The neo-Renaissance palace of high artistic class was built according to the designs of the outstanding Italian architect Henryk Marconi. Originally, it served as the main residence of the Myszkowski Ordinance and a private museum with rich archival and artistic collections, as evidenced by its artistic and ideological programme created by Count Aleksander Wielkopolski.

History

Until the 18th century, the residences of the Chroberz owners were erected on the “Zamczysko” hill, where already in the 12th century there was a ducal hillfort. In the second half of the 14th century, the Toporczyk family built a castle there, rebuilt by the Tarnowski and Myszkowski family in 1553-68, after 1582. In 1601 it became one of the main seats of the Myszkowski Ordinance. Before 1726, in undetermined circumstances, the last of the family, Józef Władysław Myszkowski (d. 1727) ordered its demolition. Most probably in the second half of the 18th century, Hieronim Wielopolski built his manor house in a new place, in the north-western part of the village. The present day palace was founded by Aleksander Wielopolski near the manor house - in connection with the transfer to Chroberz of the main residence of the Ordinance and rich family collections, temporarily enlarged after 1855 with the collection of Konstanty Świdziński. The building was designed by Henryk Marconi in 1853-6. It was erected in 1857-60 under the supervision of his assistant architect Adolf Woliński. In the years 1858-59, the interior decoration was performed by stonemasons Beranek from Pińczów and Piotr Schmidt from Chęciny, painters Jakub Górski, Wincenty and Piotr Jaroszewicz and sculptor Andrzej Pruszyński. Simultaneously with the construction of the palace, in the years 1853-62, farm buildings, designed by Florentyn Gołembiowski, Hałatkiewicz and Woliński, were built. In 1857 H. Marconi redesigned the park. In 1860 the former manor house was pulled down and a chapel was built above the pond, designed by Henry Marconi (modelled on the pavilions from around the 16th century, designed by Santi Gucci, located in the old family seat of the founder in Książ Wielki). Zygmunt Wielopolski continued his father’s construction work, and in the 1880s he built brick farm buildings, outbuildings and annexes, and in 1899 he renovated the palace. In 1945, the residential complex was taken over by the State Treasury and adapted for the needs of agricultural education. This decision was important for the condition of the park, palace and farm buildings, which were successively transformed. This process was limited by the conservation works carried out in 1969 and 1973-83. In 1986 a sewage treatment plant was built near the pond. In the 1990s and 2009-12, a partial revitalisation of the palace, farm buildings and the park was undertaken. In 2004, the palace became the seat of a cultural centre and a museum exhibition, and in 2008 the school and the centre became the property of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Description

The palace and park complex occupies the inner part of an irregular, large plot of land located in the north-western part of Chroberz. It consists of a Neo-Renaissance palace, a landscape park, a Neo-Mannerist chapel and nineteenth-century farm buildings.

The residence, situated in the centre of the complex, on a hillside, is a storied building with a basement based on an elongated rectangular plan, with avant-corpses in the middle and the sides in the representative and garden façades. A four-pillar portico with a terrace on the first floor was added to the central avant-corps in the facade. Outbuildings with stairs were added to the eastern and western walls. The centre of the ground floor is occupied by a vestibule and a living room with a garden terrace. These rooms are adjoined from the west by a staircase, library and private offices of the owner, and from the east by a playroom, dining room, offices, sideboard and a dome chapel in a northeastern avant-corps. In the middle of the floor there are stairs, and on the sides there is a playroom, library, guest rooms and bedrooms. The palace was built from brick and stone. It is covered by a hip roof. The multi-axial, symmetrical elevations of the building in the side avant-corpses and the central one on the garden side were divided on both floors by pilasters: a Tuscan one on the ground floor, an Ionic one on the first floor. The central avant-corps in the façade was divided by semi-columns: Tuscan in the portico and Ionic on the first floor, with the coat of arms of Półkozice and Jastrzębiec in the intrados of the central window. It is crowned with four figures of ancient gods and heroes. The central garden avant-corps is closed with a triangular gable with the Starykoń coat of arms. The interior of the palace on both floors is covered with vaults (the main barrel vault and cross vaults) and ceilings (coffered, with a wooden ceiling and Klein’s). In several rooms on the ground floor the former sculptural and painting décor from the years 1858-59 has been preserved, the polychromies in the type of Pompeiian painting in the offices are particularly interesting (painters - Jakub Górski, Wincenty and Piotr Jaroszewicz and sculptor Andrzej Pruszyński).

Near the palace there are three outbuildings from the 2nd half of the 19th century, and a pond had been marked out on the south side with a neo-Mannerist chapel from 1860. In the western part of the park complex, farm buildings from the 2nd half of the 19th century were exhibited and in the north-western part there is a distillery, separated from the other buildings by a village road. All these buildings are surrounded by a landscape park with traces of the former geometric garden by the palace. Its area was divided diagonally by a road, marked out from the village, through an oval driveway in front of the residence, to the manor house and fields. The original spatial arrangement of the greenery has been distorted by the modern plantings, buildings and sewage treatment plant.

