History of the Royal Castle, Warsaw
In the 1339 the Papal Legate in Warsaw[1] heard a case brought by the King of Poland, Kazimierz the Great, against the German Teutonic Order.
At that time a fortified town surrounded by earthen and wooden ramparts, and situated where the Royal Castle now stands, it was the seat of Trojden, Duke of Masovia.
At the end of the 13th century, during the Duke's Conrad II of Mazovia reign, the wooden-earthen gord called Smaller Manor (Latin: Curia Minor) was built.
In the middle of the 14th century the Castle Tower, whose structure up to the first storey has survived to this day, was built, while during the reign over Masovia by Duke Janusz I the Elder, the Curia Maior (Big Manor) was erected between 1407 and 1410.
[3] Following the Lublin Union (1569), by which the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - were united as a single country, Warsaw Castle was regularly the place where the parliament of the Two-Nations State met.
[2] In 1569–1572 King Zygmunt August started alterations in the Castle, the architects being Giovanni Battista di Quadro[4] and Giacopo Pario.
[2] The parliamentary character of the Curia Maior is stressed by the paintings of the facade — the coats-of-arms of Poland, of Lithuania, and of the various regions from which the delegates were elected.
Later after 1614, when Matteo Castelli[5] took the lead, the western wing was built (from today's Plac Zamkowy side) as chancelleries and a marshals office.
On 29 October 1611 in the Senator's Chamber, Tsar Vasili IV of Russia, who had been captured by the hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, paid homage to the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa.
The Polish king Sigismund III and his successors of the Vasa dynasty — Władysław IV Vasa and John II Casimir Vasa — collected many rich works of art in the castle, such as oriental fabrics, tapestries, and numerous paintings by such famous artists as Titian, Veronese, Jacopo, Leandro Bassano, Tintoretto, Palma il Giovane, Antonio Vassilacchi, Tommaso Dolabella, Guercino,[7] Guido Reni,[7] Joseph Heintz,[7] Bartholomeus Spranger,[7] Roelant Savery,[7] Rembrandt,[7] Pieter Soutman, Peter Danckerts de Rij, Peter Paul Rubens,[7] Jan Brueghel the Elder,[7] Daniel Seghers, Georg Daniel Schultz and sculptures by Giambologna, Giovanni Francesco Susini and Adriaen de Vries.
The great opera hall (double-storied, over 50m long), which existed at the Royal Castle,[5] was demolished by Swedes and Germans and rebuilt in the 1660s by King Jan Kazimierz.
[10] On 25 May 1702 the Swedes re-seized the Royal Castle in Warsaw, creating a hospital with 500 beds, and into The Chamber of Deputies and ministers’ rooms, they placed a stable.
[10] In 1707, by virtue of the peace treaty between Augustus II and Charles XII of Sweden, Russian allied troops entered Warsaw, and Tsar Peter I of Russia settled in the castle.
During the following years, between 1722 and 1723, the other castle halls were converted-under the direction of architect Joachim Daniel von Jauch, the new Senate Chamber was built, and all the furnishings moved from the old to the new location, including among others: 60 Polish provincial emblems, paneling, mouldings and lizens.
[10] On 31 May 1732, a fire broke out in the castle destroying the west elevation and part of the Zygmunt's Tower and the exterior façade sculptures, known as armature.
New plans, which were formed in 1734 and developed in 1737 by architect Gaetano Chiaveri, saw among other things, the reconstruction of the castle's façade on the Vistula side in the rococo style, which was meant to form a new so called Saxon elevation and also the conversion of the north-east part with the Altana Tower, where it was planned for 3 two-storey rysalits to be built on.
During the period of 1740-1747 the façade on the Vistula side was reconstructed in the late baroque style (architects: Gaetano Chiaveri, Carl Friedrich Pöppelmann, Jan Krzysztof Knöffel).
The last reconstruction work of this period was finished by late 1763, after the death of Augustus III, when Plersch made the last sculptures and frames with province emblems for the Parliament Hall.
He recruited first-rate architects such as Jakub Fontana, Merlini, Kamsetzer, and Kubicki, to work on the castle, as well as splendid painters such as Marcello Bacciarelli, Bernardo Bellotto (otherwise known as Canaletto), Franciszek Smuglewicz, Kazimierz Wojniakowski, and Jean-Baptiste Pillement and eminent sculptors such as André le Brun and Jakub Monaldi, and famous French artists such as the architect Victor Louis.
During 1766–1785 on the basis of Jakub Fontana's plans,[3] the southern wing of the castle, which was burnt on 15 December 1767 was rebuilt (2 destroyed floors, a new elevation on the south side with three rysalits, the division of the façade by lizens and Jon capital pilasters).
[4] These rooms contained pictures and sculptures depicting great events in Poland's history, as well as portraits of Polish kings, generals, statesmen and scholars (including Copernicus and Adam Naruszewicz).
Here in 1807 he made the decision to form a Warsaw duchy, which was to be ruled by the Saxon prince Frederick August I, using the Royal castle as his residence.
Prince Józef Poniatowski, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army and Marshal of France, resided in the Copper-Roof Palace joined to the Castle.
During the November Uprising, on 25 January 1831, the Sejm debating in the castle dethroned Tsar of Russia, Nicholas I as Polish king.
Paskievich charged Ludvik Corio – a Russian Colonel and architect – with designing new elevations and facades (the west, south and east parts).
In 1890 the Saxon Elevation was rebuilt under the supervision of a builder January Kiślański, when the arcades of both viewing galleries, dating back to the August III period, were deformed.
The roof and the turrets were destroyed by fire (they were partly restored by the Castle's staff, but later deliberately removed by the Germans).
The great service done to Poland by Professor Stanisław Lorentz, in leading this campaign to save the castle's treasures, is well known.
Volkshalle) or an equally sizable Congress Hall of NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party - ger.
This was a cartouche with the royal version of the motto of the Order of the White Eagle — "PRO FIDE, LEGE ET REGE" (for Faith, Law, and the Nation - literally translated, the last word means a herd).
