Kamieniec Podolski, today a district town in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast in south-western Ukraine, once a powerful fortress guarding the eastern borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , occupies a special place in Polish historical consciousness. Situated at the meeting point of three cultures - Latin, Orthodox and Muslim - on the border between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, in the 17th century it was regarded as a key point of defence for Christian Europe against Islamic expansion. Its strategic location and military importance meant that the city was seen as a symbolic bastion of Latin civilisation on the eastern fringes of the Polish state. Confirmation of this unique role came from the Holy See's involvement in fortifying the fortress and the construction of the castle's Papal (Julian) Tower between 1503 and 1513, financed by Pope Julius II . His coat of arms, Della Rovere, still adorns the building today, a reminder of the political and religious nature of this foundation.

The image of Kamieniec as "the bulwark of Poland and of Christianity as a whole" became deeply rooted in the national consciousness during the post-partition period , when Poland lost its independence. It was then that the fortress-town acquired a new meaning, becoming an embodiment of national pride and an expression of nostalgia for the lost power of the state , which had once exerted a significant influence on shaping the fate of the Christian countries of Europe.

We owe the consolidation of the myth of Kamieniec as a national fortress to the literary vision of its defence against the Turks in 1672, presented by Henryk Sienkiewicz in the last volume of his 'Trilogy'. The literary reconstruction of the events, although based on fact, turned the story into a national epic. A key role was played here by the figure of Michał Wołodyjowski, a fictional character modelled on Colonel Jerzy Wołodyjowski (1620-1672) , the fortress' rotmistrz, who died tragically during a gunpowder explosion in the Black Tower, shortly after the city's capitulation. His death was portrayed as an act of supreme sacrifice. Historical sources disagree on the circumstances of the explosion: some describe it as an unfortunate accident, others as a deliberate act by the defenders that ended in the unintentional death of the commander. Regardless of the historical truth, it was Sienkiewicz's literary vision that shaped the collective memory - romantic, heroic, filled with pathos and belief in the spiritual greatness of the nation at a time when its citizens were stateless.

The legend of Kamieniec Podolski was not born solely from its military significance. The terrain played an equally important role. Erected on a rocky promontory surrounded by a deep gorge of the Smotrycz River, the city was a joint work of nature and human hands. Although the official incorporation of the town under the Magdeburg Law took place on 7 November 1374 on the initiative of Lithuanian dukes George and Alexander Koriatowicz, Kamieniec as a settlement had already existed under the Latin name Camenecium. Mention of it appears in Armenian chronicles from 1060-1062 and derives from the rocky hill on which it was built.

Kamieniec Podolski's greatest period of prosperity was during its 330-plus years as part of the Polish Crown. In 1430, the city was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland, and two years later it was again granted Magdeburg rights. Royal privileges - including the right of warehousing - strengthened its position as an international trade centre, connecting Moldavia, Wallachia and the Turkish countries with Lviv, Red Ruthenia, Lesser Poland and Silesia. In 1434, Kamieniec became the capital of the newly created Podolia province, which contributed to further growth of its importance and intensive urban and institutional development. Along with the strengthening of secular structures, the Catholic Church played an important role in shaping Kamieniec's identity, supported by the Polish rulers as an instrument of stabilisation and integration of the ethnically and confessionally diverse region. Although the bishopric of Kamenets was erected as early as 1379, it was not until the city was incorporated into the Crown that it was fully established and subordinated to the Lviv metropolis.

The city from the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, i.e. the present-day Old Town (a name used since the 1860s), was inhabited in the 16th-17th centuries by nearly 10,000 inhabitants and three main nationalities: Poles, Ruthenians (Ukrainians) and Armenians , extends on an elongated oval plateau, surrounded by a deep ravine gouged by the Smotrycz River. The difference in height between the edge of the ravine and the water level is on average 30-40 m, which further strengthens its natural defensive qualities. The Smotrycz forms a picturesque meandering loop here, separating Kamieniec from the surrounding hills. On one of them, on the western side, the fortifications of the Lower (Old) Castle were built, and behind them the bastion-like earth-brick fortifications of the Upper (New) Castle, designed by the court engineer of Sigismund III Vasa, artillery general Teofil Schomberg in 1621 . Suburbs were established on the other two bends of the river: Polskie Folwarki in the north and Ruskie Folwarki in the south.

