THE ROYAL CASTLE IN POZNAŃ (REBUILT), VIEW FROM THE SOUTH

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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n the first cen­turies of our state, the town of Poz­nań de­vel­oped on the right bank of the War­ta Riv­er, close to the for­ti­fied seat of the prince, formed in the 10th cen­tu­ry in the north-west­ern part of the cathe­dral is­land. The old­est wood­en cas­tle was re­peat­ed­ly de­stroyed and re­built, and it prob­a­bly end­ed in the sec­ond half of the 13th cen­tu­ry as a con­se­quence of changes in the po­lit­i­cal-ad­min­is­tra­tive or­gan­i­sa­tion of the re­gion, as a re­sult of which the left-bank part of the river took o­ver the dom­i­nant func­tion. This domination was aided by the foundation of new town on the left bank of the War­ta River, done by Przemysł I (d. 1257) in 1253. The prince's de­ci­sion, how­ev­er, did not mean that the center of power was moved to the oth­er side of the riv­er - de­spite the for­ti­fi­ca­tion ac­tiv­i­ty un­der­tak­en on the new land and the foun­da­tion of Do­mini­can church, the main seat of the ruler pre­sum­ably still re­mained the cas­tle in right-bank Os­trów.

PLAN OF POZNAŃ IN THE XIII CENTURY WITH LEFT-BANK SETTLEMENTS EXISTING BEFORE FOUNDATION OF THE TOWN

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his, of course, does't mean, that the mons cas­tren­sis hill tow­er­ing o­ver the left bank of Poz­nań was pre­vi­ous­ly de­void of for­ti­fied build­ings. It is prob­a­ble that a small settle­ment erect­ed by Wła­dy­sław Odo­nic (d. 1239) or Hen­ryk Bro­da­ty (d. 1238) in the fourth decade of the 13th cen­tu­ry was func­tion­ing here dur­ing their war for Greater Poland. It can­not be ex­clud­ed that el­e­ments of this mod­est foun­da­tion were used lat­er to build a new cas­tle in the left-bank town of Poz­nań. How­ev­er, tak­ing in­to ac­count the re­sults of ar­chae­o­log­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal re­search, the state­ments re­lat­ing to the be­gin­nings of the cas­tle and its founder are very risky as they are main­ly based on as­sump­tions, and so far not sup­port­ed by hard his­tor­i­cal ar­gu­ments.

CASTLE HILL: ON THE LEFT THE RECONSTRUCTED PART OF THE CASTLE, ON THE RIGHT THE XVIII-CENTURY BUILDING

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emains of the tow­er and the cas­tle walls, which pre­served un­til to­day, are believed to date from the time of prince Prze­mysł II (d. 1296), who took pow­er o­ver the whole Great Poland re­gion af­ter the death of his un­cle Bo­le­sław the Pi­ous in 1279. Be­ing one of the most pow­er­ful dis­trict rulers, hav­ing as­pi­ra­tions reach­ing the roy­al crown, he need­ed to pos­sess a res­i­dence cor­re­spond­ing to his am­bi­tions and ex­pec­ta­tions. He prob­a­bly start­ed this pro­ject while his un­cle was still alive, com­bin­ing it with building the protective city walls (first doc­u­ment­ed in 1297). How­ev­er, the his­tor­i­cal re­fe­rences don't pro­vide us with any da­ta which would al­low us to rec­og­nize the con­struc­tion phas­es of the cas­tle and its ap­pear­ance dur­ing the reign of Prze­mysł. We can cer­tain­ly say, how­ev­er, that dur­ing the life of the prince and his short reign on the roy­al throne the poz­na­ni­an cas­tle was not fin­ished, and that the in­vest­ment start­ed in the sec­ond half of the 13th cen­tu­ry was con­tin­ued by his suc­ces­sors: Wa­cław II (d. 1305), Hen­ryk Gło­gow­ski (d. 1309), Wła­dys­ław Ło­kie­tek (d. 1333), and per­haps al­so Ka­zi­mierz Wiel­ki (Ca­si­mir the Great) (d. 1370).

CASTLE WALL, HERE ITS SOUTHWESTERN SECTION NEAR THE CASTLE TOWER

THE NEW PART OF THE CASTLE IS WELL VISIBLE FROM THE NORTHERN PART OF THE MARKET SQUARE

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n the 14th cen­tu­ry Poz­nań be­came the res­i­dence of the roy­al court and the are­na of many im­por­tant diplo­mat­ic and dy­nas­tic events. Con­ve­nient ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion sim­pli­fy­ing con­tacts with Ger­man Re­ich and Scan­di­navia, as well as the pres­ence of an ed­u­cat­ed group of Greater Poland dig­ni­taries made it a place where the pol­i­cy on north­ern and west­ern is­sues was re­al­ized, and diplo­mat­ic al­liances were fi­nal­ized (by wed­dings). In 1331 the gov­er­nor­ship of the Great Poland dis­trict was tak­en o­ver by Ka­zi­mierz (the Great) and al­though there are no traces of his term in this place, he vis­it­ed Poz­nań many times and al­ready as a king in 1337 he met here the Czech ruler Jan Lux­em­burg (d. 1346) in mat­ters con­cern­ing the Pol­ish-Teu­ton­ic con­flict.

CASTLE GATE, IN THE BACKGROUND WE CAN SEE THE REBUILT TOWER

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rince Kazimierz resid­ed in the Poz­nań cas­tle to­geth­er with his wife Al­dona Giedymi­nów­na (d. 1339), whom Jan Dłu­gosz wrote about: An hon­est wom­an, liv­ing in har­mo­ny with her hus­band and king, kind and char­i­ta­ble to pi­ous and poor peo­ple, but too com­mit­ted to dances, games and plea­sures [...] usu­al­ly when she was rid­ing on horse­back or in a car­riage, she was pre­ced­ed by drums, pipes and vi­o­lins, var­i­ous kinds of play­ing and singing. There­fore, to dis­gust her deeds, of which she was known in her life­time, it was said that she had de­scend­ed from the world with a pe­cu­liar and ter­ri­ble death. In 1341, the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny of Ka­zi­mierz with Ade­laide Hes­ka (d. 1371) and her coro­na­tion as Queen of Poland took place in Poz­nań. Two years lat­er, a wed­ding of king's daugh­ter El­żbie­ta with Bo­gu­sław V was held at the cas­tle, stamp­ing the al­liance with the Duchy of Słupsk, di­rect­ed main­ly against Teu­ton­ic Or­der.

