Some Remarks on the Bathory Remodelling of the Old Grodno Castle and on Its Contemporary Reconstruction

Olga M. Hajduk


Warsaw, Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9665-9410

Abstract

The question of the Old Grodno Castle from the times of King Stephen Bathory, revived due to the reconstruction works ongoing in Grodno since 2017, and meant to restore the shape it had back in the second half of the 16th century, requires a more extensive debate. The contemporary design for the reconstruction of the Grodno Castle by Uladimir Bachkov is based on the assumption that the facility’s architecture was authored by a Florentine artist active in Poland in the second half of the 16th century, namely Santi Gucci. The goal of the present paper is to initiate a broader debate on the justifiability of the conducted reconstruction works, to present the latest findings with respect to the Bathory remodelling (including the unjustified attribution to Santi Gucci), as well as to show the petrographic research into the relics of the Renaissance stonework of the Old Grodno Castle conducted in 2019. The Author subsequently discusses the to-date studies on the Castle, while also analysing the collected source materials, and adding new findings. The paper’s dominating motif is the unjustified attribution of the Castle’s architecture to Santi Gucci. Furthermore, the profiles of the artists who can be considered its potential authors in the times of Stephen Bathory are presented: Jacinctus Fidelis of Milan, Antoni de Grepy del Ronco, and Jozef Rojten.

Supporting Agencies

Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Keywords:

Grodno, Old Grodno Castle, modern residential architecture, Stephen Bathory, Santi Gucci, Antoni de Grepy del Ronco, Jozef Rojten vel Roiten of Lvov, rebuilding and reconstruction of historic architecture

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Published
2021-12-30

Cited by

Hajduk, O. M. . (2021). Some Remarks on the Bathory Remodelling of the Old Grodno Castle and on Its Contemporary Reconstruction. Biuletyn Historii Sztuki, 83(4), 843–858. https://doi.org/10.36744/bhs.1075

Authors

Olga M. Hajduk 

Warsaw, Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9665-9410

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