lec­tion. De­spite con­sid­er­able dev­as­ta­tion, the build­ing was still in­hab­it­ed, first by the Wi­śnio­wiec­ki fam­i­ly, and in 1720 it was set­tled by the Mor­sztyn fam­i­ly of Le­li­wa coat of arms. None of the sub­se­quent own­ers of Ujazd had nei­ther the will nor the funds for ren­o­va­tion of the huge palace, so it slow­ly be­gan to col­lapse. In the mid­dle of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry Jan Mi­chał Pac (d. 1787), Goz­da­wa coat of arms, re­stored the south­ern part of the res­i­dence, which he used for ac­com­mo­da­tion. He even made some of the cas­tle's cham­bers avail­able to the par­tic­i­pants of the Bar Con­fed­er­a­tion, how­ev­er, af­ter the fall of this up­ris­ing he quick­ly left for France leav­ing the build­ing dev­as­tat­ed and burnt out as a re­sult of bat­tles with the Rus­sians.

CASTLE ON A DRAWING BY ALFRED SCHOUPPE, 1860

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n con­se­quence, at the end of the cen­tu­ry Krzyż­to­pór was just a beau­ti­ful, ma­jes­tic ru­in. Af­ter Michał Pac's de­par­ture for Ma­rain­ville in France (where he bought a cas­tle and lived), in 1782 the Ujazd es­tate was pur­chased by the Bish­op of Kra­ków, Ka­je­tan Igna­cy Soł­tyk (d. 1788), and be­queathed to his rel­a­tive Sta­ni­sław Soł­tyk (d. 1833), a Crown Cham­ber­lain. In 1810, Sta­ni­sław Soł­tyk pre­sent­ed Krzyż­topór as a gift to his daugh­ter, Kon­stan­cja née Soł­tyk Łem­pic­ka (d. 1836), wife of Lud­wik Sta­ni­sław Łem­pic­ki (d. 1871). The Łem­pic­ki fam­i­ly, al­though very wealthy, did not in­tend to car­ry out any con­struc­tion works here, con­sid­er­ing the ru­ins as a ro­man­tic at­trac­tion.

VIEW FROM SOUTH-EAST, NAPOLEON ORDA'S LITHOGRAPH FROM THE 1870S

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he last pre-war own­ers of the cas­tle were mem­bers of the Orset­ti fam­i­ly, who bought it in 1858 and kept it un­til 1944, while they lived in the near­by manor house. At that time the ru­in was used sev­er­al times as a place of de­fence or shel­ter dur­ing bat­tles fought in the area. Af­ter the out­break of the Jan­uary Up­ris­ing (1863) one hun­dred par­ti­sans hid there from the Rus­sian. Dur­ing World War I the in­hab­i­tants of the manor found refuge in the ru­ins from the bat­tles tak­ing place in the vicin­i­ty. Dur­ing the Ger­man oc­cu­pa­tion, mean­while, the par­ti­san troop "Ję­dru­sie" test­ed weapons in the base­ment of the cas­tle, where­as the in­hab­i­tants of the vil­lage tried to sur­vive the So­vi­et of­fen­sive wait­ing for the end of the front fights. In late 1944, the ru­ins were used as food ware­hous­es for the Red Army as part of a huge lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port be­fore a ma­jor of­fen­sive on Ger­many. Af­ter the war Krzyż­to­pór was na­tion­al­ized. Lat­er, var­i­ous plans and pro­jects for its de­vel­op­ment were put for­ward, in­clud­ing full re­con­struc­tion and more mod­est con­cepts fo­cus­ing on per­ma­nent pro­tec­tion of the ru­ins and their adap­ta­tion for tourism. To­day we know that the sec­ond op­tion was cho­sen, al­though the (at least par­tial) re­con­struc­tion of this beau­ti­ful mon­u­ment is still an open ques­tion.