IN THE CASTLE COURTYARD

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he oldest reference to the castle was a de­scrip­tion of the armed con­flict be­tween knight­ly fam­i­lies of Grzy­ma­li­ta and Na­łęcz o­ver po­lit­i­cal dom­i­na­tion in the re­gion af­ter the death of Lud­wig of Hun­gary. The civ­il war in Great Poland was end­ed when the king became Wła­dy­sław Ja­gieł­ło (d. 1434). In 1386 he ar­rived in Poz­nań, where [...] the king stops the bloody fights be­tween the Do­mara­tus of Pierzch­no and Win­cen­ty the pos­na­ni­an voivode. Jagieł­ło vis­it­ed Poz­nań at least 36 times, usu­al­ly for a short time, but at the end of his reign he stayed here for about a month. His vis­its were con­nect­ed with cycli­cal tours of the king­dom, dur­ing which he led an ac­tive in­ter­nal pol­i­cy, hosted deputies, held courts, and par­tic­i­pat­ed in court cer­e­monies. Wła­dy­sław Ja­gieł­ło was oc­ca­sion­al­ly ac­com­pa­nied by his wives: Jad­wi­ga, El­żbie­ta and Son­ka, which proves the the­sis that the size of Poz­nań cas­tle was con­sid­er­able, be­cause if nec­es­sary it had to ac­com­mo­date two courts - the king's and the queen's.

MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE 18TH CENTURY BUILDING ERECTED BY KAZIMIERZ RACZYŃSKI

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oz­nań was vis­it­ed al­so by Ka­zi­mierz Ja­giel­loń­czyk (d. 1492), the younger son of Ja­gieł­ło, the king of Poland in the years 1447-92. His vis­its of­ten had a os­ten­ta­tious char­ac­ter, be­cause he liked to trav­el with the whole court and the huge pro­ces­sion - chron­i­cles men­tion that such a courtiers could count up to 1500 peo­ple! Dur­ing the first of the roy­al vis­its in 1447, a fire broke out, cov­ered the whole town and de­stroyed al­most all the build­ings and the church of Ma­ry Mag­da­lene. In 1475 Poz­nań host­ed al­most en­tire roy­al fam­i­ly. Apart from Ka­zi­mierz and his wife El­żbie­ta Ra­ku­szan­ka, their sons ap­peared here: prince Ka­zi­mierz, then 16-year-old Jan (Ol­bracht), 14-year-old Alex­an­der, 8-year-old Zyg­munt and the youngest of the sib­lings, 7-year-old Fry­de­ryk. The broth­ers were prob­a­bly ac­com­pa­nied by two sis­ters, Zo­fia Ja­giel­lon­ka and a tiny three-year-old El­żbie­ta. The rea­son for such a large pres­ence of rul­ing fam­i­ly was the of­fi­cial farewell of the daugh­ter of Ka­zi­mierz - Jad­wi­ga Ja­giel­lon­ka, mar­ried to the mar­grave of Ba­varia, Georg der Reiche. The wed­ding of Jad­wi­ga and Georg took place in Land­shut, Ba­varia, and is still cel­e­brat­ed as the so-called Land­shu­ter Hoh­zei­ten, a color­ful fes­tival di­rect­ly re­lat­ed to this event. At that time con­di­tion of the cas­tle re­quired some in­vest­ments - ac­cord­ing to the cor­re­spon­dence of King Ja­gieł­ło, the cas­tle tow­er was in bad shape, and per­haps some walls were al­ready cracked.

CONTEMPORARY MODEL OF THE CASTLE: 1. TOWER (XXI CENTURY), 2. NEO-RENAISSANCE WING (XXI CENTURY),
3. RACZYŃSKI'S BUILDING (XVIII CENTURY), 4. BUILDING ERECTED ON THE SITE OF THE FORMER KITCHEN (XVIII/XIXTH CENTURY)

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he year 1493 was ex­cep­tion­al in the his­to­ry of roy­al vis­its to Great Poland re­gion, be­cause Jan Ol­bracht (d. 1501) spent here nine months, which made the city an in­for­mal cap­i­tal of the coun­try. The ruler stayed at the Poz­nań cas­tle from March to Novem­ber, making an ac­tive for­eign pol­i­tics, es­pe­cial­ly in the field of Turk­ish ques­tion, wel­com­ing quests from Ot­to­man Port, Vene­tian Re­pub­lic and Aus­tria. With par­tic­i­pa­tion of Lithua­ni­an and Ta­tar del­e­gates from the Vol­ga re­gion, the prob­lems of Ivan the Ter­ri­ble's aggres­sive pol­i­cy were dis­cussed, very im­por­tant for the se­cu­ri­ty of the coun­try. There was al­so a lot go­ing on in do­mes­tic pol­i­tics: a new cast of gov­er­nors and the gen­er­al gov­er­nor of Great Poland took place in Poz­nań, with the ac­tive sup­port of the king his broth­er was elect­ed as arch­bish­op of Gnie­zno, and bind­ing de­ci­sions were al­so made here to sup­ply prince Zyg­munt (the Old). The most im­por­tant and most fre­quent­ly men­tioned event that took place dur­ing Jan Ol­bracht's stay in Poz­nań was the re­ceiv­ing by him on 29 May 1493 of the feu­dal homage giv­en by the great mas­ter of Teu­ton­ic Or­der Jo­hann von Tief­fen (d. 1497). This cer­e­mo­ny was held in the hall of the roy­al cas­tle in the pres­ence of Pol­ish and Prus­sian lords, as well as the manor house and monas­tic dig­ni­taries. Kneel­ing be­fore the Pol­ish ruler and hold­ing his hands in his hands, Tief­fen took the solemn oath of al­le­giance and promised his loy­al­ty and armed par­tic­i­pa­tion in war ex­pe­di­tions.

PLAQUES EMBEDDED IN THE EASTERN WALL OF THE CASTLE COMMEMORATING IMPORTANT EVENTS IN ITS HISTORY

VIEW FROM THE CASTLE TOWER TO THE MARKET SQUARE WITH RENAISSANCE TOWN HALL,
ON THE RIGHT WE CAN SEE THE FORMER JESUIT COLLEGIUM AND PARISH CHURCH

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t the be­gin­ning of the 16th cen­tu­ry the cas­tle was in ur­gent need of ren­o­va­tion, and the nec­es­sary re­pairs were made in the years 1502-1504 on the ini­tia­tive of Am­bro­ży Pam­po­wski from Pę­po­wo (d. 1510). The bad con­di­tion of the roy­al res­i­dence is best il­lus­trat­ed by a frag­ment of the gov­er­nor's di­ary, where on Au­gust 20, 1503 he wrote that his eight-year-old daugh­ter Ka­ta­rzy­na, fol­low­ing her moth­er [...] through the cas­tle cor­ri­dor, where she could not jump over one hole, which was in the floor, fell to the ground at 8 me­ters away and im­me­di­ate­ly she died. In 1510, a diplo­mat­ic meet­ing was held at the Poz­nań cas­tle to re­solve a dis­pute be­tween the King­dom of Poland and the Teu­ton­ic Knights, who, be­ing un­der the pro­tec­torate of the mighty Ger­man princes, re­fused to pay homage and to par­tic­i­pate in Pol­ish mil­i­tary ex­pe­di­tions. They al­so de­mand­ed the re­turn of Prus­sia and Po­me­ra­nia and the in­tro­duc­tion of a ban on ad­mit­ting Poles to the Or­der. The Pol­ish side, on the oth­er hand, in­tend­ed to en­force the re­moval by the Teu­ton­ic Or­der of eco­nom­ic re­stric­tions on trade in the ter­ri­to­ries of the Reich. De­spite the pres­ence of many em­i­nent diplo­mats, bish­ops and im­pe­ri­al del­e­gates, they were ad­vised for some time with­out any clear hope of agree­ment, and fi­nal­ly depar­ted with­out achiev­ing any­thing.

