
The history of Kazimierz Dolny goes back to the beginnings of Poland as a state. A famous historian, Jan Długosz, mentioned the area of Kazimierz as a property of a Benedictine monastery at Łysa Góra in the 11th century. He also wrote that in about 1170, King Casimir the Just (Kazimierz Sprawiedliwy) gave several villages, including Wietrzna Góra (Windy Hill) to a convent of Norbetine nuns based in Zwierzyniec, Cracow. The grateful nuns changed the name of Wietrzna Góra to Kazimierz. The original village developed near to the crossing of the Vistula River. Kazimierz grew thanks to the duty paid by people crossing the river. At the beginning of the 14th century Kazimierz was returned into the kings hands. The then king, Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki), gave Kazimierz the right to be a town. Most probably he built the parish church and the castle. The donjon, a fortified tower situated further up the hill than the castle, had been built some time earlier. From the middle of the 16th century, Kazimierz enjoyed prosperity thanks to the transportation of corn down the Vistula to Gdansk. The most prosperous period was the first half of the 17th century, a time when the most important buildings were built in the town. The town got its new architectural shape after 2 fires in about 1565 and 1585. Wooden buildings were replaced by ones built of brick. The first was the rebuilding of the parish church (Fara), completed in 1613, by an Italian master Jakub Balina. He influenced <b>...</b>
Kazimierz
Dolny
polskie
malarstwo
Zygmunt
Vogel
Jarosław
Wojtkowiak
Jan
Wołek
Chaim
Goldberg
shtetl
Polish
painters
skarabeusz
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