Krzyżtopór

In the village of Ujazd, in the rolling farmland of the Świętokrzyskie region of southern Poland, stand the roofless walls of what was one of the largest palaces in Europe before Versailles. Krzyżtopór was raised between 1621 and 1644 for Krzysztof Ossoliński, voivode of Sandomierz, as a palazzo in fortezza — a palace set inside a fortress. Its five-sided ring of bastioned walls, its moat and its gate tower are still standing, and some ninety per cent of its masonry survives, which makes the scale of the complex easy to read even as a ruin.

The design has often been compared to the Farnese palace at Caprarola in Italy. Inside the fortifications rose a three-storey palace on a rectangular plan around an oval inner courtyard, with a great hall in a wing ending in an octagonal tower; the side wings, with four square corner towers, framed a large entrance court. The façades were painted yellow and decorated with portraits of the Ossolińskis and their kin. In 1894 the historian Stanisław Tomkowicz attributed the design to a builder named in the sources as Laurentius de Sente, known in Poland as Wawrzyniec Senes, who is recorded as the castle's architect in 1643. Ossoliński named the house Krzysztofory, after Christophoros, his own name; the later form joins two Polish words, krzyż, "cross", and topór, "axe", the emblem of the family's coat of arms, and both are carved on the gate. Legend says the palace had as many windows as the year has days, as many rooms as weeks, as many great halls as months and as many towers as seasons, and that one dining room had a ceiling made of an aquarium full of exotic fish.

Ossoliński died in 1645, a year after completion, and his son was killed at the Battle of Zborów in 1649. Swedish troops took the castle in 1655 during the Deluge, and in 1770, when it was defended by the Bar Confederates, Russian forces burned it. It has stood as a permanent ruin ever since, and in 2018 it was declared a Historic Monument of Poland. Local legend tells of a treasure of the Ossolińskis hidden beneath the ruins, guarded by the ghost of the founder's son.

Getting there

Krzyżtopór is in Ujazd, in the Iwaniska commune of Opatów County. The town of Staszów is about 20 km away in a straight line. Warsaw Radom Airport (RDO) is about 75 km away in a straight line.