Gothic House in the garden in New Alexandria (Puławy)

The Gothic House, erected in 1809, was the second museum building, along with the Sibyl Temple, in the palace and park complex in Puławy. Izabela Czartoryska placed foreign and national collections there. All the items on display here were listed by the Duchess General and published in print in 1828 in the catalogue of the Listing of preserved memorabilia of Gothic House in Puławy, containing 1,527 items, and about 3,000 exhibits. The collections included: decorative arts, military items, fragments of sculptures and contemporary pieces, books, engravings and plans as well as albums with autographs of eminent personalities, sentimental mementoes and historical peculiarities.

A large group of 274 items were fragments of sculptures, buildings and military items built into the outer walls of the building. In the Wall of Casimir the Great, named after a Piast eagle transferred to the wall from the Kazimierz castle in Łobzów, above the entrance of architectural details, paintings, miniatures, illuminated manuscripts, manuscripts, a verse from Virgil’s Aeneid: ‘SUNT LACRYMAE RERUM ET MENTEM MORTALIA TANGUNT’ (and memorabilia make one cry and minimal things touch the soul). There are also fragments of castles, tombstones of Polish kings and the so-called Wawel heads. In the Roman Wall, among others, fragments from the Pantheon and the Colosseum were installed. In the Wall of Cid and Xymena, next to the stones from the tombs of the nobles brought from Spain, stones from castles associated with Maria Stuart and the Cromwell’s house were embedded. The Gostynin Wall showed bricks and pieces of wood from a room in Gostynin where the Szujski brothers died, bricks from the buildings of Charlemagne and memorabilia related to Napoleon. The Wall of Boguta and Sedziwoj was named after two tombstones brought from Greater Poland. In the Kościuszko Wall, above the door, the Duchess placed an inscription: ‘LET OUR VICTORIES HEREAFTER WIPE OUT THE MEMORY OF THE FAILURES’. The objects collected here were related to Kościuszko. Cannonballs and columns from the Blue Palace are exhibited as well. The Lithuanian Wall also commemorated local monuments – an urn dug out in Puławy and a sword from the castle in Kazimierz. In the Żółkiewski Wall, the framing of the balcony door originated from the Wierzynek house in Kraków, and the balcony slab was based on the heads of lions from the Łobzów castle.

Renata Bartnik