The main access to the town was through the castle gates and a rocky isthmus, over which rose an arcaded bridge forty metres long. In 1685-1686, the Turks bricked up the arcade , using material from the then demolished Jesuit church and the Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites. The structure was therefore called the Turkish Bridge . Additional entrances to the city were provided by two gates in the Smotrycz valley: Polish and Russian. Each consisted of several towers of varying height, diameter and projection, connected by walls crossing the valley and the course of the river. The structures were equipped with sluices to regulate the water level - in case of danger, the Smotrycz was dammed up, making it difficult to conquer the city. Both sets of gates represented a unique defence and hydraulic solution, unparalleled in Ukraine, but also in Central Europe.

The city fortifications, shaped from the 13th to the 18th century and representing different schools of military engineering, were complemented by defensive elements: towers, bastions and bastions (the latter adapted to firearms) and curtain walls with a total length of 4.5 km. The largest of these was the so-called Stefan Batory (Kuznets) Bastion, erected in 1585 in the form of a towering bastion, protecting the northern entrance to the city through the Polish Gate. The masonry free-standing bell towers of the Latin Cathedral and the Armenian Church of St. Nicholas, as well as those built over the narthexes of the three-aisled Orthodox and Uniate churches of St. John the Baptist and the Holy Trinity, also played an important role in defending the city. The same function was performed by the tower of the town hall, which, prior to its incorporation into its body in 1616, was offset by 3 m from the north elevation of the building.

The town hall , which was the seat of the local government, occupied the western frontage of the mid-market quarter , located in the middle of a large quadrangle, which was called the Lacki (Polish) Market because of the Polish residents living there. The square's size (150 × 165 m), larger than that of the Lviv square (129 × 147 m), was not a coincidence, as it met the needs of the intensive trade taking place in the region. The market square with its grid of streets was laid out in accordance with Western European models of medieval town planning and bourgeois housing , transferred to Ruthenia via Kraków, in towns founded under the Magdeburg Law. According to Polish researchers, Kamieniec Podolski was delimited using the so-called "krakowski string" - a unit of measurement 45.5 m long, typical of cities founded under the rule of Casimir the Great. According to Ukrainian researchers, on the other hand, the city was founded on the basis of an Old Russian serpent-elbow, the so-called Pechersk, corresponding to a length of 1.08 metres. As a result, irrespective of the adopted unit of measurement, the spatial layout of the city was clearly divided into two zones: the regular central part, centred around the square, and the less orderly outskirts, stretching between the centre and the city walls. In the immediate vicinity of the square, the quarters had a geometric, quadrilateral form and compact buildings, resulting from the high value of the plots in this part of the city. Outside its perimeter, the quarters took on a less regular, trapezoidal shape. In addition to the Polish Market, there were two smaller market squares in the city: Ruski (Zarwański, also called Mięsny) in the north and Armenian in the south.

In the north-western corner of the square, a plot of land was marked out for the construction of a church , in accordance with the principle that churches in towns were located in the immediate vicinity of the central square. In the middle of the square stands the majestic St Peter and Paul Cathedral , the most important Latin church in Kamenets and the whole of Podolia. It is part of an extensive cathedral complex that includes the so-called Triumphal Gate (also known as the Stanislav Augustus Gate), the bell tower, the bishop's palace with a garden and the building of the former seminary. Construction of the church probably began in 1379, concurrently with the erection of the bishopric. The short, trapezoidal, three-nave body of the church dates from this period, to which an elongated , polygonal presbytery was added between 1434 and 1453 . The length of the choir, at 21.3 m, matched the dimensions of the body, which is 21.6 m long. Only the Franciscan and Dominican monasteries, whose mission in Podolia began as early as the 1440s, had an older foundation date than the cathedral.

The architectural appearance of Kamieniec Podolski began to take shape in the 18th century, during the rebuilding of the city after the 27-year Turkish occupation (1672-1699) and the destruction caused by unsuccessful attempts to recapture it - first by Hetman Jan Sobieski in 1673, and then twice in 1687 and 1689. The area around the Polish Market Square was most affected by the destruction . The plots located in its frontages and in the mid-market quarter were redrawn after the end of the occupation, based on the medieval urban layout, and re-built with two- and three-storey houses in the first half of the 18th century. The town's residential buildings also consisted of more representative structures located outside the perimeter of the Polish Market. These were small residences with a garden or fenced courtyard. Examples of such buildings include the Czartoryski Palace (also known as the House of the Generals of the Podolski Lands), which has survived to this day, the palace of the Roman Catholic bishop, the commandant's building, and the unpreserved palace of Jan de Witte on the Armenian Square.

