Article by A. Szyszko-Bochusz, 'Podhorce', 'Sztuki Piękne', 1924/1925, no. 4, pp. 149-164 (public domain, reprinted after Library of the University of Silesia, Katowice) presenting the history of the palace in Podhorce and its condition in the first half of the 1920s. Also includes a reproduction of the castle reconstruction project by A. Szyszko-Bochusz and photographs depicting the palace.

A modernised reading of the text

Palace in Podhorce.

How many castles and palaces in our land - so many monuments to the glory and power of our mostly extinct magnate families. Wiśnicz of the Lubomirski family, Krzyżtopór of the Ossoliński family, Tenczynek of the Tenczyński family, Szydłowiec of the Szydłowieccy family, Krasiczyn of the Krasicki family - all lie in ruins. So many minor castles, chateaux and fortified manors are in ruins. Comparing this sad list of our ruins with the state of the nobility's residences in such France or England, we see only the full extent of the vulnerability of Poland's borders.

These ruins are the traces of Swedish, Tatar, Cossack and Muscovite invasions. Before our eyes, our cultural heritage, perhaps unique next to that of Wilanów, is disappearing and wasting away, left only in fragments after so many invasions. Podhorce, a chateau that has survived so many floods, is threatened by a ruin no less desperate. The mansion, which until recently was filled to the brim with memorabilia and antique furnishings, is now deserted and naked, and is falling to ruin - again as a result of the invasion of enemy Bolshevik hordes. The residence, once one of the most beautiful in Poland, and a well-preserved specimen of a 17th century mansion, is lost.

An unforgettable charm shrouds all my memories of Podhorce. The compact mass of the castle in the moonlight, the mysterious avenues of centuries-old lime trees, the extensive lawns and lawns, the terraces from where there is a wide and distant view to the north, the courtyard with a typical well, the prospect of the long avenue from the castle to the church and those wonderful interiors of the castle halls with gilded and carved ceilings, marble floors and doors. And the peculiar beauty of evenings spent in the twilight of the lamps in the low vaulted living quarters of the ground floor, decorated with old macatas and tents - you'd say you were hosted in the tent of a bash under the walls of Vienna.

Under the spell of this charm, one forgot that so many ugly later additions had tarnished the castle, that from the gardens and terraces only sad remnants reached us, that the romantic fragments of sculptures scattered here and there were only fractions of the former decoration of the terraces, those statues, vases and delicious water features which, unfortunately, so briefly enchanted all the splendour of the Italian garden. What wonderful impressions it must have made on those who still saw it in all its splendour.

Let us listen to what such a Mr Daleyrac, a Frenchman, writes in his work "Les anecdotes de Pologne", published in Paris in 1699:

"The castle at Podhorce, although somewhat slender, is undoubtedly the most beautiful building in Poland, and even in any other country it would belong to the edifices of the extraordinary. Built in good taste, it consists of the main residential palace, two adjoining pavilions and a small slender tower in the middle, decorated with a dome and giving the whole building a very splendid appearance. It is built entirely of brick, decorated with stone carvings and has perhaps the one disadvantage of being very small in size and too slim. If it were not for the striking beauty of the structure and its ornamentation, one would not even guess that it is a magnate's castle. It lies on the edge of a high mountain, under the defence of four small brick-built bastions with trenches and moats with stone counterscarps with countermine."

"All these fortifications, however, seem to serve more for the eye than for the actual defence of the castle. The small castle courtyard is decorated with very impressive galleries with railings, lined with marble and connected to long porticoes on columns. One enters the palace via a magnificent staircase, covered by a dome. The flats inside the palace are well laid out and extremely ornate. Everything is reigned by refinement and lordly splendour. Marble doorways lead into the rooms and the walls sparkle with gold and paintings. The double row of rooms is reminiscent of the Italian style, and they converge at the end into a great hall with two doors leading to a balcony. From there, a view opens up over the bastion and the trenches, covered with stones in the shape of terraces. The chapel in the middle of the castle, with its high dome at the top, is a real marvel both in its architecture and proportional shapes, and in the furnishing of its interior, remarkably rich in paintings and a thousand ornaments of marble and gold."

