History
In the second half of the 13th century, during the reign of Bolesław II, Prince of Mazovia, a wood and earthen castellan stronghold was built on the Vistula escarpment at the mouth of the Kamionka River (its castellan, Kuźma, was first recorded in 1313). During the reign of Bolesław’s successor, Prince Trojden, the town and stronghold’s fortifications were expanded, making Warsaw a representative enough place to host papal judges settling the Polish-Teutonic dispute in 1339. After 1349, during the reign of Prince Kazimierz I, Warsaw became a ducal seat, accelerating the transformation of the complex into a wooden and brick and later a completely brick one castle. This ruler likely financed the construction of the Grodzka Tower, also known as the Great Tower, built around the second quarter of the 14th century.
A significant expansion of Warsaw Castle took place in the fourth quarter of the 14th century and the early 15th century at the initiative of Prince Janusz I, under whose rule the united Masovia entered a period of intensive economic development and began to catch up with neighboring lands. Janusz I replaced the castle’s wood and earthen ramparts with a stone and brick wall. He also funded the so-called Great House, likely built in connection with the relocation of his residence from Czersk to Warsaw. The expansion and enlargement of the castle may have been hampered by a natural disaster, which at an unknown date caused the landslide of the Vistula escarpment, along with a section of the defensive perimeter.
In 1526, the last Masovian vassal, Prince Janusz III, died without issue, resulting in the annexation of the Czersk-Warsaw region to the Kingdom of Poland. King Sigismund I, visiting Warsaw for the first time, accepted the oath of the Masovian Sejm and took possession of the castle. From then on, the royal governor and starost of Warsaw permanently resided there. In 1529, the General Sejm (parliament) first met in the castle. After the death of Sigismund I in 1548, Queen Bona moved from Wawel to her Masovian estates. After her departure for Italy in 1556, King Sigismund Augustus began visiting and convening parliamentary sessions in Warsaw.
In 1569, a Renaissance rebuilding of Warsaw Castle was undertaken, designed by the architect Giovanni Battista Quadro. This slightly altered its exterior, but significantly changed its interior. In 1596, King Sigismund III Vasa ordered a thorough expansion. New, early Baroque wings were added and the existing buildings were unified. The result was a grand residence that accommodated the royal court. In the first half of the 17th century, the castle received early modern fortifications, but these were never completed. The years 1655-1657, a period of three occupations of Warsaw by Swedish and Transylvanian troops, brought looting and devastation to the castle’s interior.
King Augustus III undertook extensive rebuilding of the castle after the fire of 1732, and Stanisław August Poniatowski in 1767. Until 1794, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Sejm was held in the castle, where the Constitution of May 3rd was adopted. After the Third Partition of Poland, the castle lost its function as a royal residence, remaining the seat of the Tsar’s governors. After the rebirth of the Polish state, the castle was renovated and in 1927 became the seat of Polish President Ignacy Mościcki. At the beginning of World War II, the building was bombed and partially burned. In 1944, following the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, the Germans blew up the abandoned castle. Only in the 1970s reconstruction began after thorough research, which included many saved elements of the historical décor.
Architecture
The medieval castle was situated on a riverside escarpment, at the confluence of the Kamionka River with the Vistula. To the south, the Kamionka formed a small ravine, while to the east, the structure was protected by steep slopes and the wide Vistula riverbed. The naturally formed promontory was connected to the mainland to the north, where it bordered a settlement that had been transformed into a fortified town since the early 14th century. During this period, the castle’s form was reminiscent of early medieval strongholds. It consisted of wood and earth fortifications surrounding an oval courtyard with wooden or half-timbered buildings, the Grodzka (Great) Tower on a quadrangular plan on the south side, and the Żuraw (Szoraw) gate tower on the north side.
The ramparts of the mid-14th-century Warsaw stronghold were approximately 4-5 meters wide and 4 meters high. It consisted of three rows of small, logs framed chests, additionally stabilized by piles and filled with stones. The chests were small, averaging 1.5 x 1 meter, an unusual solution, as ramparts built using this technique typically had chests measuring at least several square meters. The ground beneath the chests was stabilized in some places with crosswise beams or planks, and the base of the rampart was protected on the outside by a kind of stone bench made of loosely placed erratic stones. Furthermore, the rampart was founded on a layer of mulch, intended by the builders to insulate the structure from moisture. On the inside, the rampart was supported by posts driven into the ground. The outer face of the rampart was most likely covered with clay, protecting the structure from fire. To the north, the outer defensive zone was a ditch, which cutting the hill’s promontory in a semicircle.
