Wisnicz Castle

Medals can be purchased at the ticket offices!

The Kmita and Lubomirski Castle in Wiśnicz is an extremely valuable monument of early baroque architecture, a witness of the great history of Poland and one of the best preserved examples of defensive architecture. The castle, functioning on the historical route between Cracow and the south of Europe, connects the culture and tradition of the Mediterranean in the area of the Carpathian Mountains, it is an object that must be visited, seen and known.

The Wiśnicz Castle is one of the most valuable works of early Baroque residential and defensive architecture in Poland.

The oldest part of the castle was erected in the 14th century by the Kmita family. In the 16th century, the most famous of the Kmita family, Piotr V, Grand Marshal of the Crown at the court of Sigismund the Old, gave it features of the Renaissance style. Another reconstruction of the castle took place in the years 1615-1621 under Stanisław Lubomirski, according to plans by Maciej Trapoli. A further extension took place around 1700. The castle, abandoned after a fire in 1831, had to wait until 1949 for a comprehensive restoration.

The body of the castle, early baroque with renaissance fragments, is built on a quadrilateral plan with an inner courtyard and crowned with four corner towers. On the north-eastern side there is a chapel from 1621, and on the south-eastern side there is the so-called Kmitovka, originally a free-standing building from the 16th century. On the second floor of the chateau, by the knights’ hall, there is a viewing gallery.

The palace is surrounded by bastion fortifications with a 5-sided outline, dating from the early 17th century, housing an early Baroque entrance gate in the eastern curtain.