SOUTH-WESTERN ELEVATION OF THE CASTLE ON A VERY OLD PHOTOGRAPH FROM 1872 AND A CONTEMPORARY VIEW

BASTION "WYSOKI RONDEL" IN THE NORTHERN PART OF THE CASTLE, PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE 1930S AND 2020

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he pen­tag­o­nal cas­tle rep­re­sents the rare in Poland type called palaz­zo in fortez­za, a mag­nate res­i­dence com­bin­ing so­phis­ti­cat­ed presen­table fea­tures with a de­fen­sive func­tion. Its shape was in­spired by the Far­nese car­di­nal res­i­dence built in Cap­ra­ro­la, Italy, and, as I men­tioned ear­li­er, at the time of com­ple­tion it was the largest build­ing of its kind in Eu­rope. A palace, out­build­ings and bas­tion-type for­ti­fi­ca­tions cov­ered an area of about 1.3 hectares, and the cu­ba­ture of all premis­es was 70,000 cu­bic me­ters. Os­so­liń­ski's pas­sion for the mag­ic of num­bers, mys­te­ri­ous sym­bols and as­trol­o­gy prob­a­bly had a great in­flu­ence on the lay­out and spa­tial ar­range­ment of the palace build­ing, which, ac­cord­ing to tra­di­tion, was to have 4 tow­ers, 12 halls, 52 cham­bers and 365 win­dows - ana­log­i­cal­ly to the num­ber of sea­sons, months, weeks and days in the cal­en­dar year (how­ev­er, re­search did not con­firm such reg­u­lar­i­ty, e.g. there were cer­tain­ly few­er halls). The main dec­o­ra­tion of the cas­tle gate are two mas­sive bas-re­liefs, which gave the name to the place: the Cross (Krzyż) sym­bol­iz­ing the counter-re­for­ma­tion views of Os­so­liń­ski and the Axe (To­pór) coat of arms. The gate tow­er is topped by a quadri­lat­er­al storey with the re­mains of clock faces on each side. It ac­cen­tu­at­ed the en­trance to the cas­tle, rais­ing the sta­tus of the res­i­dence and dis­tin­guish­ing it from oth­er aris­to­crat­ic seats.

SOUTH-EASTERN ELEVATION OF THE CASTLE WITH A GATE TOWER (CLOCK TOWER), IN 1937 AND AT PRESENT

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he com­po­si­tion­al ax­is of the cas­tle is formed by the mu­tu­al ar­range­ment of the en­trance gate, the el­lip­ti­cal court­yard and the cen­tral bas­tion with an oc­tag­o­nal tow­er, called Wy­so­ki Ron­del. The axis cuts in half the sym­met­ri­cal body of the palace wing, which refers to an­cient Ro­man ar­chi­tec­ture. The façade of this build­ing is dec­o­rat­ed with re­cur­ring mo­tifs of a tri­umphal arch with re­cess­es that years ago housed the im­ages of Krzysz­tof Os­so­liń­ski's an­ces­tors and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of fam­i­lies re­lat­ed to him. The three-storey palace was com­ple­ment­ed by the high wing topped with an oc­tag­o­nal tow­er, built at the place where a lo­cal lit­tle spring called Krzyż­to­po­żan­ka flows out. A large vault­ed tun­nel led to it from the el­lip­ti­cal court­yard, above which there were two rep­re­sen­ta­tive halls - the din­ing hall on the sec­ond floor, and the ball­room o­ver it.

