Building

The Chodkiewicz Palace

 

The Chodkiewicz Palace ensemble stands in the very centre of Vilnius Old Town, close to the Town Hall Square. The façade of the representative western wing dominates Didžioji Street as one of its most striking architectural features.

 

Masonry buildings already stood on the palace grounds in the 16th century. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Chodkiewicz family built a fortified urban residence with an inner courtyard and towers on their site. The palace underwent several expansions and reconstructions during the 17th and 18th centuries following fires and wars. Between 1754 and 1762, Jan Mikołaj Chodkiewicz (1738–1781), Elder of Samogitia, commissioned architects Abraham Würtzner (d. 1758 in Vilnius) and Franciszek Ignacy Hoffer (d. 1761) to reconstruct the palace. Further reconstruction took place in the first half of the 19th century (circa 1825–1834) under architect Tomasz Tyszecki. This final reconstruction gave the palace its late Classicist architectural forms. A representative inner courtyard emerged, surrounded by four wings. Little changed since that time, the Chodkiewicz Palace remains one of the most stylish late Classicist ensembles in Vilnius and throughout Lithuania.

 

For more than three centuries, the palace housed at least eight generations of the Supraśl branch of the Chodkiewicz family. In 1600, the palace became the site of an armed confrontation with the Radziwiłł family over the dowry of the last Princess of Slutsk, Zofia Olelkowicz. The then Elder of Samogitia, Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, fortified the building and assembled an army of his supporters. Artillery fire was reportedly exchanged between the Chodkiewicz and Radziwiłł palaces during the conflict. In 1611, the Castellan of Vilnius, Hieronim Chodkiewicz, acquired another house next to the Church of Paraskeva Piatnitsa. His son Krzysztof, the multiple-term Marshal of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s Supreme Tribunal and Voivode of Vilnius, purchased neighbouring properties, expanding and fortifying the palace. Three of Krzysztof Chodkiewicz’s sons later resided there: Aleksander Krzysztof, Bishop of Wenden and Canon of the Vilnius Cathedral Chapter; Jan Kazimierz, Castellan of Vilnius; and Hieronim Karol, Elder of Bludzie, who died young.

 

Hieronim Karol’s son, Jerzy Karol, Camp Leader of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, inherited the Vilnius residence and passed it to his son Jan Karol, Colonel of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s army. In the 18th century, the palace became the residence of Jan Karol’s son Adam Tadeusz, Voivode of Lithuanian Brest, and subsequently his grandson Jan Mikołaj, Elder of Samogitia. After Jan Mikołaj’s death, his wife Ludwika Rzewuska-Chodkiewicz managed the residence but did not live there permanently, and the palace was often let out.

 

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Jan Mikołaj and Ludwika’s son Aleksander occupied the palace, which then contained 33 halls and rooms. A supporter of Napoleon and member of the Military Committee of the Provisional Government of Lithuania in 1812, Aleksander later became a senator of Congress Poland, general, scholar and collector. As early as 1810–1811, he sought a buyer for the palace. The building soon passed to State Councillor Wojciech Puslowski. In 1834, the Medical-Surgical Academy was established here, followed by the chancellery of the Vilnius Educational District in 1841. Parts of the palace were rebuilt, spacious halls partitioned, and flats installed.

 

In 1919, the Chodkiewicz Palace passed to the re-established Vilnius University. During the war and post-war years, university professors lived here, including P. Pakarklis, V. Sezemanas, J. Vabalas-Gudaitis, V. Jurgutis, I. Jonynas, and A. Žvironas.

 

Since 1994, the western wing of the Chodkiewicz Palace has housed the Vilnius Picture Gallery. The other wings accommodate the administration, library, archive, and art storage facilities of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.

 

 

The Lithuanian Magnates—The Chodkiewicz Family

 

The Chodkiewicz family is one of the most distinguished, wealthiest, and most influential Lithuanian magnate families of Ruthenian origin, with descendants living to this day. From the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Chodkiewicz were renowned for their astute and valiant military commanders and diplomats, loyal defenders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s interests, who formed marital ties with the ruling Gediminid-Jagiellonian dynasty. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, this family provided the Lithuanian state with nearly twenty senators alone, including voivodes, castellans, ministers, and bishops. The Chodkiewicz were among the first in Lithuania to receive confirmation of hereditary nobility from Emperor Ferdinand I Habsburg—in 1555, they became Counts of the Holy Roman Empire. This title was soon recognised in Lithuania and Poland, and later in Russia and other European states.