The rampart was built along with the main tower (Grodzka Tower) serving as a keep, inserted into the fortification line. This impressive structure was built on a square plan with sides measuring 12.4 meters long, with walls reaching up to 3 meters thick at the ground level. Its massive structure was reinforced with buttresses at the corners and midway along the sides. Additionally, a 4.3 x 5.4-meter annex connected the tower on the north side. Facing the courtyard, it likely served as a vestibule or housed a staircase. On the opposite, northern side of the courtyard, a second, smaller, quadrangular tower was built along the rampart line. It served as a gate, with a passageway on the ground floor facing the castle outer bailey.
In the second half of the 14th century, the wood and earth rampart began to be replaced with a stone and brick defensive wall. It was built along the inner edge of the rampart, approximately 3 meters from it. The wall was built in a shallow foundation pit, only 1 meter deep. At this level, the foundation stones were bonded exclusively with clay. Above, the structure took the form of a stone and brick plinth, approximately 5 meters high, bonded with lime mortar, with a carefully crafted exterior face. On top of the plinth, a section built entirely of bricks was erected, over 2 meters thick, with a face constructed in a monk bond. Originally, the wall ran along the eastern side of the keep for about 20 meters towards the Vistula River, but during construction, a major landslide of the riverside escarpment likely occurred, collapsing a significant section of the fortifications. This influenced the later shape of the castle, whose buildings and fortifications had to be shifted westward. It was probably for this reason that the Warsaw seat had ultimately a form more similar to a town manor than to a castle, which did not have a full defensive wall, but was only incorporated into the system of town fortifications.
Between 1407 and 1410, a new residential house was built, known as the Great or Large House. It was an exceptionally large brick palace measuring 14.5 x 47.5 meters, adjoining the Grodzka (Great) Tower to the south. It was three-story, supported in the northeast corner by a massive buttress (possibly supporting a latrine). The courtyard-facing façade featured shallow, pointed-arch blendes framed by shaped bricks, with additional adjacent blind windows inscribed, wider in the northern section and narrower on the southern side. On the second floor, these were separated by a pointed-arch portal leading to a suspended wooden porch. The entire structure was covered by a gable roof supported by triangular gables.
The interior of the building housed cellars with groin vaults supported by arches and a central, polygonal pillar. Above, there were vaulted ground-floor rooms and three representative rooms on the first floor, lit by pointed windows in the eastern façade. Apart from the ground floor, the façade facing the courtyard was windowless. Vertical access was provided by external wooden stairs and smaller steps hidden in the thickness of the eastern wall, leading to the princely chambers, decorated with pointed recesses and polychrome paintings. In keeping with medieval practice, the rooms on the lowest floor served a utility function. The upper floors may have had an official function, while the uppermost ones were residential and representative.
By the end of the 15th century, a complex of two-story residential buildings known as the Minor Court or Garden (Latin: Curia Minor) had been built in the northern part of the castle. Traditionally, it was occupied by the mothers, wives, and sisters of the Masovian princes, who often served as regents. It was connected to the Grand House by a porch through the baths and the ducal kitchen, located by the eastern wall. The gate tower was connected to the city defensive walls during this period. In the southern part of the complex stood a 15th-century brick building, identified with the ducal bed (“cubiculum ducale”). The old tower, known as the Grodzka Tower, was still in use, but since the landslide of the riverside escarpment, it likely struggled with structural problems, was lowered, and may have even partially collapsed (in the 15th and 16th centuries, it was called “turris rupte”, “turris fracte”, “turris collapse”).
Current state
The castle of the Masovian Dukes in Warsaw, since the 16th century a royal castle, is a monument to the history and culture of the Polish nation, comparable in importance only to Wawel Castle in Kraków. Repeatedly looted, burned, and devastated, and ultimately destroyed, it has always been rebuilt and restored to its former glory. The reconstructed medieval sections of the castle include the main tower (Grodzka), visible up to the first floor along with vaulted cellars, and the reconstructed residential building with blendes and a portal facing the courtyard. The Curia Minor has survived only in fragments (until 1939 relics of a 15th-century painting were visible on the first floor). Furthermore, a full-height section of the defensive wall along the edge of the escarpment near the Curia Minor has survived, along with the interior remains of a 15th-century building. The remaining fragments of the medieval castle are now merely foundations, invisible to the naked eye.
Today castle houses a museum which, in carefully restored early modern interiors, provides permanent exhibitions and temporary exhibitions, prepared in cooperation with the best european museums. More information about the cultural offer can be found on the official website of the museum here.
bibliography:
Architektura gotycka w Polsce, red. M.Arszyński, T.Mroczko, Warszawa 1995.
Kunkel R.M., Architektura gotycka na Mazowszu, Warszawa 2005.
Leksykon zamków w Polsce, red. L.Kajzer, Warszawa 2003.
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Sekuła M., Warszawska siedziba książęca w świetle najnowszych badań, “Z otchłani wieków”, r. 66, nr 1-4, 2011-2012.