VIEW TO THE NORTH FROM THE CASTLE: THE WIELKOPOLSKI SQUARE WITH A MAGNIFICENT ARCHIVE BUILDING,
IN THE DISTANCE, ON THE LEFT WE CAN SEE ST. WOJCIECH CHURCH, AND ON THE RIGHT - THE TOWERS OF POZNAŃ CATHEDRAL

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hree years lat­er, Zyg­munt (the Old, d. 1548) with his wife Bar­bara Za­pol­ya (d. 1515) and a nu­mer­ous roy­al court visited Poz­nań. He was look­ing for his nephew, grand mas­ter Al­brecht Ho­hen­zol­lern (d. 1568), from whom he ex­pect­ed to pay a fief homage, due to the king no lat­er than 6 months af­ter his elec­tion. The head of the Or­der did not come to Great Poland, how­ev­er, send­ing the bish­op of Po­me­za­nia as a deputy with a re­quest to post­pone the event to St. Mar­tin's Day (af­ter all, Ho­hen­zol­lern paid homage on­ly in 1525 in Cra­cow). Mean­while, the roy­al stay await­ed an­oth­er cul­mi­na­tion, which was the birth of prin­cess Jad­wi­ga on 13 March 1513, lat­er Bran­den­burg Mar­grave. How­ev­er, the birth place not in the Poz­nań cas­tle, but in the bish­op's palace in Os­trów Tum­s­ki, where the queen resid­ed all this time.

THE RACZYŃSKI'S BUILDING, OR RATHER ITS RECONSTRUCTION ERECTED IN THE 1960S
ON THE RIGHT: A VIEW FROM THE STAIRS AT THE FRANCISCAN MONASTERY

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ur­ing the reign of king Zygmunt (the Old), Łu­kasz Gór­ka (d. 1542), a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the rich no­bil­i­ty of Great Poland, held the post of the Gen­er­al Gov­er­nor. He was re­mem­bered by his­to­ry as a man filled with am­bi­tions to hold pow­er and of­fices, and in Great Poland re­gion he was as­so­ci­at­ed pri­mar­i­ly with the re­build­ing of the cas­tle in Sza­mo­tu­ły. Prob­a­bly in the third decade of the 16th cen­tu­ry, Gór­ka be­gan a ma­jor re­con­struc­tion of the cas­tle in Poz­nań, which he ran un­til 1535. Then he handed over the gov­er­nor­ship to his son An­drzej Gór­ka (d. 1551). A few months af­ter these events, on 2 May 1536, a fire oc­curred in Poz­nań which, apart from the town hall and part of the city, al­so de­stroyed the new­ly erect­ed cas­tle build­ings: On Tues­day, the eve of the hol­i­day of the Holy Cross, on May 2nd, when the sound of the bells called for evening prayer, a fire start­ed in a Jew­ish cor­ner of the Jew Jo­hel's house burned the right side of Wiel­ka Street, from the side of the cathe­dral church, one and a half front­ages of the mar­ket square - with the ex­cep­tion of three hous­es. The first re­con­struc­tion works of the royal cas­tle start­ed in au­tumn that year and was sup­pos­ed­ly com­plet­ed not ear­li­er than in 1553.

THE OLDEST PRESERVED VIEW OF THE CASTLE AND THE CITY FROM THE WORK "CIVITATES ORBIS TERRARUM"
BY G. BRAUN AND F. HOGENBERG, DATING FROM BEFORE 1618

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he roy­al vis­its to the Poz­nań cas­tle in the 16th and 17th cen­turies were not as fre­quent as it used to be dur­ing the Ja­giel­lons, but each time they were pre­ced­ed by some ren­o­va­tion or even clean­ing works, thanks to which the seat of the mag­is­trate's of­fice was kept in good con­di­tion. Short­ly af­ter the end of the re­nais­sance re­con­struc­tion, Zyg­munt Au­gust's sis­ter Zo­fia Ja­giel­lon­ka (d. 1575) paid a vis­it to the cas­tle. In 1556 she fol­lowed prince Hein­rich II der Jün­gere, who was mar­ried to her. In Jan­uary 1574, 23-year-old elec­tor Hen­ri de Valois trav­eled through Poz­nań from Paris to Cra­cow in order to be crowned: king en­tered Poz­nań at two o'clock in the morn­ing, vis­it­ed the parish church with a few sen­a­tors and two bish­ops, stayed there for a short time, at the end with them and with the more im­por­tant French­men he en­tered the cas­tle, being sur­round­ed by a huge crowd of peo­ple, the scream of trum­pets and can­nons, then ate din­ner.

VIEW OF THE POZNAN IN 1626, CASTLE IS LOCATED ON THE HILL ON THE RIGHT

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he town chron­i­cles al­so remember the rather un­ex­pect­ed vis­it of king Si­gis­mund III Va­sa (d. 1632) re­turn­ing to Cra­cow from a dis­tant Scan­di­na­vian jour­ney, dur­ing which he was crowned king of Swe­den. En­ter­ing in Septem­ber 1594, when it rained heavily, the ruler was greet­ed by a solemn pro­ces­sion with the gen­er­al gov­er­nor Adam Czarn­kow­ski (d. 1627) ac­com­pa­nied by the whole city coun­cil, the no­bil­i­ty of Great Poland and a crowd of in­hab­i­tants: The King was ac­com­pa­nied by sen­a­tors and no­bles in gold, sil­ver, silk and var­i­ous, and ex­pen­sive clothes, ri­val­ing each oth­er, meet­ing the King with the great­est kind­ness. King went first to the cathe­dral church and there he was con­grat­u­lat­ed with the great­est rev­er­ence. Then he went to the town via the tri­umphal arch­es and then to the cas­tle in the great­est noise and up­roar of war ma­chines. King Sigis­mund came to Poz­nań once again in 1623, when he and his wife, Kon­stan­cja Hab­sburg, as well as her chil­dren: 28-year-old prince Wła­dy­sław and tiny princess An­na Ka­ta­rzy­na Kon­stan­cja, trav­elled to Gdańsk on mil­i­tary mat­ters, vis­it­ing many cities and no­ble es­tates on the way.

