page_title: Łazienki Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Łazienki Park / History
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Rotunda w Ogrodzie Chińskim w Łazienkach
context_page_description: Łazienki Park or Royal Baths Park is the largest park in Warsaw, Poland, occupying 76 hectares of the city center.
  The park-and-palace complex lies in Warsaw's central district on Ujazdów Avenue, which is part of the Royal Route linking the Royal Castle with Wilanów Palace to the south. North of Łazienki Park, on the other side of Agrykola Street, stands Ujazdów Castle.
  Originally designed in the 17th century as a baths park for nobleman Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, in the 18th century Łazienki was transformed by Poland's last monarch, Stanisław II Augustus, into a setting for palaces, villas, classicist follies, and monuments. In 1918 it was officially designated a public park.
  Łazienki is visited by tourists from all over Poland and the world, and serves as a venue for music, the arts, and culture. The park is also home to peacocks and a large number of squirrels.
context_section_description: Łazienki Park was designed in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren, in the baroque style, for military commander Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. It took the name Łazienki ("Baths") from a bathing pavilion that was located nearby.
  The picturesque garden scheme owes its emergence as its present shape and appearance mainly to the last ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Stanisław August Poniatowski (Stanisław II Augustus). In the mid-16th century, it became part of the estates of Poland's Italian-born Queen Bona Sforza, who built a wooden manor house with an Italian garden on this site. Later, the wooden manor house of Queen Anna Jagiellon stood on this spot, immortalized in 1578 by the performance of the first Polish play, Dismissal of the Greek Envoys by Jan Kochanowski. To the south, King Sigismund III Vasa had a four-sided stone castle with corner towers erected in 1624.
  In the second half of the 17th century, Ujazdów became the property of Grand Crown Marshal Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. He was the first to call attention to the thickly wooded area of a former animal park stretching along the foot of Ujazdów Castle where he built two garden pavilions. The first pavilion was a hermitage and the other originally contained an ornate bath chamber which first gave its name to the building and eventually to the entire garden. The original baths designed by the renowned architect Tylman van Gameren in the Baroque style, are contained to this day within the walls of the Palace on the Isle. In the first half of the 18th century, Ujazdów was leased to King Augustus II the Strong, during whose reign a regular waterway known as the Piaseczno Canal was built.
  In 1764, Ujazdów became the property of King Stanisław II Augustus. The monarch first set about rebuilding Ujazdów Castle which he chose as his summer residence. Work was begun in the castle's forefield, where a series of straight paths converging at circles was laid out. The remodelling of the old Ujazdów Castle, which received an additional storey and new wings, dragged on without producing the expected results. The king became discouraged, abandoned further work and shifted his attention to the surrounding gardens.
  Modified and reconstructed in several stages over two decades beginning in 1772, the former Lubomirski Bath-House was eventually transformed into the elegant classicist Palace on the Isle. Throughout the gardens, many new structures were built and adorned by architects Dominik Merlini and Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer, painters Jan Bogumił Plersch and Marcello Bacciarelli, and sculptors Andrzej Le Brun, Jakub Monaldi, and Franciszek Pinek. In 1774 a White House was erected in the form of a simple hexagon with comfortably appointed interiors. According to legend, the king's mistress, Elżbieta Grabowska, as well as his sisters resided in the manor. From 1775 to 1783 the Myślewicki Palace was built opposite the Bath-House. Originally it took the form of a cube built on a square, to which eventually wings were built on and subsequently elevated. During the 1770s the hermitage, which had been damaged by lightning, was restored and one of the king's companions, Teresa Lhullier, took up residence there.
  Gradually, the gardens also changed their appearance. In 1778, a Royal Promenade was laid out – a lane joining the White House to the Bath-House. At the point where it crossed the Wilanów Road, a one-storey Chinese-style summer house (subsequently dismantled in the 19th century and recently reconstructed) was erected. The old canals and pool near the Bath House were transformed into diversely shaped ponds of considerable size. In addition to gardens geometrically laid out in the French manner, the park also contained scenic areas inspired by the romantic English garden. Near the Royal Promenade a small pavilion meant for then a popular game called Trou Madame was built, later converted into a theatre. Directly opposite, on the southern shore of the pond, an earthen amphitheatre with a stage in a cluster of trees was established. The view from the Bath Hous
caption: Chinese garden and pagoda
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