The article traces the history of Pažaislis, including the monastery complex founded by Krzysztof Sigismund Pac (then Grand Chancellor of Lithuania). The text describes the history of Pažaislis, the question of the founder of the Camaldolese monastery, and the description of the monastery complex itself, including the church, which was completed in 1690. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1860, T:1, p. 199., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text.

Fire.

You run through a Lithuanian valley, wonderfully clothed in the colours of lush greenery, find a path and hurry to the top of a pagan grove - one more step up, and suddenly a delicious sight before you! A solemn silence all around; the forest, as if a fragment of the Lithuanian primeval forest, blackens as soon as you reach your eyes; everywhere terraces in bloom, and beneath them the silver ribbon of the Nemunas... A primeval forest, and yet so much life, and your chest breathes stronger, and your hand stretches out in front of you, because on the bright background of the serene sky is reflected the black cross, which speaks to you so vividly!

This beautiful and magnificent place, not far from Kaunas, was once favoured by Krzysztof Pac, Grand Chancellor of Lithuania, an eminent man of the times of John Casimir and Michael, who, together with his wife Clara Eugenia of the Counts de Mailly, founded a church and a hermitage with Camaldolese monks there in 1662. The past of this place is not clearly interwoven with the history of the whole country; no wars, until 1812, when the temple and the monks suffered a lot from French marauders, left a trace here. Pažaislis' past speaks to us only in the form of monuments of excellent art. The walls are still standing, but the written monuments have been destroyed to the ground; the library, once very prosperous, is now collapsed with rotten books, covered with rubble and cobwebs, and all the ornamentation we have been able to carry from these places consists of a dozen or so pages of copies, describing the history of the foundation of the church and the monastery, from which we make this note.

Two legends accompany Pacov's magnificent foundation. One of them mentions how Pac, burning with unrighteous love for his close relative, upon learning of his grave mistake, wishing to propitiate God, conceived the idea of a foundation for which he was to spend eight barrels of gold. The second account, closely related to the first, says that in the same place there was a dwelling of devils, who took a liking to a beautiful retreat and, feeling almost in complete control of a place afflicted with great sin, became furious when they saw that Pac was erecting a church to propitiate God; panic seized them, and setting out from the quiet retreat, they went out on the road and, wishing to do something decisive, placed the council in the wheel hub.

But Pac, already enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, seeing what was happening, ordered a wedge to be made from a rowan tree, the striking of which does great harm to devils, and having killed the hub with it, he threw the whole wheel on the fire, and having thus got rid of the devils, he continued to erect the walls of the temple. Whatever the motive that led Pac to this foundation, which cost around 8,000,000 zloty, it is certain that it came from the heart, that he did not begrudge his treasures, that he wished his body to rest here.

He cared for it greatly, as can be seen from his correspondence with the Apostolic See, on which Alexander VII sat at the time, from the excellent endowment of the monastery in goods, money, income, wine and so on, and finally from Pac's own letters, written at various times to the Camaldolese Fathers, commending them to their prayers or admonishing them to take care of the church, cloisters, tins, cauldrons, etc., and of which he expressly wrote when sending them, that they should be weighed, recorded in registers, protected in cases and guarded against any loan.

Moreover, when the church was not yet finished, he sent the corpse of his son to it in 1661 from Romani near Kaunas and recommended to the clerical fathers: "let the coffin stand in the sacristy until the shop was walled in"; and in 1664, during the opening of the church, he recommended to the clerical fathers that they In 1664, at the opening of the church, which was celebrated with great splendour in the presence of many eminent lords and the Prince Bishop of Vilnius himself, the preacher, in a learned sermon, flattered Pac so loudly, attributed such marvellous qualities to his lily, which cancels out purple roses, Kandos narcissi, green rosemary, and made such allusions to the "Mons Pacis" (Mountain of Peace), on which the church had just been erected, so in a word, in the custom of his brethren, he incensed the great chancellor, that he, if he had not indeed been proud of his foundation, superior to that of his brethren, if he had not felt that he had done what could only be done with treasure, would certainly, in spite of being accustomed to high-handedness and flattery, have blushed at this elaborate praise; and yet, as a result of this sermon, new proofs of his generosity probably flowed down to the monastery in the following year.

Pac loved this place and was most proud of his foundation, for even today it is difficult to express the pleasant impression that a traveller gets when, having visited the slopes of the riverside, he passes the foresterium and stands in the church. The artist, whose name we do not know, because the name of Joan Merli of 1676, inscribed on the wall in the presbytery, is nowhere to be found, was a master in his art. Only a poet could have felt this wonderful harmony of parts binding into a majestic whole, only an artist with a finite sense could have embodied such an idea in an earthly work. The church has the form of an octagon, with small chapels in which the altars; one dome boldly raised on six arcades, through which gentle light enters the temple; arches, cornices, pillars intricately carved, porches, windows, passageways, almost lose their exclusivity in favour of the whole; the whole church is lined with black and red marble. The generosity of the founder and the taste of the artist are to be admired here.

On the dome, the frescoes depicting the history of the Camaldolese monks shine with brilliant colours; on the walls, where marble has given way to brushwork, you see the feast of Cana, the crossing of the Red Sea, the sermon of St Francis de Sales, the martyrdom of the Christians, the entombment of Christ, Bolesław visiting the followers of Romualdo, Pac showing the workers the plans, and many others, and everywhere, especially in the first two, the drawing and colouring are superb. The walls of the church were once adorned with oil paintings, four of which were supposed to be of exquisite brushwork; today only three remain, depicting: The Welcoming of the Virgin Mary by St Elizabeth, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Christ among the disciples, all of which deserve the greatest care around them.

Everywhere, in the church, in the sacristy, on the stalls, in the library, even in the refectory, sculpture and painting, carefully and artistically finished, everywhere you know the hand or direction of the master, nowhere do you see mediocrity. Through magnificent corridors you pass from the church to the hermitage, where today twelve Camaldolese cottages stand lonely, half-wrecked, because their inhabitants have long since rested in the church vaults. Through a small window, I looked into these sepulchral cellars: bones and skeletons scattered, mixed up with each other, here and there a plank of wood thrown down, and on it the skeleton of a monk or just the head alone stuck to a brick, which was given as a pillow for the grave... A handful of ashes and a name written in the register of monks, this is the whole memory.

But there is a separate tomb, walled up, under a great stone, for the founder and his family; by steps leading from the interior of the church, I entered the posthumous dwelling of the dignitaries of the world, I placed a lamp faintly flashing on the edge of the shattered coffin and looked around.... A few cadaverous remains in a rotten coffin, some bones, full of ashes, on top of that a few rags rotten from a once rich robe... this is all that is left of the bodies of the lord, his wife and children... and in the coffin from which the wind has already swept away the ashes, the brain of the chancellor and his heart are crumbling.

The drama of life is over!...