The monastery complex is open to visitors. The church can be explored upon prior telephone arrangement with the Centre for Cultural Heritage and Agricultural Tradition Ponidzia in Chroberz.

Łukasz Piotr Młynarski, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kielce, 09.08.2016.

Bibliography

• Kapliczka w zespole pałacowym w Chrobrzu, prepared by A. Adamczyk, Kielce 1992, Archive of the Voivodeship Monuments Protection Office in Kielce and Archive of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw.
• Pałac w Chrobrzu, prepared by A. Adamczyk, Kielce 1992, Archive of the Voivodeship Monuments Protection Office in Kielce and Archive of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw.
• Zespół pałacowy w Chrobrzu, prepared by A. Adamczyk, Kielce 1993, Archive of the Voivodeship Monuments Protection Office in Kielce and Archive of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw.
• Andrzejewski A., Kajzer L., Lewandowski M., Sprawozdanie z archeologicznych badań ratowniczych przeprowadzonych w 1998 roku w Chrobrzu, gm. Złota Pińczowska, woj., kieleckie na stanowisku zwanym “Zamczysko”, “Łódzkie Sprawozdania Archeologiczne” 1998, vol. 4, pp. 119-138.
• Ajewski K., Zbiory artystyczne Biblioteki i Muzeum Ordynacji Krasińskich w Warszawie, Warsaw 2004.
• Ciosek U., Sprawozdania z działań przy zabytkowych zespołach pałacowo- i dworsko-parkowych w granicach województwa świętokrzyskiego i dawnego kieleckiego, [in:] Prace konserwatorskie w latach 1990-2000. Dziesięć lat Służby Ochrony Zabytków w Kielcach, ed. A. Piasecka, Kielce 2001, pp. 41-55.
• Ciosek U., Modras J., Polanowski L., Prace w zabytkowych zespołach rezydencjonalnych, [in:] Prace konserwatorskie w woj. świętokrzyskim w latach 2001-2012, ed. J. Cedro, Kielce 2014, pp. 87-111.
• Dąbrowska E., Sprawozdanie z badań wykopaliskowych prowadzonych na grodzisku “Zamczysko” w Chrobrzu, pow. Pińczów, w latach 1959-1960, “Sprawozdania Archeologiczn” 1965, vol. XVI, pp. 274-285.
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, vol. 3: Województwo kieleckie, J. Z. Łoziński, B. Wolff (eds.), vol. 9: Powiat pińczowski, prepared by K. Kutrzebianka, J. Z. Łoziński, B. Wolff, Warsaw 1961.
• Kurtyka J., Włość chroberska w średniowieczu i w XVI wieku w świetle źródeł historycznych, “Łódzkie Sprawozdania Archeologiczne” 1998, vol. 4, pp. 139–170.
• Marciniak-Kajzer A., Fundacje architektoniczne małopolskich Leliwitów, Łódź 2001.
• Myśliński K., Pałac-muzeum w Chrobrzu koło Pińczowa. Fundacja Aleksandra Wielopolskiego, [in:] Muzea - rezydencje w Polsce. Materiały sesji naukowej zorganizowanej w Muzeum Zamoyskich w Kozłówce, 14-16 października 2004, ed. Krzysztof Kornacki, Kozłówka 2004, pp. 399-413.
• Myśliński K., Budownictwo muzealne na Kielecczyźnie do 1945 roku, “Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Kiecach” 2006, vol. 22, pp. 110-125.
• Myśliński K., Pałac Wielopolskich w Chrobrzu siedziba ordynacji Myszkowskich, Kielce 2012.
• Palmirski A., Rostkowski P., Chroberz, [in:] Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i innych krajów słowiańskich, ed. F. Sulimierski, B. Chlebowski, W. Walewski, vol. 1, Warsaw 1880, p. 664.
• Panowski B., Stan badań archeologicznych nad średniowiecznymi zamkami dawnego województwa sandomierskiego. Katalog, “Material i Sprawozdania Rzeszowskiego Ośrodka Archaeological” 2009, vol. XXX, pp. 1-197.
• Szyndler B., Biblioteka Ordynacji Myszkowskiej w Chrobrzu, “Rocznik Biblioteki Narodowej” 1975, vol. 11, pp. 161-180.
• Kazimierza Strończyńskiego opisy i widoki zabytków w Królestwie Polskim (1844-1855), vol. II: Gubernia Radomska, prepared by K. Guttmejer, Warsaw 2010.
• Wróblewski S., Zamki i dwory obronne województwa sandomierskiego w średniowieczu, Nowy Sącz 2006.