In the mid-16th century, the Łazienki area became part of the estates of Queen Bona Sforza, who ordered the construction of a wooden manor house with an Italian garden.

Most of the Łazienki Park buildings were originally designed in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren in the Baroque style for military commander Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, including an ornate bathing pavilion that eventually gave its name to the gardens.

[6] The picturesque garden scheme owes its emergence as its present shape and appearance mainly to the last ruler of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Stanisław August Poniatowski (Stanislaus II Augustus).

[7] In the mid-16th century, it became part of the estates of Poland's Italian-born Queen Bona Sforza,[8] who built a wooden manor house with an Italian garden on this site.

Later, the wooden manor house of Queen Anna Jagiellon stood on this spot,[8] immortalized in 1578 by the performance of the first Polish play, Dismissal of the Greek Envoys by Jan Kochanowski.

[11] He was the first to call attention to the thickly wooded area of a former animal park stretching along the foot of Ujazdów Castle where he built two garden pavilions.

The original baths designed by the renowned architect Tylman van Gameren in the Baroque style, are contained to this day within the walls of the Palace on the Isle.

At the point where it crossed the Wilanów Road, a one-storey Chinese-style summer house (subsequently dismantled in the 19th century and recently reconstructed) was erected.

The view from the Bath House to the south was closed off with a water cascade and to the north – with a stone bridge upon which a monument to King John III Sobieski stands to this day.

[18] Łazienki at that time was an important cultural centre that flourished thanks to the support of Stanislaus Augustus, a patron of the fine arts and propagator of science and learning.

In the building's blackened walls they drilled some one thousand holes to place the dynamite in order to blow it up the way they had Warsaw's Royal Castle but ultimately they were unable to do so.

This historic palace and garden complex, now situated in the city centre, performs various cultural functions and is regularly visited by a great many domestic and foreign excursions as well as Varsovians.

In translation, it states: "This house hates sorrow, loves peace, offers a bath, recommends an idyllic life and wishes to play host to honest men.

The longer, white marbled walls decorated by vertical panneaux, painted by Jan Bogumił Plersh in the style of Raphael's grotesques in the Vatican.

The classical amphitheater, inspired by ancient Greek and Roman architecture, was built on the bank of the Łazienki lake, separated by a narrow strait from its stage on a small isle.

The amphitheater and its stage provide a perfect setting on a summer evening, despite occasional noise from the swans, ducks, and especially the eerily hooting peacocks.

Flanking the building's main entrance, set off by lanterns held up by sculpted children, Monaldi's statues of Zephyr and Flora were enshrined within two smaller niches in 1777.

[13] Before the building could be completed (as originally planned) quarter-circular wings were added to either side, ending with one-storey pavilions covered with the then fashionable Chinese-style roofs.

The Old Orangery was erected in 1786–88[13] in a rectangular horseshoe shape, with the southern façade of the core structure broken up by pilasters and arcaded great windows.

The painting is set in a circular frame, beyond whose perimeters bas-relief-effect medallions bearing the likeness of the outstanding playwrights Sophocles, Shakespeare, Molière and Racine extend.

The next room contains sculptures from the latter half of the 18th century including works by Jan Jerzy Plersch, the artist's father, Franciszek Pinck and Andrzej Le Brun.

Dating from the mid-19th century are works by such artist as Paweł Maliński- the first professor of Warsaw University's Chair of Sculpture, Jakub Tatarkiewicz, Władysław Oleszczyński- an outstanding representative of the romantic school, as well as Marceli Guyski and Henryk Sattler, the son of the painter Korneli.

The building was necessary because tsar Alexander II of Russia, who purchased one of the largest in Europe collection of tropical plants from Nieborów, could not transport it to Saint Petersburg, due to climate conditions there.

Situated outside the precincts of Łazienki Park on the opposite side of Agrykola Street, this small square building is covered with a mansard roof that conceals its little upstairs rooms.

At present, since the restoration of its interior, the Hermitage serves as a venue for concerts, book promotions, meetings with authors, and other social and cultural events.

After Poland regained independence following World War I, the building served for two years as the residence of Gabriel Narutowicz before he became the first president of the resurrected Polish Republic.

The statue's execution was made easier by a rough-hewn stone block, set aside for this purpose, that had lain at the Szydłowiec quarry since Sobieski's time.

It was Krzysztof Zygmunt Pac, the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania, who erected a palatial villa at the edge of a tall escarpment for his wife,[13] Klara Izabella de Lascaris, who was an attendant at the court of Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga.

The Belvedere first underwent major reconstruction in 1819–1822 when Grand Duke Constantine, the tsarist viceroy in Russian-occupied Poland, decided to make it his residence.

Still standing are the royal salon, with a triple entrance, gardener's cottage, part of the coach-house, and the hothouse proper, where figs and pineapples were cultivated.