"Nothing more alluring than the view from the castle. It encompasses unobstructed planes, beginning at the foot of the mountain, and five or six walled terraces, which rise higher and higher, forming as many gardens of various kinds, abounding in grottoes, statues, ponds, pavilions on great masonry pillars, and in parapets lined on the top with stone. A beautiful staircase leads from one garden to another, and beyond the last garden a beautiful fruit orchard begins all the way down to the guest house below. To the right and left of the orchard rise two large arbours in the shape of a horseshoe, from where a new staircase leads to the top of the hill. At first glance they resemble the Château Neuf in St Germain, which has almost the same location.".

"In the civil war that broke out after the Ukrainian revolt, Podhorce suffered greatly from the Cossacks; however, the castle itself, the fortifications, and even one of the terraces, or these gardens, escaped the predatory hands of the Cossacks, and with the expenditure of a hundred thousand thalers all traces of destruction were obliterated."

This is a description of the castle at the end of the 17th century, after the Cossack invasion, and therefore no longer shining with its original splendour. It must be remembered that the castle in Podhorce was built in the first half of the 17th century (around 1635-1640) by Stanisław Koniecpolski, Great Hetman of the Crown, "for the pleasures of a tasty rest after the military toil and the Republic's amusements", and that it remained intact as long as the Hetman was alive. Two years after his death, in 1648, the castle suffered heavy losses, as "after a great deal of ravaging, it was ruined and torn down. Hetman's son Aleksander restores the castle, but it is doubtful whether he restored it to its original state, while his grandson Stanisław, dying childless, bequeathed it to Prince Jakub Sobieski in 1682. Daleyrac's description dates from this period.

In 1720, the castle was purchased by the Rzewuskis. The gradual decline of this splendid residence progresses evenly with the decline of the state. Roofs deteriorate, terraces become overgrown with weeds, ramparts and bastions disintegrate. Alongside elemental forces, the human hand is working on the destruction of the original Podhorzec. For the greater convenience of the owner, the central tower mentioned by Daleyrac is demolished and a second storey is added over the middle of the castle. At the same time as Poland was partitioned, the castle was further devastated. Waclaw Rzewuski's collection was sold at auction between 1782 and 1787. Everything was sold at that time: clothes, jewels, silver, bronzes, porcelain, glass, fabrics and materials, weapons, furniture, paintings, a library and wines.

There were shields encrusted with gold, golden charges, planted with diamonds and rubies, silver ranks, crutches, gold-framed carbines, mace and maces, mother-of-pearl-encrusted swords, hundreds of silver plates, bowls, platters, vases, candlesticks, trays, rosettes, spoons, knives, cups, charms, flasks, mugs and so on, a great deal of Chinese, Saxon and Gdansk crockery and porcelain wares, many carpets, tapestries, rugs, belts, pintucks, curtains and entire upholstery, over a hundred mirrors, numerous clocks, hundreds of janquins, grates, cutlery, sturmens, fusiliers, pistols and sabres, 14 bronze cannons, bells from the chapel, plenty of furniture from Gdansk, Kolbuszowa or Głogów, and among other books and manuscripts, ancient Greek writings on parchment. What's more, 1,600 sheets of copper sheeting, stripped from the castle roof, were sold.

So what we marvel at in Podhorce, or rather what we marvelled at until recently, are only the flimsy and probably least valuable remnants, miraculously saved from destruction from this material ruin of the Rzewuskis! How magnificent the castle must have looked before this unfortunate ruin caused by the political and economic collapse of the state. The last Rzewuski, Leon, endeavoured to keep the castle in as good a condition as possible, spent large sums of money on the restoration of the building and, dying childless in 1865, gave the castle to the Sanguszko family. Under the enlightened care of the Sanguszkos, the castle shone with a glimmer of the splendid old Hetman times.

We still remember it in its full stately splendour. Unfortunately, not much has remained of it. The quarters of various Austrian, Hungarian and later Ukrainian and Polish staffs did not help to keep it in good condition. The Bolshevik invasion of 1920 dispersed the collections, so that today empty halls, walls stripped of their make-up, damp ceilings and broken furniture scattered here and there greet the visitor with a frightened eye looking for traces of their former glory.