CASTLE FROM THE EAST, DRAWING FROM 1656

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ur­ing the Swedish in­va­sion the cas­tle was first oc­cu­pied by the Swedish gar­ri­son and then by the Bran­den­burg army, which con­tribut­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly to dev­as­ta­tion of its in­te­ri­ors and, above all, to de­struc­tion of the mu­nic­i­pal archives and oth­er doc­u­ments. The chan­cellery was closed for some time and the no­bil­i­ty and lo­cal cler­gy, es­pe­cial­ly Je­suits, were im­pris­oned in its premis­es. These dam­ages, al­though con­si­der­able, were not serious enough to pre­vent the use of the build­ing and short­ly af­ter the Swedes left Poz­nań, Jan Ka­zi­mierz (d. 1672) and his wife Lud­wi­ka Gon­za­ga (d. 1667) set­tled in the cas­tle. Their stay last­ed on­ly un­til the time when the more com­fort­able ac­com­mo­da­tion in ren­o­vat­ed town­house was ready to re­ceive the royal guests. In the fol­low­ing years fur­ther ren­o­va­tions of the cas­tle were un­der­tak­en, but their scope was lim­it­ed main­ly to pro­tect­ing from rain and mois­ture the doc­u­ments kept there.

PLAN OF POZNAŃ ON E. DAHLBERG'S ENGRAVING FROM S. PUFENDORF'S WORK "DE REBUS A CAROLO GUSTAVO GESTIS", PO 1656
THE CASTLE MARKED WITH THE LETTER H (AT THE TOP OF THE PLAN)

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he cas­tle lost its func­tion of a roy­al seat in 1694, when for the last time it hosted a mem­ber of the roy­al fam­i­ly. Then the daugh­ter of Jan III So­bie­ski, Te­re­sa Ku­ne­gun­da, who was ac­com­pa­nied by her broth­ers on the way to her hus­band Max Wit­tel­sbach, stayed over­night for three De­cem­ber days. In 1703 Poz­nań was oc­cu­pied by Swedish troops, which, de­spite be­ing be­sieged by the Sax­on-Rus­sian army in 1704, re­mained in the cas­tle un­til 1709. The bom­bard­ment of the city, led by Jan von Pa­tku­la's ar­til­lery gun­ners, caused then a huge de­struc­tion of liv­ing quar­ters and the cas­tle it­self. The dev­as­ta­tion was al­so car­ried out by the Swedes who were hid­ing there, and lat­er by the Sax­ons who were liv­ing there, and who used the wood­en el­e­ments of the build­ing as fu­el, tore off some of the floors and tore out the win­dow bars. The pe­ri­od of the so-called Great North­ern War (1700-21), the sta­tion­ing of for­eign troops and the eco­nom­ic use of the cas­tle build­ings, as well as the lack of any in­vest­ments caused that in this short time the cas­tle in Poz­nań al­most turned in­to ru­ins.

THE SIEGE OF THE CITY BY THE RUSSIAN-SAXON ARMY IN 1704,
THE CASTLE IS SEEN ON THE HILL ON THE LEFT

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ue to the poor con­di­tion of the cas­tle, the lo­cal coun­cil al­lowed for the books to be tak­en to a pri­vate ten­e­ment house, rent­ed for this pur­pose for tax ex­emp­tion. How­ev­er, be­cause there were no oth­er al­ter­na­tives, the ar­chive was left in the cas­tle, and in one of the rooms, the bod­ies of peo­ple killed in fights were ex­posed to the pub­lic view. In 1720 the res­o­lu­tion of lo­cal gov­er­ment or­dered Mar­shal Alek­sander Go­rzeń­ski (d. 1754) to re­pair the Poz­nań cas­tle as soon as pos­si­ble for a safer con­ser­va­tion of the "ac­to­rum cas­tren­si­um", be­cause this build­ing was ru­ined and about to col­lapse. In May of the same year, a ma­jor ren­o­va­tion be­gan, which was man­aged by Jan Fry­de­ryk Vo­gel­sang, a Poz­nań bourgher. The in­vest­ment cost 13 thou­sand zlo­tys, of which o­ver 5 thou­sand were al­lo­cat­ed to pay for pro­fes­sion­als and work­ers, and the re­main­ing 8 thou­sand fi­nanced the pur­chase of huge quan­ti­ties of wood, lime, clay, sand, iron and shin­gles, as well as new win­dows, grilles, doors, fur­naces, and even quite lux­u­ri­ous equip­ment such as cop­per knobs, dec­o­ra­tive ven­ti­la­tors, flags and carved bal­ustrades.

J. RZEPECKI'S VIEW OF POZNAŃ FROM 1728 AFTER DESTRUCTION CAUSED BY WARS AND STRONG WINDS
THE CASTLE IN THE BRIGHT CIRCLE

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n 1761 the cas­tle was tak­en o­ver by the Rus­sians, who placed there the gun­pow­der store­house. The local gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed then to re­lo­cate the mu­nic­i­pal ar­chive, which was de­posit­ed in a near­by Fran­cis­can mo­na­stery. Af­ter the end of the Sev­en Years' War, in 1763 the Tax Com­mis­sion of Poz­nań made an­oth­er at­tempt to re­pair the of­fice build­ings. Car­pen­try work played a spe­cial role in it, as the cas­tle was cov­ered with roof tiles and not shin­gles, as it used to be be­fore. A small amount of 56 zlo­tys was paid to the mas­ter's of­fices for con­tracts and draw­ings, which shows that there was an ar­chi­tec­tural pro­ject. The fact that the re­pair was a pri­or­i­ty for the no­bil­i­ty of Great Poland re­gion is con­firmed by the res­o­lu­tion of the Par­lia­ment in 1764, which or­dered to with­hold all pay­ments ex­cept pay­ment for repa­ra­tions of the Poz­nań cas­tle and for con­ser­va­tion of archives, which were much need­ed. How­ev­er, the ren­o­va­tion fund was quick­ly ran out and in the third year af­ter the start of the re­pair all work was stopped. The im­me­di­ate rea­son for the in­ter­rup­tion was a lack of mon­ey, but the po­lit­i­cal un­cer­tain­ty and bad moods among the no­bil­i­ty in­dused by the roy­al re­forms af­fect­ing its rights were al­so im­por­tant. In con­se­quence the con­di­tion of the build­ing did not im­prove sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

VIEW OF OLD TOWN FROM 1796, CASTLE ON THE LEFT FROM TOWN HALL (BRIGHT)