 

The most distinguished representative of the family in the 15th century was Jan Chodkiewicz (d. 1484), who became Voivode of Kyiv and Court Marshal of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the 16th century, the Chodkiewicz family split into three branches: Bykhaw, Byerastavitsa, and Supraśl. The Bykhaw Chodkiewicz branch rose to prominence and fame in the late 16th–early 17th centuries. Hieronim (d. 1561), founder of this branch and Elder of Samogitia and Castellan of Trakai and Vilnius, was first honoured with the title of count. His son Jan (d. 1579)—Elder of Samogitia, Castellan of Vilnius, Grand Marshal of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Administrator and Hetman of Livonia—became one of the most influential statesmen and astute diplomats of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the Union of Lublin years, alongside the Radziwiłł dukes. He sought the best way out of the unfavourable union terms for Lithuania and the threatening international situation.

 

Upon the death of Sigismund Augustus in 1572, Jan Chodkiewicz was among the candidates for the throne of Poland and Lithuania. His son, Jan Karol (1560–1621), became the first senator of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania—Voivode of Vilnius and Grand Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Administrator of Livonia. This military commander won the Battle of Kirchholm (Salaspils) in 1605 against the several times more numerous army of King Charles IX of Sweden, bringing fame to the family name throughout Europe. Count J.K. Chodkiewicz was titled Viceroy of Lithuania and Poland in Moscow and compared with other legendary Catholic European military commanders—the generalissimo, Duke A.V.E. Wallenstein, Count J.C. Tilly, and General Marquis A. Spinola.

 

At the beginning of the 17th century, following the extinction of the Byerastavitsa and Bykhaw branches, the Chodkiewicz influence in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was maintained by representatives of the Supraśl branch, which survives to this day. The founder of the Supraśl Chodkiewicz branch was Castellan of Trakai, Jerzy (d. 1569), whose sons Jerzy (d. 1595) and Hieronim (d. 1617) also became senators of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, holding the posts of Elder of Samogitia and Castellan of Vilnius. Representatives of two later generations of this branch, Krzysztof (d. 1652) and Jan Kazimierz (d. 1660) Chodkiewicz, also occupied the seats of the most important senators of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania—Voivode and Castellan of Vilnius—whilst Aleksander Krzysztof Chodkiewicz (d. 1676) was Canon of Vilnius and Bishop of Wenden.

 

At the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries, the power of the Chodkiewicz family waned. In Lithuania, the Pac counts and Sapieha dukes successively rose to prominence, whilst the Chodkiewicz adversaries, the Radziwiłł dukes, defended their influence. Nevertheless, in the 18th century, two members of the Chodkiewicz family—Adam Tadeusz (d. 1745) and his son Jan Mikołaj (d. 1781)—were also senators of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, holding the offices of Voivode of Lithuanian Brest and Elder of Samogitia. In the 19th century, the Chodkiewicz family became renowned not only for their military and diplomatic abilities but also for their literary and scholarly accomplishments.

 

The Chodkiewicz family, initially Orthodox, later sympathising with Calvinism, ultimately became devout Catholics. They actively supported the Catholic Church in Livonia and generously financed Catholic churches and monasteries throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, including the Bernardine and Jesuit houses of Vilnius and Lithuanian Brest, the Augustinians of Vilnius, the Lateran Canons of Bykhaw, the Dominicans of Novogrudok and Shklov, the Jesuits of Kražiai, Ostrog and Yaroslavl, the Bernardines of Kretinga, the Benedictines of Minsk. They also patronised the Orthodox and Uniates of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, including the Metropolis of Kyiv and the monasteries of Zabłudów and Supraśl. In their principal residences, the Chodkiewicz family amassed valuable art collections, maintained rich libraries, and preserved archives of significance to the entire nation’s history.

LNMA information