The value of the Podhoretz castle, as one of the few of our 17th-century grand-papa residences, declined with the dispersal of all its internal furnishings, hopefully not irretrievably. The collections taken to Gumniska and Wawel will return to the castle halls, renovated accordingly, and the castle will shine in its former glory. However, Podhorce fortunately did not lose its historical and architectural value, as one of the few similar monuments of our secular architecture from the 17th century, despite its hardships and ruins. As if in an open book we read the history of this building, year after year, epoch after epoch we will decipher all the changes and alterations made here. Let us go through them from beginning to end, thus establishing the entire history of the castle.

The village of Podhorce, in the 15th-16th centuries owned by the Podborecki family and later by Hetman Żółkiewski, must have had some kind of manor house before our castle was built. Where did this manor house stand and what did it look like? Undoubtedly, the place where the castle stands today was the most suitable for the construction of a manor house due to its natural defence, and which manor house of those times could have given up its defence under the constant threat of Tartar, Turkish or Wallachian attacks? Situated on the edge of a plateau, defended by two ravines on the sides, the Podhoretsk manor could have been a defensive settlement for its very situation. But what if the construction itself consisted of thick walls and vaults, and corners - alcoves - protruding from the walls for flank defence.

A careful examination of the walls of the Podhorce castle proved that the walls of its ground floor and cellars, as well as their vaults, came from another, earlier construction. The large barrel vaulted cellars, with very thick walls, made of huge blocks, with doors carefully carved in a semicircle, date from the same period as the ground floor. However, there is no trace of a similar walling technique on the first floor. Nor is there any trace of the original staircase leading to the first floor.

Thus, the original manor house, dating back perhaps to the Podhorecki or Żółkiewski family, was a single-storey building with a plan typical of our manor houses. In the middle, across - a large hallway, from it four doors to four long vaulted chambers, at the two northern corners - two pavilions, typical "alcoves" of our manor houses. All vaulted with barrel-vaulted lunettes, all made of blow. There are no traces of style or ornamentation, no architecturally ornamented doors - just an austere borderland manor house, spacious, carefully and solidly built, one-storey or even two-storey, but with a less well-built floor, crowned with a lace attic, preceded from the entrance by a courtyard, surrounded on all sides by farm buildings - this is the appearance of the original Podhoretsk manor house, in a way built to the grandopan style.

And this was the seat of the Grand Duchy of Poland, which, after passing into the hands of Hetman Koniecpolski, became a magnate seat. The architect appointed by the Hetman to rebuild the manor house had as a condition the preservation of as many of the thick and strong walls of the old manor as possible. He was required to build a castle surrounding the inner courtyard. The outbuildings were moved far away from the castle - it was to become nothing more than a delightful residence, made for resting, reunions and celebrations.

The result was a star-shaped quadrangular castle, almost square, with four corner bastions and a rectangular courtyard. The northern part, the palace proper, a two-storey and partly even two-storey edifice, houses these remains of the former manor house, almost intact. The alcoves have been walled with bastions, the hallway has been divided into two parts by the incorporation of a staircase - the ground floor, moreover, has remained unchanged.

The sparing preservation of the old walls certainly reduced the construction costs, but on the other hand it must have had a negative impact on the whole concept of the new architectural creation that was the Koniecpolski castle. The staircase, a favourite motif of architects in the Baroque era, here, of necessity tightly curled into a ball, does not provide adequate communication with the first floor. Later, attempts were made to rectify this by adding an external staircase, which leads from the courtyard to the first floor in such a picturesque way, supported by light columns of arcaded galleries, the so-called loggias, typically Italian. From these galleries, one enters the two vestibules, and from there the double amphilade of first-floor rooms and the cramped staircase to the second floor of the pavilions.

The first floor of the castle from the time of Koniecpolski - consists of two rows of rich halls, connected by marble doorways with the Pobóg coat of arms in the key. The wood-carved gilt ceiling beams and wall decorations in the northern amphitheatre, the crocuses in the shape of human heads supporting the ceiling beams, the decoration of the golden hall, composed of gold and white ornaments, all recall northern architecture. Flemish, Danish and Danzig motifs come to mind - an unfailing trace of the work of the Danzig artists and craftsmen who were so popular with us at the time.