ONE OF THE CASTLE'S OUTBUILDINGS, BEFORE AND AFTER RECONSTRUCTION

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wo-storey, one-bay side wings (out­build­ings) ad­join the palace on both sides, form­ing a com­plex pen­tag­o­nal lay­out with two small and one large trape­zoidal court­yard. Their ends are crowned with four quadri­lat­er­al tow­ers, high­er than the side wings by one storey, thanks to which per­fect­ly em­pha­size reg­u­lar­i­ty of the whole com­po­si­tion. The above-ground part of the out­build­ings con­tained util­i­ty rooms and ser­vants' quar­ters, while their cel­lars housed the sta­bles, which, ac­cord­ing to local tra­di­tion, were equipped with mar­ble mangers and crys­tal mir­rors in or­na­ment­ed frames to il­lu­mi­nate the gloomy in­te­ri­ors. The com­pli­cat­ed spa­tial lay­out of the Os­so­liń­ski res­i­dence was sup­ple­ment­ed by the - once rich, now pre­served on­ly in frag­ments - decor of the in­te­ri­ors and the cas­tle el­e­va­tions ac­cent­ed with win­dow open­ings of var­i­ous sizes and forms.

THE FORMER STABLES IN THE LOWER STOREY

SOUTHERN ELEVATION OF THE BAROQUE PALACE

VIEW OF THE PALACE FROM THE NORTHWEST, IN THE FOREGROUND THERE IS AN OCTAGONAL TOWER

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he for­ti­fi­ca­tion line was formed by an earth­work built on a pen­tag­o­nal plan. It was linked by five bas­tions: Sza­ry Mnich (der gra­we Munch), Smok (der Dra­che), Ko­ro­na (die Croone), Oto dla Cie­bie (Siehe dich fuhr) and Wy­so­ki Ron­del (das hohe Ron­del). The bas­tions are filled with earth, ex­cept Wyso­ki Ron­del, which is equipped with case­mates con­tain­ing two lev­els of gun win­dows. On the top of the em­bank­ment there was a ram­part path and brick para­pets with over­watch po­si­tions, from where the whole fore­ground could be ef­fec­tive­ly fired. The 600 me­ter long line of stone and earth for­ti­fi­ca­tions was sur­round­ed by a dry moat. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the out­side pro­vid­ed an ar­cad­ed sin­gle-span stone bridge and con­nect­ed with it a wood­en draw­bridge.

STARTING FROM THE LEFT WE SEE THE BASTIONS: "WYSOKI RONDEL", "KORONA" AND "SZARY MNICH"

PLAN OF THE CASTLE: 1. CLOCK TOWER, 2. MAIN COURTYARD, 3. OVAL COURTYARD, 4. PALACE,
5. OCTAGONAL TOWER, 6. OUTBUILDINGS, 7. ECONOMIC COURTYARDS, 8. 'SMOK' BASTION, 9. 'OTO DLA CIEBIE' BASTION,
10. 'WYSOKI RONDEL' BASTION, 11. 'KORONA' BASTION, 12. 'SZARY MNICH' BASTION

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CASTLE AND ITS MODEL. ORIGIN WIKIPEDIA, LICENSE: [GNU FDL]

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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owa­days Krzyż­topór is a pic­turesque ru­in lost among the fields of Opa­tów, far from the main roads and tourist trails. It is the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive build­ing in the San­domierz re­gion and the largest for­ti­fied mag­nate res­i­dence in Poland. De­spite de­struc­tion that has tak­en place here since the cas­tle was aban­doned, the spa­tial lay­out of the ru­ins is still sur­pris­ing­ly clear. As much as 90 per­cent of its walls have sur­vived, but un­for­tu­nate­ly on­ly 10 per­cent of its vaults. What is very im­por­tant, the build­ing has nev­er been re­built ac­cord­ing to new trends in ar­chi­tec­ture, so we can ad­mire it in al­most its orig­i­nal shape, not af­fect­ed by lat­er changes. In many places you can still see the rem­nants of sgraf­fi­to and stone de­tails rep­re­sent­ing the orig­i­nal dec­o­ra­tion of win­dows and por­tals. The cas­tle was opened to tour­ists in 1991.