SAPIEŻYŃSKI SQUARE - VIEW FROM THE NORTHWEST, J. MINUTOLI 1833
CASTLE IS ON THE RIGHT, TOWN HALL IS ON THE LEFT

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n 1783 the last Gen­er­al Gov­er­nor of Great Poland, Ka­zi­mierz Ra­czyń­ski (d. 1824) erect­ed on the pre­served walls an ar­chive build­ing in the style of an old Pol­ish manor house. At that time the tow­er mea­sured only 10-11 met­ers high. On No­vem­ber 21, 1793, as a re­sult of sec­ond par­ti­tion of Poland, Prus­sian troops en­tered the cas­tle, be­gin­ning the 125-year pe­ri­od of oc­cu­pa­tion of the city by the Ger­mans. One of the first de­ci­sions of the new au­thor­i­ties was to con­vene the lo­cal no­bil­i­ty and of­fi­cials to take a solemn oath of al­le­giance to the new ruler, king Fried­rich Wil­helm II (d. 1797). The event took place in the cas­tle court­yard and due to the 300-year an­niver­sary of the Prus­sian homage, which had been a few months ear­li­er, it was or­ga­nized to em­pha­size the dom­i­na­tion of the vic­tors (Ger­mans) and to hu­mil­i­ate the losers (Poles).

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM THE NORTHWEST IN A DRAWING FROM THE 1850s

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n the same year the cas­tle tow­er was dis­man­tled and on­ly the low­er part of it was left. The of­fice of the Gen­er­al Gov­ern­er was re­placed by the Pres­i­dent of the Prus­sian Re­gen­cy - a roy­al in­sti­tu­tion of a ju­di­cial na­ture. For the pur­pos­es of new autho­ri­ty, re­mains of the west­ern res­i­den­tial wing were de­mol­ished and re­placed by a 30-me­tre-long, new build­ing. The gate tow­er and the north­ern tow­er were also de­stroyed, in the place of which a two-storey build­ing was erect­ed for the pur­pose of hous­ing of­fi­cials. The cas­tle walls were par­tial­ly de­mol­ished, as well as the city walls. Af­ter 1815 the Re­gen­cy Of­fice was moved to large and more rep­re­sen­ta­tive build­ings of the for­mer Je­suit col­legium, and the cas­tle housed the high­er na­tion­al court and ap­peal court. The court func­tioned here un­til 1874, when it was moved to the new build­ing at Pocz­to­wa Street, lo­cat­ed at the foot of the cas­tle hill. Its place was tak­en by the State ar­chive, where the files of mu­nic­i­pal, town and guild of­fices were kept, as well as doc­u­ments con­cern­ing or­ders liq­ui­dat­ed by the Prus­sians. For this pur­pose, ceil­ings were re­in­forced in some rooms, new grilles and shut­ters were in­stalled, and the sur­round­ings of the cas­tle were al­so ar­ranged with a small gar­den in the east­ern part of the hill. The archives ex­isted in the cas­tle un­til 1943.

CASTLE HILL ON POSTCARDS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY

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ur­ing the bat­tles for the Poz­nań Citadel in Febru­ary 1945, the hill was un­der ar­tillery fire, as a re­sult of which the cas­tle fell in­to ru­ins. Its build­ings burned down com­plete­ly, and on­ly the north­ern res­i­den­tial build­ing sur­vived, al­though dam­age to the roof and win­dows was so great that the re­pairs were nec­es­sary. The doc­u­ments that were not de­port­ed in time burned in the fire. Af­ter the war, for the first few years the sur­viv­ing north­ern build­ing housed apart­ments of ar­chive em­ploy­ees. The ru­ined part of the cas­tle re­mained un­de­vel­oped un­til 1949, when the de­mo­li­tion of Prus­sian walls be­gan, and ar­chae­o­log­i­cal work started, dur­ing which the foun­da­tions of the gate tow­er and the cas­tle tow­er were dis­cov­ered.

VIEW FROM THE TOWER OF THE FRANCISCAN CHURCH TO THE PRUSSIAN REGENCY BUILDING AND THE RACZYŃSKI'S BUILDING,
STATE IN THE 1930S AND JUST AFTER THE SECOND WORLD WAR

RACZYŃSKI'S BUILDING SEEN FROM WIELKOPOLSKI SQUARE, 1945

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e­con­struc­tion of the cas­tle in a shape sim­i­lar to that of the pre-war pe­ri­od was un­der­tak­en in 1959 and com­plet­ed five years lat­er, and then one of the branch­es of the Na­tion­al Mu­se­um was placed in it - the Mu­se­um of Artis­tic Crafts, which was trans­formed in­to the Mu­se­um of Ap­plied Arts in 1991. In the ear­ly 90s, a group of en­thu­si­asts be­gan to prop­a­gate ac­tions for the full re­con­struc­tion of the roy­al cas­tle, which at first was most of­ten ei­ther ig­nored by pub­lic opin­ion, or met with crit­i­cism be­cause of the poor eco­nom­ic and so­cial sit­u­a­tion at that time. How­ev­er, the ac­tion gained mo­men­tum and in 2002 the Com­mit­tee for Re­build­ing of the Roy­al Cas­tle was es­tab­lished, which af­ter many years of ef­forts led to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of - seem­ing­ly un­re­al­is­tic - ini­tia­tive, so that since 2014 a com­plete­ly new build­ing stays o­ver the old town.

CASTLE AFTER RECONSTRUCTION IN 1960S: ON THE PHOTO ABOVE, FOUNDATIONS OF THE MAIN TOWER
BELOW: THE RACZYŃSKI'S BUILDING - THEN STILL FREE-STANDING (2005))

CASTLE BEFORE THE LAST RECONSTRUCTION, 2005

THE SAME VIEW OF THE CASTLE IN ITS FINAL RECONSTRUCTION PHASE, 2013

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

T

he cas­tle was built near the town square, on a small hill with steep slopes from the west and north. Such a lo­ca­tion was dic­tat­ed pri­mar­i­ly by the rep­re­sen­ta­tive func­tion of the fortress and its de­fen­sive val­ues. The builders did not pay much at­ten­tion to the poor sta­bil­i­ty of the ground, which in the ini­tial phase of the cas­tle's ex­is­tence led to land­slides and crack­ing of the walls, and even to the col­lapse of a frag­ment of the north-west­ern wall. The orig­i­nal, 13th-cen­tu­ry de­fen­sive unit con­sist­ed of two brick for­ti­fi­ca­tion lines: the straight sec­tion of the west­ern wall erect­ed on a 2-me­tre thick stone foun­da­tion and a south­ern wall lying on a gen­tle arch around the cen­tral part of the hill. At their cross­roads a tow­er was erect­ed on a plan sim­i­lar to a square with sides of 11x11.5 met­ers.