An unprecedented achievement of this period was the 'Catholic façade' of the city - an urban-architectural phenomenon (a term used by Olga Płamienicka), which had no equivalent in any of the cities of the Commonwealth, except perhaps Vilnius, whose churches rebuilt after the great fires of the first half of the 18th century acquired a uniform late Baroque architectural form. This ensemble, consisting of a number of church and monastery facades, stretched for almost a kilometre along the western edge of the ravine , from north to south, and played a key role in the urban panorama of Kamianets Podilskyi. In addition to the four existing religious buildings, three new ones were erected. On the southern side, closest to the cathedral , was the Church of St Catherine (demolished in the early 19th century) and the Franciscan, Dominican and Trinitarian monastery complexes . To the north, this panorama continued with the Jesuit monastery buildings, the college and church of St Stanislaus the Bishop and St Stanislaus Kostka, as well as the church of Our Lady of Victory and St Joseph belonging to the Discalced Carmelites. These temples were clearly visible from a distance, as some of them were equipped with architectural dominants. The striking features were the single-tower façade of the Franciscan church, the chancel of the Carmelite church with two towers, the unfinished towers of the Jesuit temple, the superstructure of the cathedral's bell tower and, above all, the 3.5-metre-high gilded statue of Immaculata, made in Gdansk and erected on 10 May 1756 on the minaret, located at the cathedral's façade on the north side. This minaret was a reminder of the time when the temple served as the mosque of Sultan Mehmed IV.

The architect who, based on an analysis of architectural forms, is credited with creating a stylistically coherent concept for the late Baroque façade of Kamenets and with renovating most of the churches that comprise it, was Major General Jan de Witte (1709-1785) - commander of the Kamenets fortress, fortifier and architect. His achievements also include the reconstruction of the Dominican and Armenian churches of St. Nicholas, the reconstruction of the central square and the Polish Town Hall, the construction of the commandant's palace and the commandant's building, as well as the modernisation of the city fortifications and both castles. The classicising Baroque forms represented by the architect, characterised by flatly segmented elevations and sparing detail, are classified as so-called fortress architecture (a term used by Jerzy Kowalczyk), typical of military engineers accustomed to simple, strictly expressed formal solutions. In contrast to these ascetic forms are the stucco decorations in the interiors of the Trinitarian and Dominican churches, the work of another, anonymous artist, which are a unique phenomenon in the art of Podolia. These decorations cover both walls and vaults, creating orderly articulations and richly decorated altar frames, composed of Rococo ornaments.

Architectural design in Kamenz was not only carried out by Jan de Witte, but also by other officers of the military corps of engineers, such as Wilhelm Rippe, Archibald Andrew de Glajedeny Glower and Krystian Dahlke . Their activity had a significant impact not only on the formation of the architectural landscape of the city, but also on the late Baroque character of the entire Podolia region, in which Kamenets acted as the most important and also the only architectural centre.

The century-long reconstruction of Kamieniec Podolski failed to restore the city to its former glory. On 21 April 1793 - as a result of the Second Partition of Poland - Podolia was incorporated into the Russian Empire . This ended the period in which Kamieniec Podolski belonged to the Republic of Poland. The Old Town, its fortifications and the fortifications of the Lower and Upper Castles, neglected since the beginning of the 19th century, partly destroyed during World War II and dismantled during the time of the Ukrainian SSR, are today rising from the ruins thanks to Polish-Ukrainian cooperation.

History
1374 - the Lithuanian Koriatovichs granted the Magdeburg Law
1379 - the Kamenets Bishopric was established, with Kamieniec Podolski as its capital
1430-1672 - within the borders of the Republic of Poland
1434 - the Podolia Voivodship was established, with its capital in Kamieniec Podolski. capital in Kamieniec Podolski
1672-1699 - Turkish occupation
1699-1793 - within the borders of the Commonwealth
1793-1918 - within the borders of the Russian Empire
1918-1991 - within the borders of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic
from 1991 - within the borders of independent Ukraine