The central staircase led to the choir of the chapel and to a small room above the Chinese room, richly decorated with stucco, the ceiling of which is said to have been made of glass, above which was an aquarium. Similar legends are preserved in many of our castles. They stand in connection with those rurmus and other water utensils which were so widespread in our castles of the 17th century. It is impossible to verify the relevant state of affairs in Podhorce. The present room under the aquarium has a ceiling from the 18th century, just like the vaulting of the chapel, it is a vestige of those alterations from 1779 which abolished the central turret above the chapel.

This turret with a clock and chimes, of northern baroque character, related in its decoration to the helmets of the side pavilions, fortunately preserved, must have added much charm and volatility to the chateau, especially if we realise that the second floor of the chateau contained only the halls in the pavilions and the central projection over the chapel and the Chinese room, the rest of the chateau being only a storey.

The silhouette, thus dissected and lacey, was a far cry from today's somewhat austere roofline. The central tower and the two pavilion helmets were connected by a balustrade on the central wall, above the ridge of the gabled roof, - above this balustrade, moreover, chimneys were projected, crowned by stone attics. In addition to the two second-floor rooms filling the interior of the pavilions, there were two anterooms slightly lower, covered with a kind of terrace, which were accessed by a spiral staircase. These terraces, moreover, connected to these walkways on the chimney wall. If we add to this the single-storey courtyard buildings, housing the servants' rooms and kitchens, and the beautiful entrance gate, we get the whole as it was under the Koniecpolskis.

During the reign of the Sobieskis, the first cracks appeared in the unified structure: the external staircase and two loggias were added; these loggias had a flat roofing, and were situated in the anterooms of the second floor. They were created only under the Rzewuski family, the middle turret, the then Rzewuski builds on the second floor of the pavilion to the pavilion uniform almost and gloomy present silhouette, the decoration of many halls, including the sylvester, tiled cookers and almost decorated with Janina coats of arms. Loggias - a type of terraces that were accessed.

However, the greatest changes occurred in the 18th century. In 1778. the then owner of Podhorzec, Václav, 4 halls and covered the whole from the chateau with a roof, giving the chateau instead of the silhouette of a cheerful palace - a dry one. The Sobieski bedroom and the Chinese room come from the same 18th century. A residence created solely for fun and relaxation, it must have had magnificent gardens. We also have here one of the few examples of Italian gardens, rising on several terraces - brought to us alive from under the Italian sky. It is difficult to think of an Italian villa today without these gardens.

Suspended from the terraces ("giardino pensile"), communicating by converging and diverging staircases, embellished with a rich pattern of flowerbeds, trimmed trees, labyrinths, and finally numerous sculptures, scattered here and there against a dark background of greenery, in their sloping mass they formed a graceful ground for a variety of water arts. Free-standing water features, stylised waterfalls, cascades, cisterns and ponds all served to embellish and enliven the still life. We know from various descriptions of Podhorzec that the Podhoretsk gardens may have been more admired by contemporaries than the castle itself.

A specialist brought from Rome, laid out here on the slope of the mountain all the Italian wonders in which Roman and Florentine gardens abounded. In 1640, Duke Albrecht Radziwiłł records his impressions after seeing the entire garden, which was probably only recently finished. He finds no words of admiration, comparing the Podhoretto gardens to those of Panna, Villa Matthei, Capraroia and Florence. He notes that the fountains were built by a Roman.

Stanisław Żyznowski notes in 1659 that the water for these waterworks was brought in from afar using bronze pipes. However, a few years after the completion of the garden, in 1648, during the Cossack riots, the entire garden up to the first terrace, and thus probably also all the elaborate pumps of the master Roman, were destroyed by the revolted common people.
In the diary of Stanisław Oświęcim under the year 1651, we read that the gardens were "ruined and overpowered". The gardens must have lacked the funds and skills to restore them, which is why they have remained half-ruined to this day.
However, it is still possible to roughly reconstruct the whole from the remains today.

