Radzyn Podlaski

The magnificient Potocki Palace in Radzyn Podlaski was calculated to have a great imposing effect on visitors – its architectural assumptions were completely different from the other polish residences arising at this time. Nowadays that’s one of the most beautiful Rococo residences in Poland enchanting with its beauty and harmony. 

The palace was built by Eustachy Potocki, a general in the Lithuanian artillery and one of the richest noblemen in Poland. In 1750-58 it was reconstructed in the Rococo style by Giacopo Fontana whose dynamic carvings decorate the palace and the orangery. The residence was built in the form of a horseshoe and consist of the main building and two side monumental wings with the imposing gate towers (“entre cour et jardin” style). Its interiors’ paintings were made by  Jan B. Plech while the sculpture work by Michal Dollinger and famous Christian Redler. The most interesting are the coats of arms of Potocki, Pilawa and Jeleń family and the four groups of Hercules with the Lion, the Hydra, the Minotaur and the Dragon. Unfortunately the rich decoration of the rooms was heavily destroyed by the palace arsons set by the retreating Russian army in 1915 and the German one in 1944. The palace is sorrounded by the french landscape park with the 18th-century Rococo orangery, recognised as one of the finest buildings of this kind in Poland which decorations refer to the threads of the French and Saxon art. Worth seeing is also the 17th-century Church of the Holy Trinity in the Lublin Renaissance style with the imposing red marble Renaissance double tombstone of Mikolaj Mniszech and his wife Zofia by Santi Gucci. Their famous  granddaughter Maria Mniszech was the wife of the two Russian „false” tsars: Dmitri I and Dmitri II and is burried in the local parish church.