Ogród królewski w Wilanowie i jego współczesna rewaloryzacja

The royal garden in Wilanow, 10 kilometres to the south-east from the centre of Warsaw, is one o f the best preserved and valuable monuments of Baroque art in Poland. Set up in the last quarter o f the seventeenth century by Jan III Sobieski, it frames the royal palace and prolongs its interiors. During the Baroque era its horseshoe pattern encircled the palace and courtyard, and was composed o f two basic parts. The first was an ornamental two -tier Italian garden located in the central part o f the palace-garden premise, with a retaining wall, geometrically designed flower beds, boskets, gilt mythological statues and a fountain in the middle. The second part, situated on both sides o f the courtyard, was a vegetable-fruit garden, divided into quarters and enhanced with sculptures, grottoes and wells. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century the garden was modified upon a number of occasions, always, however, retaining its basic Baroque composition and symmetrical balance o f plane elements. During the nineteenth century it was thoroughly redesigned in the spirit o f Romantic landscape parks. The second world war caused serious devastation o f the plants and artistic outfitting o f the royal garden. Once Wilanow became state property, the garden was subject to general reconstruction and revalorization based on historical plans, views, on-site research and inventory descriptions (1 9 4 6 -1 9 6 4 ). Despite the restoration of former splendour, a number o f elements still require correction and supplementation. One o f the important and as yet unrealised tasks is the restoration o f the bipartite courtyard and canal, which accentuated the axis of the historical Baroque premise.