The garden proper, closed off to the west and east by two massive walls, linked to the counter escarpments of the castle ramparts, actually consists of three terraces, gradually descending towards the north, and connected by steps. The terraces were separated by balustrades, embellished at certain intervals with sculptures.
One description (by Prince Albrecht Radziwiłł) mentions a portico, or gallery, 200 paces long, on columns, built at the entrance to the garden. This is the only unclear place in the description - there is no sign of any portico on the columns - unless it was a timber construction - a kind of gazebo embellished with climbing plants.
The highest terrace, at the level of the castle moat (377 metres above the surface of the ocean), a dozen or so steps below the ground floor, had a fountain in the middle with a round, sculpture-embellished bowl.

The entire surface of the terrace was covered with flowerbeds, the paths were paved with slabs of red sandstone - such a floor is preserved at a depth of 2 feet in a niche under the stairs from the castle to the terrace. This terrace (on the ground plan) is connected to the second terrace 6 metres lower by a diverging staircase. A balustrade, decorated with groups of cupids supporting vases, surrounds the edge of the first terrace. The second terrace, the widest, today covered by eight large lawns, must also have formerly had a more opulent decoration. Lawns, planted with trees cut in baskets.

Decorative plants climbing the boundary walls, one or even more water features diversified its surface. The retaining wall of the first terrace also added no little variety. In Italian gardens, when, as in Podhorce, a terrace had to be created artificially, on an embankment, the space underneath the embankment was used for various niches, dark and secluded grottoes, so contrasting with the bustle and light of the terrace. The retaining wall of the first terrace at Podhorce also has some arcades, seemingly walled up, and inside, under the entire terrace, a high barrel vaulted hall, set back four metres from the face of the retaining wall towards the castle foundations. This hall, of colossal dimensions - 5x40 metres - is no longer the original one.

Inside, we can discern the remains of other buildings also built of brick, some remnants of arches and vaults. This is where the comfortable baths mentioned in descriptions and legends were supposed to have been. With the large amount of water used for waterworks, it was not at all impractical to have a bath here. Nor was it at all the invention of the master who built the Podhoretto garden. The Villa Imperiale near Pesaro has a similar device. Beneath the terrace where the garden with the three water features is laid out, in the depths, some distance from the front of the retaining wall, there is a large barrel-vaulted reservoir for the water used for the water features. The space between this tank and the retaining wall is filled in the middle by a vaulted room with an upper light (a kind of grotto) with a small water feature in the middle and benches all around, and two similar rooms connected to the previous one on the sides. These are the baths.

In Podhorce, as far as we can tell from the remains of the walls, there was something completely identical, only instead of two halls we see the remains of several smaller, also vaulted rooms. The retaining wall of the second terrace has now disappeared almost without trace. What remains of the sides suggests that it was segmented by pilasters. According to the 1717 inventory, there were 18 plaster figures in the niches between them. At the top was a balustrade connecting the two pavilions at the ends of the terrace, which seem to have been built at the end of the 17th century. The centre may have had some kind of canopy with a kind of cascade.

The third terrace, 4 metres lower than the previous one, is completely covered by intersecting hornbeam avenues. It probably no longer had a balustrade ending, but may have had a kind of arcade cut in boxwood. Underneath, on the sloping top of the hill, which was pleated into small terraces, was a decoration of shrubs, possibly grape vines, and the whole was enclosed at the bottom by a pond into which water from the entire garden flowed. This is what an Italian garden looked like. Beyond this, however, beyond the castle ramparts, to the east, west and south lay a park, rather reminiscent of French gardens.

Huge linden trees, perhaps remembering the times of Koniecpolski, surround the two large meadows to the south of the castle. The remains of water features carved from sandstone scattered everywhere indicate how richly furnished the former terrace garden was. A long linden avenue connects the castle gate with the road. At the end of the avenue, beyond the road, is the great colonnade of the church.

The church, usually referred to as the larger chapel, was begun in 1752 according to the instructions of Waclaw Rzewuski and the plans of a certain C. Romanus ("signature of the project by C. Romanus"). Romanus ("signature on the project in the Podhoretsk library"), is a circular building in plan. This tall cylinder with unusually thick walls is covered at the top by a semicircular dome with a lantern. Inside, there are no cornices; outside, the crowning cornice, pilasters, capitals and other ornamentation, as well as window frames, bases and the cordon on which the pilasters rest, are of local carving; the rest of the wall and the vault are of brick; the lantern is of wood, and the dome is covered with sheet metal.

