Palace in Zebrzydowice: A Baroque Residence on a Medieval Castle Site
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Poland
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page8 sections
History
The Palace in Zebrzydowice is a historic residence in Poland, built in 1764 as a Baroque palace on the site of an earlier Gothic castle in the former Duchy of Teschen. The medieval duchy was a historical state in the Silesian region of Central Europe. The castle occupied a defensible position beside the Pietrówka River, with water and marshland helping to protect it.
The Gothic Castle and Early Owners
The first castle was probably built at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Fragments of Gothic walls and the site’s defensive setting provide evidence for this early phase, although later rebuilding and the lack of historical images prevent its original appearance from being reconstructed. A pond bordered the castle on its eastern and northern sides, while a marshy meadow extended to the west.
The earliest recorded owners were the Mikesz family of Jedłownik, who are associated with the castle around 1467. They sold it to Jan Burzej of Klvov. Another early owner was Paweł of Kornice and Šumperk. In 1524, Hynek Bielik of Kornice sold Zebrzydowice, together with nearby Marklowice, to Jerzy Liszka of German Lutynia for 1,550 Hungarian ducats, a historical gold coin.
Jerzy Liszka’s grandson, Hynek Liszka, inherited the estate in 1575 and supplied the oldest recorded reference to the “fortress of Zebrzydowice.” On 14 March 1580, a violent dispute occurred at the estate between Jaremiasz Szobiszowski, who was staying there, and the host. Hynek Liszka was seriously wounded, and a legal account of the incident survived. His continuing health problems and the estate’s debts led him to sell the village in 1583.
Division of the Estate and the Baroque Rebuilding
Ownership changed repeatedly during the following centuries, and the Zebrzydowice estate was divided into several parts. Upper Zebrzydowice contained a wooden manor that has since disappeared, while Lower Zebrzydowice retained the castle site on which the present palace was later built.
On 13 March 1747, Count Karol Józef Hoditz von Volfranitz sold the castle to Franciszek Ludwik Mattencloit and his wife, Maria Agnieszka, for 35,000 florins, a historical European currency used in several countries. In 1764, Baron Jan Ryszard von Mattencloit and his wife, Maria Renata von Beess, rebuilt the old castle as a Baroque palace and laid out a surrounding park. Baroque architecture was a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century style known for formal compositions, projecting facades, monumental entrances, elaborate ornament, and pronounced roof forms.
The estate remained with the barons de Mattencloit for 140 years and served as their principal residence during its most prosperous period. In 1836, Jan Baptysta de Mattencloit purchased Upper Zebrzydowice and reunited the village. Financial difficulties followed the abolition of the corvée after the Revolutions of 1848. The corvée was an obligation of unpaid labor owed by dependent peasants to an estate, while the Revolutions of 1848 were political uprisings across Europe whose aftermath changed this system.
Larisch von Mönnich Ownership and Modern Use
By 1887, the estate’s debts exceeded its value, and the District Court in Cieszyn ordered it to be auctioned. After Emeryk Emanuel de Mattencloit, the family’s last owner, died in 1888, Count Henryk Larisch von Mönnich purchased the indebted village on 25 April of that year. The last owner of the palace and Zebrzydowice was Count Jan Henryk Larisch von Mönnich. Additions were made to the palace at the end of the nineteenth century.
The palace burned during the Second World War in 1945. It was reconstructed and restored between 1958 and 1963, then expanded in 1970 and assigned cultural functions. Local authorities became its owners and added an auditorium to the eastern wall. The building now houses the municipal cultural centre, and the surrounding complex includes an amphitheatre, a viewing pier, and the Mlynszczok Water Sports Centre. The palace entered the heritage register under records 371/53 on 12 January 1953 and 202/60 on 2 March 1960.
Remains
The Palace Building
The palace occupies the former castle site on a rectangular plan and incorporates the old castle walls. Its design follows German Baroque architecture. The ground floor is buttressed, recalling the building’s earlier defensive purpose, and its squat form has rounded corners. A projecting cornice, a horizontal architectural molding, separates this level from the first floor. Pilasters, which are flattened wall-mounted representations of columns, and entablatures organize the facades around rectangular windows topped with ornamental cornices.
The principal facade has eight bays. At its centre, a projecting avant-corps, or forward-projecting section of the facade, rises above the main wall and contains a broad gateway on the ground floor. On the first floor, the projection is framed by pairs of pilasters with Composite capitals, which combine features associated with the Ionic and Corinthian orders. A triangular pediment crowns it. Within the pediment, a circular stone cartouche carries the coats of arms of the barons de Mattencloit and Beess. The surrounding founder’s inscriptions are illegible, and the damaged date was probably 1764.
A mansard roof covers the building. This roof type has two slopes on each side, with the lower slope steeper than the upper one, and it contains two symmetrical dormers. The late-nineteenth-century alterations added subsidiary wings to the two-storey palace. The auditorium attached to the eastern wall in 1970 forms part of the later cultural-use complex.
Park and Surrounding Grounds
A park of almost two hectares extended to the north-west of the palace. It was arranged on two terraces, creating a formal setting for the Baroque residence. The wider grounds now also contain the amphitheatre, viewing pier, and Mlynszczok Water Sports Centre added to the palace’s cultural-use surroundings.
Evidence of the Earlier Castle
Fragments of Gothic walls survive as archaeological evidence of the castle that preceded the palace. The former defensive landscape beside the Pietrówka River included a pond on the eastern and northern sides and marshy meadowland to the west. These remains and the setting preserve the connection between the present residence and the fortified site that occupied Zebrzydowice before the eighteenth-century rebuilding.
