History of the site

The oldest records concerning Wola Justowska come from 1389.In 1406 Piotr of Chełm became the owner of Wola. In 1445 he transferred the village and a fortified manor house to his son Jan. In the second half of the 15th century, Wola, along with a knight’s court, farm, inn, and watermill was held by Jakub of Koniecpol, the provost at St Florian’s, who sold the property to Andrzej of Sienna, the chamberlain of Sandomierz, in 1477. Ca. 1528, another heir of Jakub Siemieński sold Wola to Ludwik Decjusz. Decjusz came from Alsace invited by his fellow and royal banker Jan Boner. Beginning as a secretary, accountant and trusted assistant, Decjusz quickly became recognised as a seasoned diplomat, skilled financier, and high-ranking royal dignitary. From 1520 he was the secretary of King Sigismund the Old and later became his advisor and manager of the crown mints. Ca. 1534 Ludwik Decjusz built a two-storey, representative tower mansion alluding to the Gothic style while implementing the innovative idea of a suburban villa. In the oldest phase of its construction, the villa in Wola Justowska had a square plan and a three-axis internal layout. It had a passage along the central axis which later served as a “grand hall.” The design was the work of Italian architects: Bernard Zenobi de Gianottis from Rome, Giovanni Cini of Siena and Felipe of Fiesole, all of them Berecci’s associates. In 1545 after Ludwik’s death, the estate was inherited by his sons. During the ownership of Justus, the palace served as a Protestant temple. At the end of the 16th century, Sebastian Lubomirski bought Wola (already called “Justowska”) together with the palace. The Lubomirski family owned Wola until the beginning of the 18th century. Ca. between 1620 and 1635, the villa was remodelled in the Mannerist and early Baroque style, based on the Sertian and Palladian patterns. The author of the reconstruction concept was probably the Italian Matteo Trapola. The new, and essentially preserved, form of the villa used the core of the 16th-century building but was extended vertically and enriched with a new facade solution: from then on, a three-storey, five-span arcaded loggia, stretched between two corner alcove turrets. The body of the villa was covered by a high ridge roof and the turrets by cupolas. The interior retained the three-axis layout with large halls on the axis of each floor. The rooms on both floors were covered with beam, profiled and painted ceilings. One of them has survived on the first floor in a turret on the east side of the loggia. The villa was surrounded by bastion fortifications. On the axis of the complex, a representative entrance gate was erected, flanked by a curtain wall and towers. Also, a stone bridge was made, supported on two arcades: a watercourse under one of them and a local road under the other. In 1720 the property was handed over to Karol Sanguszka. 1722 saw the renovation of the villa, combined with the Baroque modification of the interior. The preserved painting decoration in the former hall on the first floor comes from that period. In the following years, the estate in Wola Justowska fell into disrepair. The letter of the estate manager, Ludwik Duval, to K. Sanguszko contains a description of the palace from the period. It says that the ceilings of the third floor collapsed, some rooms were partially buried, and the roofs rotted. The farm buildings, a pheasant house and an Italian garden wall were in a similar condition. In the second half of In the 18th century, the palace changed hands a number of times. In 1819 it was acquired by the Ledóchowski family. In 1836, as commissioned by Joanna Ledóchowska, the Renaissance palace was converted into an idyllic villa. Among other things, the cupolas on the loggia towers were replaced with an attic. One of the staircases was moved to the main body. Also, the Renaissance and Baroque gardens were re-designed. The original garden was replaced by a romantic landscape park with a lapidarium of Gothic and Renaissance sculptures and architectural details. The Mannerist bastions were pulled down. In 1844 the villa was purchased by the Kuczkowski family. In 1860 the property was put up for auction and was purchased by the German banker J.G. Schuller, the owner of a department store. About 1869 the palace belonged to the Czartoryski family. In 1882 the building, especially the roofs, were destroyed by fire. The Czartoryski family commissioned Tadeusz Stryjeński to rebuild the palace in the neo-Renaissance style. The towers were covered with low hipped roofs; the side avant-corpses were given balconies, and the horizontal divisions of the storeys were underlined with distinct cornices. The steps leading to the garden were also extended. Inside, magnificent marble fireplaces and neo-Baroque wooden stairs were installed. During the Great War, the palace served as military barracks, and during WW2 was the headquarters of the German police. After WW2, the palace housed the Central Training Centre for Labour Cooperatives, next a residence hall, and even a tuberculosis ward of Dr Anka Hospital. During this period, the conservatory and the arcaded bridge were demolished, and the gardens were parcelled out. In the 1970s, the villa fell into disrepair. In 1996 Villa Decius was restored and is now the seat of the Villa Decius Association.

