Old Castle, Grodno
Royal castle above the Neman holding the main display of the Grodno history and archaeology museum.
A princely stronghold stood on this bluff above the confluence of the Neman and the Haradnichanka from the eleventh century, and remains of a twelfth-century tower and the foundations of Romanesque churches have been uncovered inside the walls. Grand Duke Vytautas rebuilt the castle in stone around 1400 with five towers. After a fire it was reconstructed for King Stephen Bathory in the 1580s as a two-storey Renaissance palace by the Italian architect known as Scoto of Parma; Bathory died here in 1586 and the castle later hosted sessions of the Commonwealth parliament.
The Grodno museum was founded in 1920 and opened to the public in 1922, and its principal collection has occupied the Old Castle since. A restoration programme begun in 2017 dealt with the chapel, the gate tower dome, the middle tower and the gallery, and a rebuilt permanent display opened in 2021. The rooms cover the archaeology of the site and the history of the castle and the town, with weapons and armour, building materials, eighteenth-century furniture and reconstructed banners. A viewing terrace looks over the river.
Highlights
- Renaissance palace rebuilt in the 1580s for King Stephen Bathory
- Excavated remains of a twelfth-century tower and Romanesque churches
- Permanent archaeology and town-history display reopened in 2021
- Terrace with views over the Neman and the New Castle
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