Transition (Transition to Library)

Historical names: The Library [second room] (mid-19th c.); “The Passage” (1933)
Other names: The Library
Time of construction: 1790s; 1903 – change of decor
Architects: Chrystian Piotr Aigner (1790s); Amand Louis Bauqué, Albert Pio (1903)
Artists: Viennese carpenters (1903)

Description:
The small room behind the northwest tower allows one to move from the representative interiors of the castle's first floor to the Library located in the annexe. The annexe was most likely built together with the library wing, based on the design of Chrystian Piotr Aigner in the 1790s. The room serves as a connector, built on a square plan with a cut corner, is visible in the outline of the castle walls on the city plan from the mid-19th century. The room's equipment still exists today and comes from the reconstruction of the annexe at the beginning of the 20th century, designed by Amand Louis Bauqué and Albert Pio. The room, then functionally incorporated into the actual Library, obtained a uniform decor. The smooth walls and ceiling complemented with a facette were built over with oak and maple wood panelling and bookcases with wire mesh doors. There is a stained-glass window with panelled hinged shutters in the cut corner and in the western and southern walls – double-leaf doors with stained glass glazing to protect the book collection from sunlight.

Basic bibliography:
• Kossakowska-Szanajca Zofia, Majewska-Maszkowska Bożenna, Zamek w Łańcucie, Warsaw 1964
• Omilanowska Małgorzata, Jakub Sito, Łańcut i okolice [in:] Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw 1994
• Potocka Elżbieta, Łańcut – memoirs from 1885 to 1915 [Diary, typescript in the collection of the Castle Museum in Łańcut]
• Piotrowski Józef, Zamek w Łańcucie, Lviv 1933

Elaboration:
Teresa Bagińska-Żurawska https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9243-3967