Krzyżtopór – Chrzistopora

KRZYŻTOPÓR

 

“Krzyżtopór” Castle erected by Wawrzyniec Senes in the years 1631–1644 in Ujazd had been the largest castle in Europe until the Versaille castle was built. Krzysztof Ossoliński, the voivode of Sandomierz and a founder of the “palazzo in fortezza” – a palace in the fortress – wanted to impress his contemporaries. Therefore he erected the monumental complex of palaces built in a pentagon bastion fortress modelling on a calendar. The castle had as many windows as there are days in a year, as many chambers as there are weeks, as many rooms as there are months and as many towers as there are seasons of the year. Horses in stables had marble troughs and looked at themselves in crystal mirrors. In one of the rooms an aquarium with exotic fish functioned as a ceiling. Ossoliński spent the amount of 3 million Polish zlotys on the castle with its cubic capacity of 70 000 m3 and covering the area of 1.3 hectares.