EASTERN FRAGMENT OF THE CASTLE FORTIFICATION WALLS, VIEW FROM ZAMKOWA STREET

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he internal buildings probably originally consisted of wood­en res­i­den­tial and util­i­ty struc­tures con­cen­trat­ed in the west­ern part of the court­yard. On­ly spec­u­la­tion and hy­poth­e­sis is the ques­tion of the then func­tion of the tow­er and the ex­is­tence of brick hous­es. Some re­searchers claim that the straight west­ern wall, which is not alig­ned with the to­po­graphy of the hill, was sup­posed to be a sup­port­ing wall for the prince's palace. How­ev­er, due to the land­slide and build­ing dis­as­ter, that palace was not com­plet­ed and the tow­er was the on­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive build­ing in the first pe­ri­od of the ex­is­tence of the cas­tle. It had at least three large liv­ing rooms, one of which could be used as the ruler's apart­ments, and the oth­er two were hy­po­thet­i­cal­ly at­tribut­ed to the cer­e­mo­ni­al func­tions and needs of the prince wife's ac­com­mo­da­tion.

PLAN OF THE CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE AGES: 1. WESTERN WALL, 2. SOUTHERN WALL, 3. EMBANKMENT/WESTERN WALL, 4. CITY WALL,
5. MAIN TOWER, 6. HYPOTHETICAL GATEWAY, 7. RESIDENTIAL TOWER (XIV CENTURY), 8. ROYAL PALACE (XIV CENTURY)

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re­sum­ably, dur­ing the reign of king Ka­zi­mierz (the Great), a large Goth­ic build­ing on the west­ern wall was built, which may have tak­en o­ver the rep­re­sen­ta­tive func­tions per­formed so far by the main tow­er. It was ac­com­pa­nied by a rect­an­gu­lar tow­er 12.7 x 14.6 me­ters high, erect­ed at the north­ern wall, which, like the main tow­er, was al­so com­plete­ly pro­tru­ded out of the for­ti­fi­ca­tions. On its low­er floors there is now a build­ing called the Roy­al Kitchen, but it was prob­a­bly orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed for res­i­den­tial pur­pos­es. The lack of clear re­mains of the Goth­ic cas­tle, as well as scarce knowl­edge re­sult­ing from lim­it­ed ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­search, does not al­low to de­scribe the look and spat­ial lay­out of the cas­tle from the times of Piasts and first Jagiel­lons. It is al­so un­known what was the scope of the cas­tle ex­ten­sion car­ried out in the 16th cen­tury by the sta­rost Łu­kasz Gór­ka, and what chan­ges it brought, apart from the la­con­i­cal note that the new build­ings were won­der­ful. The im­age of the me­dieval res­i­dence of the gen­er­al gov­er­nor of Great Poland can be part­ly based on the thick­ness of the foun­da­tion walls and the mas­sive­ness of the vaults in­di­cat­ing that the main build­ing of the cas­tle had at least two storeys, and in its cen­tral seg­ment there was an en­trance hall.

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CASTLE FROM THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIII CENTURY - VIEW FROM THE NORTHEAST
IT TAKES INTO ACCOUNT THE EXISTENCE OF A TOWER WITHIN THE NORTHERN WALL,
WHICH PROBABLY AT THAT TIME DID NOT YET EXIST

M

uch more pre­cise in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the ap­pear­ance and con­di­tion of the cas­tle comes from the pe­ri­od of its ex­is­tence af­ter the re­con­struc­tion fol­low­ing the fire in 1535. Due to its con­sid­er­able length, the west­ern build­ing was di­vid­ed in­to four nar­row ten­e­ment hous­es, which were roofed with trans­verse gabled roofs, while the floor with rep­re­sen­ta­tive cham­bers was ac­ces­si­ble di­rect­ly from the porch. The first floor was prob­a­bly oc­cu­pied by sev­en rooms, with the mag­nif­i­cent Court­room, which was lo­cat­ed in the south­ern part of the building, sup­port­ed by two stone columns and il­lu­mi­nat­ed by five glazed win­dows with iron bars. All chambers were paved with ce­ram­ic tiles, had oak doors and win­dow frames, and in some of them there were tiled stoves and bench­es.

FAÇADE OF THE WESTERN BUILDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE XVI CENTURY, J. SKURATOWICZ

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he lay­out on the sec­ond floor was sim­i­lar or even re­peat­ed the lay­out on the first floor, but it can­not be ex­clud­ed that the rooms in it were high­er, which could have re­sult­ed from the pres­ence of Grand Cham­ber - the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive room in the whole cas­tle. It was loc­ated in the south­ern part of the build­ing, di­rect­ly above the Court­room, and like the first one, it was equipped with five win­dows, bench­es, a chim­ney and a tiled stove. There was al­so a porch in this room for the mu­si­cians. The cel­lars of the main build­ing were deeply em­bed­ded in the ground, tall and vault­ed, among them two wine rooms and two beer rooms. Be­fore it was moved to the north­ern res­i­den­tial tow­er, a cas­tle kit­chen was lo­cat­ed in a wood­en build­ing ad­ja­cent to the east­ern wall. Next to it, clos­er to the south­ern wall, there was a coach house, and at the very gate there was a build­ing of chan­cel­lery. De­spite many mi­nor con­struc­tion works, re­pairs and ren­o­va­tions car­ried out there­after, the cas­tle unit did not change its main form un­til the re­con­struc­tion of Ka­zi­mierz Ra­czyń­ski in the 80s of the 18th cen­tu­ry.

POZNAŃ CASTLE IN XVI CENTURY, J. SKURATOWICZ

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

T

he Roy­al Cas­tle in Poz­nań is today a part­ly his­tor­i­cal and part­ly con­tem­po­rary ar­chi­tec­tural unit, re­fer­ring in its form to the 16th cen­tu­ry seat of the gov­er­nors, but not be­ing a pre­cise copy of that res­i­dence. Dur­ing the re­con­struc­tion car­ried out in the years 2010-14, the south­ern part of the west­ern build­ing was re­con­struct­ed. The main tow­er was al­so re­con­struct­ed, but with a de­sign clos­er to me­dieval times than the gold­en Re­nais­sance pe­ri­od, to which the rest of the new build­ing refers. This quite ar­bi­trary in­ter­pre­ta­tion was met with cau­stic crit­i­cism from some parts of the pub­lic opin­ion ac­cus­ing the cre­ators of too much fan­ta­sy lead­ing to the loss of har­mo­ny be­tween what is new and the orig­i­nal tis­sue of the Old Town. As a re­sult, half a ma­li­cious, and a bit fun­ny, name of Gargamel's Cas­tle be­come pop­ular among the in­hab­i­tants of Poz­nań. The mod­ern forms of the build­ing con­tain small re­mains of the for­mer cas­tle, in­clud­ing four sec­tions of the ring wall in the east­ern and south­ern parts of the cir­cuit, as well as the ba­sis of the main tow­er de­mol­ished in 1794, now ex­posed to the pub­lic. To some ex­tent, Ra­czyń­ski's build­ing, re­con­struct­ed af­ter 1945 and shin­ing af­ter a re­cent ren­o­va­tion, as well as a slight­ly new­er build­ing from the Prus­sian times, erect­ed on the site of the for­mer cas­tle kitchen, should al­so be con­sid­ered a rel­ic of the epoch. Dis­creet gate­way wel­com­ing the mu­se­um's guests is the re­sult of 19th cen­tu­ry con­struc­tion works.