The greatest decoration of this ornately designed church is the magnificent portico supported by 14 Corinthian columns and made of carved stone. This colonnade, together with the tympanum, happily covers up the ungainly proportions of the church itself, and at the same time creates a beautiful end to the perspective of the long entrance avenue. The eight carved figures in the colonnade's attic have a distinctly Italian Baroque character, tending towards Rococo. This character can be felt in the ornaments of the vaulting keys in the windows of the upper row, as well as in the frames above the front door.

Yet the whole, modelled on Italian monuments of ecclesiastical architecture, reminiscent of the famous 'Superga' near Turin, and therefore indirectly imitating the Pantheon as well, of course, has a great deal of classical serenity. Reliably C. Romanus was indeed, if not Italian, at least familiar with Italian architecture and had studied it - and we know that to some extent this may have corresponded to the tastes of Wacław Rzewuski himself.

The church was completely finished in 1766, the year in which Bishop Antoni Wołkowicz ordered it to be consecrated to Antoninus, the ex-provincial of the Capuchins. The interior was decorated in the same year. The year 1765 marks Smuglewicz's stay in Podhorce. He, together with his son and with the help of Fr Basilian, painted the architectural decoration on the side of the altar after the example of other painters - Damjan, Wojciech, Konstantin and Mikolaj from Zhovkva, and Gurgielewicz and Vitaniecki from Lviv.

The decoration in the style of French Rococo, or rather Louis XV, reminiscent of Blondef's creations, executed in pinkish-grey tones with yellowish ornamentation, imitates the pilastering supporting the cornice with vases. The dome, also painted in a similar technique, divided into 8 fields by as many grottoes, has 8 medallions with representations of Abraham, Jacob, Jesse, David, Solomon, Manasses, Joseph and Isaac. In the same style, so reminiscent of Versailles - especially the theatre room - all the furnishings were made. We know from the inventories that in 1765 the woodcarver Twardowski made picture frames, confessionals, a pulpit, pews and a choir.

Of all these works by him, we are obviously most interested in the choir, as it is closely related to the architecture. Encircling the church all around, this choir is a masterpiece in its own right. It is not at all impossible that it was made according to Smuglewicz's drawings*, and it is perfectly connected with the decoration with its crocuses and fancifully carved balusters in the shape of small curly columns. The entrance to the choir from the henge by the sacristy is through two narrow passages in the thickness of the wall.

Indirectly connected to the architecture of the church are the carved statues in the church cemetery - one sole surviving column with a statue of the N.P. Mary - in the meadow in front of the church. The other lies in ruins. According to the same inventory, from which all information concerning the church is taken, the statues of St. Onufry and St. Anthony and the statue of the Virgin Mary were carved in 1745 by the sculptor Leblas. It is possible that other statues (on the church) were made by the same Leblas.

Other architectural monuments topographically connected with the chateau include the Unician Orthodox church to the west of the chateau - a typical 17th century wooden church which used to have a carved and painted iconostasis from the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century (remains in the chateau), and the inn - formerly the Hetman's stables - next to the chateau park, to the east. This huge building, measuring 21.05 metres in width and 86.80 metres in length, attracts the eye with its mansard roofs and baroque gables, supported on masonry pillars. The interior contains nothing of interest. The interior of the castle, as we noted above, today presents a pitiful emptiness.
- In the portfolios of Stanisław August (Library of the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg) are Smuglewicz's drawings not only of the painting decoration, but also of the architecture.

All paintings, tapestries and furniture were either stolen or taken away before being stolen. What's more, thanks to a lack of maintenance, here and there the roofs have caved in and damp has wreaked havoc on the ceilings and walls. Before the furnishings and paintings can be returned to the castle, it must be properly restored. The conservator, Dr. Józef Piotrowski, is making strenuous efforts to make this happen as soon as possible. Let us hope that with the help of the Government, the enlightened owners will prevent the final ruin of Podhorzec, such a valuable national monument.