Krzyżtopór Castle

Ujazd, Poland, Poland

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Krzyżtopór Castle in Ujazd, Poland, is one of Europe's grandest 17th-century ruins, built between 1621 and 1644 by Krzysztof Ossoliński, Voivode of Sandomierz, as a lavish palazzo in fortezza blending Italian Renaissance palace design with bastion fortifications on a pentagonal rocky hill. Inspired by the Farnese Palace in Caprarola and possibly designed by an architect from Vignola's circle, with Wawrzyniec Senes overseeing construction using quartz sandstone, dolomite, bricks, and exotic marbles, it featured 365 windows (days of the year), 52 rooms (weeks), 12 halls (months), 4 corner towers (seasons), a glass-ceilinged aquarium dining hall, marble stable troughs, Italian gardens, and a central elliptical courtyard flanked by the gate tower and Wysoki Rondel bastion. Completed at immense cost around 30 million zlotys, Ossoliński enjoyed it briefly before dying in 1645; his heirs lost it amid the 1655 Swedish Deluge, when invaders thoroughly looted and demolished the opulent structure, leaving its dramatic skeletal remains as Poland's largest castle ruin today.