Description of the site

The villa is a detached building situated within an extensive park complex, part of which is currently a municipal park. In the vicinity, there are two outhouses: the so-called Łaski House and Erasmus House.

The villa has a rectangular plan with two front alcove towers connected by a loggia. There is an extension in the rear elevation having the plan of connected rectangles and housing a vestibule and another staircase. The towers have a square plan. The interior layout is three-axis with large halls along the axis of each floor. They lead to the rooms on the side axis and to the main staircase.

The body of the building is compact, articulated from the front by corner towers and a three-storey loggia; from the rear side, there is a one-storey hall and a three-storey staircase. The roofs over the main building are high and hipped, lower and hipped over the towers; the roof of the rear hall is of a shed design. Two-flight, symmetrical stairs lead from the front of the building up to the ground floor. The building is a four-storey structure from the front (the basement level is visible) and three-storey on the sides and at the back. The external walls and brick-built and plastered with a high plinth of regular dimension stone. The front elevation is flanked by two alcove towers: between them a broad, five-span, arcaded loggia. The tower façades are symmetrical and protrude before the loggia face. The towers rest on a stone plinth with sloping walls. The ground floor and the corners of the floors are rusticated. In the axes on the ground and second floors, the rectangular window openings are framed by profiled framing supported on the window sills. The windows on the second floor are topped with triangular cornices. Balconies with stone balustrades can be seen on the first floor. The balcony door is rectangular and topped with a straight, profiled, segmental cornice. The loggia arcades profiled with a crown in the axis; separated by pillars on the ground floor; resting on columns in the upper floors. The colonnade of the first floor is massive and rests on bases. The columns on the second floor are significantly lighter and set on high rectangular pedestals. The loggias on each floor have stone balustrades and profiled balusters. The arcades have cross vaults. On the first floor, the arcade walls are lined with decorative tiles with motifs imitating antique Pompeian mosaics. On the second floor, in the place of the former passages from the loggia to the towers, late Baroque portals have been preserved. Horizontal divisions articulated across the entire width of the elevation, both within the loggia section and the corner towers, with prominent profiled cornices, separating the individual storeys. The whole edifice is embraced with a corbelling cornice under the eaves. Non-original external wooden joinery with historical patterns. Before the front façade, elegant stone, two-flight stairs with landings. The balustrade of the stairs is made of stone with balusters resembling those of the loggias.

The side façades within the body are three-axis with a ground floor separated by a cornice. The ground floor and the corners of the body are rusticated. Along the axes, there are rectangular window openings with a straight segmental window cornice. The central axis of the first floor has a piano nobile articulated with a window dripstone in the form of a triangular segmental cornice (south façade). The façade of the tower imitates the house’s front façade. The rear facade has three axes, two within the main body and an additional one in the added staircase. The ground floor and the corners of the façade are rusticated; the porch is smooth, and the plinth is plastered smooth. The façade is topped with a cornice running around the entire building. In the axes of the staircase, all storeys have rectangular, panelled window openings in profiled bands, similar to those on other façades. In the axes of the main body on the first and second floor, the window openings have banded decoration; on the ground floor, in the central axis, an asymmetrically placed entrance to the hall. The door opening closed with a full arch in a profiled band; double-leaf, panel door with a glazed transom window. Above the staircase, at the height of the roof, there is an additional storey with a window opening in a plaster band placed on the axis. It is topped with a simple eaves cornice, covered by a three-sloped roof, connected to the roof of the main body. Next to it, a single, modest dormer covered by a gable roof with a truncated gable.

The owner of the site is the Municipality of Kraków, while the user is the Villa Decius Association. The area adjacent to the villa and the park are not fenced and always available. The interiors are available occasionally during concerts, exhibitions, Open Days and other cultural and educational events. The premises of the facility are rented for conferences, training sessions, banquets, parties, and civil weddings.

The Villa Decius Restaurant on the ground floor is open daily from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Author of the note Grzegorz Młynarczyk, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kraków 01/2015

Bibliography

• Skucińska B. Pałac Decjusza na Woli Justowskiej. Badania historyczne WUOZ Kraków
• Bogdanowski J. Przemiany architektoniczne willi na Woli Justowskiej, [in:] Rocznik Krakowski, vol. 46, Kraków 1975
• Beiersdorf Z., Willa Decjusza [in:] Encyklopedia Krakowa, Kraków 2000
• Sulma M., Przekształcenia architektury Willi Decjusza [in:] Villa Decius, wyd. III uzup., Kraków 1999
• Trojanowska K., Willa Decjusza i jej mieszkańcy [in:] Villa Decius, wyd. III uzup., Kraków 1999