PRZEMYSŁ HALL NEXT TO THE TOWER, IN THE FIREPLACE IS HIDDEN A DEVIL FROM THE LEGEND ABOUT THE CREATION OF THE CASTLE HILL

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art­ly re­con­struct­ed and part­ly ren­o­vat­ed in­te­ri­ors house the Mu­se­um of Ap­plied Arts, es­tab­lished in the 1960s as a di­vi­sion of the Poz­nań Na­tion­al Mu­se­um to pre­sent the col­lec­tions of artis­tic crafts­man­ship, which have been col­lect­ed here since the mid-19th cen­tu­ry. On an area of about 1500 square me­ters an ex­hi­bi­tion shows changes in the form, aes­thet­ics and func­tion­al­i­ty of ev­ery­day ob­jects, from the Mid­dle Ages to the pre­sent day. The ex­po­si­tion is di­vid­ed the­mat­i­cal­ly in­to his­tor­i­cal pe­ri­ods and pre­sent­ed in sep­a­rate rooms. The tour takes place in such a way as to keep the chronol­o­gy of his­to­ry.

MUSEUM EXHIBITION AT THE POZNAŃ CASTLE, HERE THE ARMOURY

W

e start our vis­it from a small, dark room ded­i­cat­ed to me­dieval art, from where we go to the mag­nif­i­cent ar­moury in the hall­way of Ra­czyń­ski's build­ing, which refers to the old Pol­ish cus­tom of demon­strat­ing the pos­sessed weap­ons. The col­lec­tions of ex­hibits are rep­re­sent­ed by a var­i­ous weapons, and the cen­tral place of the room is oc­cu­pied by an 18th cen­tu­ry har­ness pre­sent­ed on a "wire" horse, ro­co­co stir­rups and a 17th cen­tu­ry Turk­ish sad­dle cap­tured in the Bat­tle of Vi­en­na in 1683. Vi­su­al­iza­tion of the 17th cen­tu­ry bat­tle­field is dis­played on mon­i­tors to help iden­ti­fy par­tic­u­lar types of weapons. It ap­pears to be aes­thet­i­cal­ly de­signed to at­tract the at­ten­tion of the young­est, but due to the view of dead sol­diers, it is prob­a­bly not en­tire­ly di­rect­ed at them. The ar­moury is ad­ja­cent to a well-pre­pared Re­nais­sance room with a side­board con­tain­ing cu­riosi­ties from the world and an in­ter­ac­tive hu­man­ist table.

IN THE RENAISSANCE HALL

O

ur vis­it to the first floor be­gins with the ex­po­si­tion show­ing the Baroque pe­ri­od in Poland his­to­ry, with a char­ac­ter­is­tic Sar­ma­tian en­thu­si­asm on the one hand, and a love for the Ori­ent on the oth­er. Baroque room is ad­joined by a spa­cious ro­co­co room with a col­lec­tion of el­e­gant chairs, rich­ly or­na­ment­ed table­ware and mag­nif­i­cent porce­lain. The pearl of this col­lec­tion is a frag­ment of the so-called Swan Tab­le Ser­vice, an ar­tis­ti­cal­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed set made in the mid­dle of the 18th cen­tu­ry in a porce­lain fac­to­ry in Meis­sen, which was the most im­pres­sive ser­vice of its time with o­ver 2200 items for 100 guests. Here we can feel (lit­er­al­ly!) smells of the el­e­gant courts of 18th cen­tu­ry Eu­rope. Fol­low­ing the di­rec­tion of the tour we then en­ter the pe­ri­od of clas­si­cism and nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry his­tori­cism, and af­ter a short vis­it to the rep­re­sen­ta­tive Meet­ing Hall we head to the small room pre­sent­ing a part of Leon Wy­czół­kow­ski's pri­vate col­lec­tion, in­clud­ing most­ly Ori­en­talia and his own works.

BAROQUE (ABOVE) AND ROCOCO ROOM

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he sec­ond floor, ded­i­cat­ed to con­tem­po­rary times, is di­vid­ed in­to col­lec­tions of artis­tic glass, Art Nou­veau and Ori­en­tal art, Art De­co, as well as ob­jects re­flect­ing Pol­ish de­sign from the 1960s and oth­er mod­ern cre­ations. Our at­ten­tion here is at­tract­ed pri­mar­i­ly by the Pa­rade of Cos­tumes show­ing the evo­lu­tion in shap­ing human fig­ure by means of fash­ion, start­ing from the 1880s un­til the changes re­sult­ing from the tri­umph of the sex­u­al rev­o­lu­tion of the 1960s. All ex­hi­bi­tions can be vis­it­ed in­di­vid­u­al­ly, on re­quest with an au­dio guide or an ap­pli­ca­tion us­ing QR codes. Af­ter get­ting ac­quaint­ed with their con­tent, you should en­ter the view­ing ter­race lo­cat­ed on the top of a 43-me­tre high tow­er, from where you can find one of the most in­ter­est­ing per­spec­tives of the city and its sur­round­ings.

SECOND FLOOR EXHIBITIONS ON CONTEMPORARY ART

Tickets are required to enter the cas­tle. Free en­trance to the cour­tyard.

Photography for per­sonal use is free (no flash al­lowed).

It is forbidden to bring ani­mals in­to the cas­tle and the court­yard.

GETTING THERE

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he cas­tle is lo­cat­ed at the junc­tion of Gó­ra Prze­my­sła/Lud­gar­dy/Fran­cisz­kań­ska Street, about 100 me­ters west of the Mar­ket Square. Leav­ing the main rail­way sta­tion you should go east, ini­tial­ly over Dwor­co­wy Bridge and Ma­tyi street, then af­ter pass­ing the park turn left in­to Ra­taj­cza­ka street and go this way un­til you reach the Wol­no­ści Square. There the cas­tle tow­er is al­ready well vis­i­ble.

The most convenient way to leave your car is in the un­der­ground car park at Wol­no­ści Square, one of the car parks at Staw­na Street or the large buf­fer car park at Wiel­ka Street in Chwa­li­sze­wo.

