In 1339 the Papal Legate in Warsaw heard a case brought by the King of Poland, Kazimierz the Great, against the German Teutonic Order. He claimed that they had illegally seized a slice of Polish territory — Pomerania and the Kujawy region. The documents in this case are the earliest written testimony to the existence of Warsaw. 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.
In the middle of the 14th century the Castle Tower, whose structure up to the first storey has survived to our own day, was built, while towards the end of the 14th century, when Masovia was ruled by Duke Janusz I the Elder, the Curia Maior (Big House) was erected. Its façade, which was still standing in 1944, was knocked down by the Nazis, but has been rebuilt today.
When the Masovia region was incorporated in the Kingdom of Poland in 1526, the edifice which until then had been the Castle of the Dukes of Masovia became one of the royal residences. From 1548 onwards Queen Bona Sforza resided in it with her daughters Izabella, who became Queen of Hungary, Catherine, later to become Queen of Sweden, and Anna Jagiello. In 1556- 1557 and in 1564 the King of Poland, Zygmunt August, convoked royal parliaments in Warsaw. They met in the Castle. Following the Lublin Union (1569), by which the Polish Crown and the Grand Dukedom of Lithuania were united as a single country, Warsaw Castle was regularly the place where the parliament of the Two-Nation State met. In 1569 -1572 King Zygmunt August started alterations to the Castle, the architects being Giovanni Battista Quadro and Giacopo Pario.
The Curia Maior was altered so as provide a meeting place for Parliament, with premises for the Chamber of Deputies (delegates of the gentry) on the ground floor, and the Senate Chamber (where the Senators debated in the presence of the king) on the first floor. This was one of the first attempts in Europe to create a building that would be used solely for parliamentary purposes. 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. A new, Renaissance-style building, known as the “Royal House”, was erected next to the Curia Maior. The king resided there when parliament was in session.
The next alterations to the Castle were made in the reign of Zygmunt III, who transferred the royal residence from Cracow to Warsaw. In 1598 - 1619 the Castle was enlarged, and given its present five-sided shape, with an imposing early baroque elevation facing the town, and a high tower known as the “Zygmunt Tower”. Giovanni Trevano was in charge of the reconstruction. His plans were probably amended by the Venetian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi. The Polish king Zygmunt III and his successors of the Vaza dynasty — Wladyslaw IV and Jan Kazimierz — collected many rich works of art in the castle, such as oriental fabrics, tapestries, and numerous paintings by such famous artists as Rembrandt, Rubens, Daniel Schultz, and Johann Breughel. These splendid works of art were either destroyed or plundered during the invasions of Poland by Sweden and Brandenburg (1655 - 1657).
When the Swedish wars, and the tremendous devastation caused thereby, came to an end, the Castle was rebuilt during the reigns of the Polish kings Michal Korybut Wisniowiecki and Jan III Sobieski. Sessions of Parliament continued to be held in the castle, as well as various State occasions, such as when the Hohenzollern Dukes of Prussia paid homage to the Kings of Poland, and occasions when the king received the ambassadors of foreign countries.
In the first half of the 18th century, when first August II and then August III, of the Wettin family from Saxony, were elected to the throne of Poland, there were several attempts at fargoing reconstruction of the castle, but these came to nothing. In 1737, on the instructions of the Polish Parliament, the Italian architect Gaetano Chiaveri designed a new wing facing the Vistula. It was built between 1741 and 1747, under the supervision of a polonised Italian, Antonio Solari. This was an excellent design, which harmonized extremely well with the older parts of the castle buildings.
The most splendid period in the history of the Castle was during the rule of Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1764- 1795). That monarch collected exquisite works of art, many of which have survived to our own time. He recruited first-rate architects such as Fontana, Merlini, Kamsetzer, and Kubicki, to work on the castle, as well as splendid painters such as Marcello Bacciarelli, Bernardo Bellotto (otherwise Canaletto), Franciszek Smuglewicz, Kazimierz Wojniakowski, and Jean Pillement, eminent sculptors such as Andre le Brun and Jakub Monaldi, and famous French artists such as the architect Victor Louis. The total recorstruction of the castle planned by the king did not come to fruition, but the interior was changed to the neoclassical style — although this, known in Poland as the “Stanislaw August style”, was rather different from neo-classicism in the rest of Europe. Between 1774 and 1777 the monarch’s private apartments were furnished. They consisted of the Prospect Room (with landscapes by Canaletto), the Chapel, the Audience Chamber, and the Bedchamber, while between 1779 and 1786 the State Apartments were completed, consisting of the Ballroom, the Knights’ Hall, the Throne Room, the Marble Room, and the Conference Chamber. These rooms contained pictures and sculptures depicting great events in Poland’s history, as well as portraits of Polish kings, generals, statesmen, and scholars (e.g. Copernicus). The Castle also housed the rich royal collections, including 3200 pictures, classical statues, about 100 000 graphics, in addition to medals, coins, and a fine library, to house which a separate building was erected in 1780 - 1784.