REMAINS OF THE CASTLE ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

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he cas­tle can be vis­it­ed in­di­vid­u­al­ly or with a guide, at cer­tain times night tours are al­so pos­si­ble. The tourist of­fer in­cludes sev­er­al sight­see­ing routes, but choos­ing one of them does not mean giv­ing up the at­trac­tions of the oth­ers. These routes can be freely com­bined and crossed with each oth­er, and the on­ly re­stric­tion here is the obli­ga­tion to move in a strict­ly de­fined di­rec­tion: one-way traf­fic is re­quired. You won't find any ex­hi­bi­tions or fur­nish­ings at the cas­tle - it's worth know­ing this in ad­vance to avoid dis­ap­point­ment. In fact, we see on­ly naked walls, but their size, form and state of preser­va­tion is al­ready quite an at­trac­tion and the lack of equip­ment in the un­der­ground and cel­lars is even a cer­tain ad­van­tage, mak­ing them more gloomy and mys­te­ri­ous (it's worth tak­ing a flash­light to the un­der­ground!). Vis­i­tors have ac­cess to halls and rooms up to the height of the sec­ond floor, sta­bles and cel­lars, as well as the crown of de­fen­sive walls, where a sep­a­rate walk­ing route has been marked out.

EXPLORING THE KRZYŻTOPÓR CASTLE: THE OVAL COURTYARD, IN THE TUNNEL LEADING TO THE TOWER, THE OUTBUILDINGS

Admission to the castle is paid.

You cannot enter the ruins with a dog. The entrance is only for guide ani­mals be­long­ing to dis­abled people.

The ru­in looks rather in­con­spic­u­ous from the street per­spec­tive, losing much of its charm. The full majesty of the cas­tle can on­ly be seen when ob­serv­ing it from the air. It is not dif­fi­cult, be­cause there is a lot of free space around, es­pe­cial­ly on the side of the for­mer gar­dens, where there are now on­ly mead­ows and fields. Flights di­rect­ly o­ver the ru­in re­quire man­ag­er's per­mis­sion.

RUIN OF THE DINING HALL IN THE MAIN PART OF THE PALACE

IN THE CASTLE TOWER

GETTING THERE

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he cas­tle is sit­u­at­ed by road no. 758 con­nect­ing Iwa­ni­ska with Kli­mon­tów, about 15 km south­west of Opa­tów. The vil­lage is reached by bus, but rarely, so it is not worth count­ing on it. The best way to vis­it Ujazd is by in­di­vid­u­al trans­port.

Two park­ing lots are lo­cat­ed di­rect­ly next to the ru­ins: the first one by the south­west cur­tain wall (en­trance di­rect­ly from road 758) and the sec­ond one, small­er but paved, a bit east of the cas­tle. Park­ing is free (2020).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. R. Jurkowski: Zamki świętokrzyskie, Wydawnictwo CM 2017
2. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
3. T. Kuls: Krzyżtopór, Zabytki Heritage nr 3/2006
4. J. Myjak: Opatów i okolice. Zamek Krzyżtopór w Ujeździe, PAIR 2008
5. A. R. Sypek: Zamki i warownie ziemi sandomierskiej, TRIO 2003
6. A. Wagner: Murowane budowle obronne w Polsce X-XVIIw., Bellona 2019

KRZYŻTOPÓR, VIEW FROM THE WEST

DUCKWEED-COVERED KRZYŻTOPOŻANKA FLOWING OUT OF "WYSOKI RONDEL"

Castles nearby:
Konary - relics of the knight's castle from the 14th century, 8 km
Tudorów - relics of the knight's castle from the 14th century, 15 km
Ossolin - relics of the aristocratic castle from the 17th century, 18 km
Ptkanów - the fortified church from the 14th century, 18 km
Rembów - relics of the knight's castle from the 14th century, 20 km
Międzygórz - relics of the royal castle from the 14th century, 25 km
Rytwiany - relics of the knight's castle from the 14th century, 31 km
Kurozwęki - the knights' castle from the 14th century, rebuilt in the Baroque style, 33 km
Szydłów - ruins of the royal castle from the 14th century, 34 km

text: 2014, 2021
photographs: 2008, 2018, 2020
© Jacek Bednarek