Bi­cy­cles can be brought in­to the cas­tle court­yard (there is a bike rack).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Z. Dolczewski: Tajemnice zamku królewskiego w Poznaniu, Dr Roman Dolczewski 2014
2. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
3. Z. Karolczak: Zamek królewski w Poznaniu w świetle badań archeologicznych, Muz. Arch. w Poznaniu
4. E. Linette: Zamek w Poznaniu
5. Praca zbiorowa: Zamek książąt, królów, starostów, Kronika Miasta Poznania 2004
6. T. Ratajczak: Średniowieczny zamek królewski w Poznaniu. Uwagi na temat chronologii i genezy...

VIEW OF THE CASTLE FROM GÓRA PRZEMYSŁA STREET

Castles nearby:
Chojnica - artificial 'castle' from the 20th century, 15 km
Kórnik - knight's castle from the 14th century, 21 km
Jezioro Góreckie - ruins of romantic 'castle' from the 19th century, 25 km

ALSO WORTH SEEING:

The Old Town, whose area of 21 hec­ta­res was for­mer­ly marked by the line of city for­ti­fi­ca­tions, and now is con­ven­tion­al­ly de­fined by streets: Gar­ba­ry from the east, Pod­gór­na from the south, Ma­łe Gar­ba­ry from the north and Ale­je Mar­cin­kow­skie­go from the west. The cen­tral part of Poz­nań's Old Town is oc­cu­pied by the square mar­ket with a length of each side of 141 me­ters, which makes it the third lar­gest his­tor­i­cal city square in Poland and one of the lar­gest in Eu­rope. From each side of the square there are three streets, and on each front­age there are eight ten­e­ment hous­es. The dom­i­nant el­e­ment here is the 16th cen­tu­ry town hall, very pop­u­lar among tourists be­cause of the fa­mous tin goats, which ev­ery day at noon come out from their closet and moved by the clock mech­a­nism tap with the horns 12 times. Next to the town hall there is a build­ing of the for­mer City Scales and colour­ful hous­es with char­ac­ter­is­tic ar­cades, where fish, can­dles and salt were once trad­ed.

From the south­east of the Mar­ket Square, the Gór­kas' Palace ad­joins, to­day the seat of the Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal Mu­se­um, and years ago one of the most mag­nif­i­cent Pol­ish city res­i­dences of the Re­nais­sance pe­ri­od. On its west­ern el­e­va­tion, on the side of Świę­to­sław­ska Street, you can ad­mire the plan of for­mer Poz­nań, which is a copy of Braun and Ho­gen­berg's view from the 17th cen­tu­ry. Slight­ly to the south ris­es an im­pres­sive unit of the post-Je­suit col­lege with the most beau­ti­ful bar­oque tem­ple in Poland - the 18th cen­tu­ry par­ish church, modest when you look from the front, squeezed be­tween the bour­geois ten­e­ment hous­es and the build­ings of the for­mer col­lege. How­ever, it de­lights with its in­ter­ior de­sign, stuc­cowork and sculp­ture. Those, who have enough free time, can al­so see or vis­it the re­mains of me­dieval walls, the for­mer syn­a­gogue, the Fran­cis­can church lo­cat­ed vis-a-vis the cas­tle, the tiny church of the Holy Blood of Je­sus and the build­ing of the for­mer mu­nic­i­pal guard - odwach.

Lo­cat­ed about a kilo­me­tre west of the roy­al cas­tle, the Im­pe­ri­al Dis­trict, al­so known as the Cas­tle Dis­trict, was es­tab­lished at the be­gin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry in the place of the former Poz­nań for­ti­fi­ca­tions. The rea­son for the im­prove­ment of these ar­eas was in­tro­duc­tion of Ger­man­ic aes­thet­ics in the ar­chi­tec­ture of the city and cre­ation of high stan­dard places which would be its show­case and en­cour­age (Ger­man) clerks to set­tle in Poz­nań. Nowa­days, the dis­trict is a vast ed­u­ca­tion­al, cul­tur­al and recre­ation­al unit, with the build­ings of Col­le­gium Ma­ius, Col­le­gium Mi­nus and the Acade­my of Mu­sic, the mag­nif­i­cent Grand The­atre and mon­u­men­tal build­ing of the so-called Cas­tle, the youngest im­pe­ri­al seat in Eu­rope, by some con­sid­ered to be the lead­ing sym­bol of Prus­sian rule in Great Poland. The cen­tral part of the dis­trict is oc­cu­pied by green ar­eas with parks: Mic­kie­wi­cza, Wie­niaw­skie­go and the Cas­tle Gar­den.

The cathe­dral is­land, Os­trów Tum­ski, sit­u­at­ed on the oth­er side of the War­ta Riv­er. You can find there relics of set­tle­ments built by first pol­ish rul­ers and the most valu­able sacral build­ings in Poz­nań. Among them, the lead­ing one is the Arch­cathe­dral of Saint Apos­tles Pe­ter and Paul, one of the old­est tem­ples in Poland, re­built many times in var­i­ous ar­chi­tec­tural styles, now Goth­ic with Baroque dec­o­ra­tion and fur­nish­ings. King Prze­mysł II was buried in this tem­ple, and ac­cord­ing to tra­di­tion, al­so Mie­szko I and Bo­le­sław Chro­bry, al­though there is no clear ev­i­dence of this. To the west of the cathe­dral there is the church of St. Mary, built in the 15th cen­tu­ry on the site of the 10th cen­tu­ry palace of Mie­szko and a chapel erect­ed for him and his wife Do­bra­wa. From the south, the cathe­dral is ad­ja­cent to the lux­u­ri­ous palace of arch­bish­ops, while from the north-west - to the Arch­dioce­san Mu­se­um, the Sem­i­nary and the ar­chae­o­log­i­cal park Ge­nius Loci.

In 2007, the east­ern bank of Os­trów Tum­ski was con­nect­ed by a bridge with Śród­ka, years ago ne­glect­ed, even dan­ger­ous mi­crodis­trict, which now is one of the most charm­ing and fash­ion­able part of Poz­nań. In the neigh­bour­hood of med­ie­val sac­ral buil­dings its biggest at­trac­tion is lo­cat­ed: three-di­men­sion­al paint­ing on the walls of two ten­e­ment hous­es, called the Sto­ry of Śród­ka with a trum­peter on the roof and a cat in the back­ground, made in 2015. A year ear­li­er, the Poz­nań Gate, an in­ter­ac­tive mu­se­um cen­tre ded­i­cat­ed to the his­to­ry of Os­trów Tum­s­ki, was opened in con­crete mo­der­ni­stic build­ing on the bank of the Cy­bi­na Riv­er.

text: 2019
photographs: 2005, 2013, 2017, 2019, 2021
© Jacek Bednarek