At that period the Castle was the place where the ideas of the Polish Enlightenment first flourished. The king held “Thursday lunches” in the Castle, for scientists, scholars, writers and artists. This was where the idea for the National Education Commission, one of the first secular Ministries of Education in Europe, was mooted. The Castle was the place where the first proposals were made for a Knights’ School, for a national theatre, etc. It was in the Senate Chamber in the Castle that what was known as the „Great Seym” (Great Parliament) passed the famous Polish Constitution of 3rd May, 1791.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Castle was the residence of Fryderyk August, Duke of Warsaw and King of Saxony. Prince Józef Poniatowski, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army and Marshal of France, resided in the Pod Blachą Palace joined to the Castle. After the creation of the constitutional Kingdom of Poland (1815), its parliaments met here at the Castle. As Kings of Poland, the Russian Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I also resided in the castle when in Warsaw.
After the collapse of the Polish Insurrection of 1830 - 1831, the Castle was the seat of the Governors of the Polish Kingdom. At the time of the next Polish national insurrection, in 1863, the square in front of the castle was the scene of patriotic demonstrations that ended in much bloodshed.
After Poland regained her independence in 1918, the Castle became the residence of the President of Poland. It was lovingly restored under the guidance of Kazimierz Skórewicz (1920 - 1928) and Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz (till 1939). Under the terms of the Peace Treaty signed with Soviet Russia at Riga in 1920, works of art and other precious things, including all the castle furnishings, which had been taken away to Russia by the Russian Imperial authorities, were brought back to Poland. As a consequence it was possible to restore the historic rooms to the way they had looked in the reign of King Stanislaw August.
On September 17, 1939, the Castle was shelled by German artillery. The roof and the turrets were destroyed by fire. The ceiling of the Ballroom collapsed, resulting in the destruction of Bacciarelli’s beautiful ceiling fresco The Creation of the World. The other rooms were undamaged. But immediately after the seizure of Warsaw by the Germans, their occupation troops set to to demolish the castle. The more valuable objects, even including the central heating and ventilation installations, were dismantled and taken away to Germany. Wehrmacht sappers then bored tens of thousands of holes for dynamite charges in the stripped walls. On Hitler’s orders, the Castle was due to be blown up at the beginning of 1940, but for some unknown reason this was not done. German scholars, including Professor Dagobert Frey and Dr Kai Mühlmann, took an active part in the work of destruction.
Disobeying German orders, and always in danger of being shot, Polish museum staff and experts in art restoration managed to save many of the works of art from the castle, as well as fragments of the stucco-work, the parquet floors, the wood panelling, etc. These are now being used in the reconstruction. The great service done to Poland by Professor S. Lorentz, in leading this campaign to save the castle’s treasures, is well known.
In 1944, after the collapse of the Warsaw Insurrection, when hostilities had already ceased, the Germans blew up the Castle’s demolished walls. A pile of rubble, surmounted by only two fragments of walls that somehow managed to survive, was all that was left of the six hundred year old edifice. On one of these fragments, almost like a symbol, part of the stucco decoration remained. This was a cartouche with the motto of the Order of the White, Eagle — “PRO FIDE, LEGE ET GREGE” (“for Faith, Law, and Nation”).
Immediately after the liberation in 1945, work started on rescuing the surviving fragments of the castle’s walls, foundations, and cellars, as well as the fire-blackened walls of the Pod Blachą Palace and the Royal Library building, from further destruction. In 1949 the Polish Parliament passed a bill to rebuild the Castle as a monument to Polish history and culture. Meanwhile special architectural designing offices, under Jan Dąbrowski, Piotr Biegański and Jan Zachwatowicz, drew up blueprints for restoring the framework of the building and furnishing the historical rooms. The decision to start work was postponed several times, but was finally taken on 20th January, 1971, at a meeting between Edward Gierek, then First Secretary of the PUWP Central Committee, and important personages in the sphere of culture. A Civic Committee was set up. Amid universal appause it was decided to rebuild the castle from voluntary contributions. Both in Poland and abroad fund-raising committees were set up.
After wide discussion in the popular and specialist press, the Civic Committee decided to rebuild the authentic remaining fragments, such as the foundations and cellars, the remains of the walls and of the Grodzka Tower, and to restore all historically and artistically valuable parts of the building. Work was started in 1971, and by 1974 the outer walls were completed. External architectural stone features such as portals, window frames, cornices, cartouches with heraldic devices, and statues, which had been recovered from the ruins, were replaced, and missing ones recreated according to their original appearance. The second stage of reconstruction, involving detailed work on the interior, began in 1974. This period saw the restoration of early 17th century rooms on the ground floor, as well as the monarch’s private apartments dating from the second half of the 18th century (the Grand Staircase, the Mier and Canaletto Rooms, the Chapel, the Audience Chamber, the Bedchamber, Study, and Dressing-Room). Restoration of the State Apartments (consisting of the Throne Room, the Knights’ Hall, the Ballroom, the Council Chamber, and the Marble Room), as well as of the Senate Chamber and the Chamber of Deputies (where parliamentary debates were held), and of other historic apartments, has been going on since 1977. Some original features of the interior decoration — such as wood panelling, fireplaces, fragments of stucco-work and wall paintings — had been saved when the castle was damaged in 1939 or were picked out of the rubble, and have now been re-incorporated. Much skill and precision is needed to restore the architecture and decoration of historical interiors. This work was not yet fully completed in 1983. But the moment is approaching when the reconstruction of the Royal Castle will be completed, and this historical edifice, of outstanding artistic merit, will be finally restored to Poland and to Europe.
Translated by Krystyna Kozlowska
