The currently preserved residence complex was formed at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Built in classicist style, the palace is surrounded by a picturesque landscape park. Currently it is the seat of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum, a branch of the National Museum in Poznań. The residence in Śmiełów creates a viewing axis with the complex of the classicist church in Brzóstków, situated on the slope of the hill called Żerkowski Rampart. The palace together with the galleries and the buildings on the manor farm is the work of renowned Warsaw architect Stanisław Zawadzki.

History of the structure

The village of Śmiełów was part of the Żerków estates for centuries. In the 14th century it belonged to the Nałęcz family from Ostroróg and Szamotuły. In the 17th century the Żerków estates were in possession of the Radomicki family. In 1728 the property was inherited from Maciej Radomicki by his daughter Katarzyna, the wife of prince Jerzy Sapieha. In 1784 their granddaughter Ludwika Sokolnicka nee Koźmińska sold the estate together with Śmiełów to Andrzej of Ostroróg Gorzeński of the Nałęcz coat of arms. It was for the Gorzeński family that the present palace was built in 1797 by a well-known Warsaw architect Stanisław Zawadzki. The architect was hired thanks to the patronage of the owner of Dobrzyca, General Augustyn Gorzeński. Together with the palace, the buildings of the manor farm were built and a landscape park was established. After 1800 the palace was decorated by the paintings of Antoni and Franciszek Smuglewicz and stucco elements by Michał Ceptowski. The significance of the Śmiełów palace for independence activities should be emphasized. The town, located on the Prussian-Russian border, was an excellent transfer point for couriers. In August and September 1831, Adam Mickiewicz stayed at the palace in Śmiełów during an unsuccessful attempt to get to the Russian partition, which was engulfed by the November Uprising. The poet is said to have included some of his reflections from this period in “Pan Tadeusz”. From 1886 until the outbreak of World War II Śmiełów remained in the hands of the Chełkowski family. In 1931, the owners erected a monument to Adam Mickiewicz with medallions made by Władysław Marcinkowski in the park. It is thanks to the Chełkowski family that the palace became a kind of temple dedicated to Mickiewicz. Throughout the period of the partitions of Poland, Śmiełów, first as the home of Hieronim and Antonina Gorzeński and then of Józef and Maria Chełkowski, was visited by eminent people of the epoch: apart from A. Mickiewicz (the poet also visited the nearby Komorze, Żerków and Brzóstków), Śmiełów hosted Henryk Sienkiewicz, Wojciech Kossak, gen. Józef Haller, general Stanisław Taczak (the first commander of the Wielkopolska Uprising, born in Mieszków, Jarocin Commune), Cyryl Ratajski (a very distinguished president of Poznań in the interwar period), Ignacy Jan Paderewski and others.

 The architecture of the palace and some of its interiors point to the owner’s ties with Freemasonry. The palace is connected with galleries and annexes, and is situated in a vast, beautifully maintained landscape park from the eighteenth/nineteenth century with an area of 14.0 ha. Around 1904 the palace was slightly transformed. Two one-storey annexes were added to the main body, and a second terrace was built on the garden side. In 1939 the Chełkowski family had to leave Śmiełów and never came back. After the end of World War II the palace was devastated and deprived of equipment. Until 1970 it housed a school, apartments for teachers and employees of the State Agricultural Farm, which used the buildings of the former manor farm. From 12 January 1972 the National Museum in Poznań became the owner of the palace, annexes and park. After a major renovation in 1972-1975, the palace became the seat of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum - a branch of the National Museum in Poznań.

Description of the structure

Śmiełów - a village located 4 km to the north from Żerków, on the left bank of the Lutynia River, at the foot of the hill called Żerkowski Rampart. The area around the complex is flat and agricultural. The Baroque axis of symmetry in relation to the main access road, which runs along the western outbuilding, has been abandoned in the design of the Śmiełów complex. This road provides access to the courtyard enclosed by the palace buildings and a retaining wall. In the southern direction there is a view of Żerkowskie Hills with the complex of St. John the Baptist Church in Brzóstków. From the west and east the courtyard is surrounded by a fence made of metal bars. On the eastern side there is a park gate. The centre of the courtyard is occupied by a circular lawn, where yew trees used to grow in the past. A gravel driveway runs around it. The park extends north and east of the residence. The outbuildings were moved away from the palace to the west and placed on the opposite side of the access road. Between the Żerkowskie Hills and the palace there were arable fields with fruit trees. The access roads were planted with lindens, acacias and ash trees. Among the fields, single old oaks, a testament to longevity and duration, were deliberately left behind.

A two-storey palace with a high basement. The building consists of a main body and two side wings connected to it by quarter circular, so-called Palladian galleries. The body was built on a rectangular floor plan with a portico and two side avant-corps to the south and a 5-sided central avant-corps to the north. The side elevations are adjoined by annexes from the early 20th century. Side wings also on a rectangular floor plan. The main floor is slightly lower than the ground floor. The palace is topped with a high, hipped roof covered with plain tiles with symmetrically arranged chimneys. Side pavilions one-storey, with cellars and usable attics. Galleries and single-storey annexes with almost flat roofs hidden behind attic walls. The palace is facing south. The front elevation of the body is 9-axial with a 4-column portico on the axis crowned with entablature and a triangular cornice pediment. In the tympanum an ornamental medallion with the letters FCB and coat of arms cartouches. The main portal with a profiled frame, crowned with a triangular tympanum, supported on acanthus consoles. The side avant-corps are 1-axis, covered with Ionic pilasters, crowned with roof parapets on which panoplies are set. The storey is divided by a window cornice and a wide frieze. The finial has entablature, a dentils frieze and a profiled cornice. Rectangular windows, in the first floor part slightly lower in their frames. Palace outbuildings with a compact, fairly massive form. On their elevations, one can see rustication and entablature and portals framed by four Tuscan engaged columns. The buildings are topped with original high broken roofs with round attic windows. One can see in them references to Polish traditions (Krakow roofs) as well as oriental inspirations (pagoda roofs). Inside the palace, the coffered cupola ceiling of the vestibule, referring to the idea of the pantheon, has been preserved. The blue drawing room and the round drawing room on the ground floor were decorated with Pompeian frescoes by the brothers Antoni and Franciszek Smuglewicz. In the blue drawing room, they allude to the idea of abundant harvest and fertility worship. The frescoes in the round drawing room with the scene “Hector’s Farewell to Andromache” and motifs from Homer’s Iliad refer to the tragedy of the Polish Commonwealth and the partitions of the country. The ceiling in this room forms a characteristic composition in the form of an umbrella with motifs of climbing roses. In other rooms simple paintings were made to mark illusory architectural divisions. In many places the remains of paintings, cupids referring to Masonic symbolism. The juxtaposition of stateliness and dignity is the addition of stucco panoply to classical rigors. These sculptural additions to the architecture were made by Michał Ceptowski (1765-1829). They include three sets of coats of arms above the portico tympanum and two groups of militaria on the roof parapets. Currently, there is the Nałęcz coat of arms of the Gorzeński family, and on the sides, in reference to Maria Chełkowska née Donimirska and Józef Chełkowski, there are respectively Brochwicz (a stag) and Wczele (a chessboard). In the middle of the tympanum there is a monogram of Franciszek Chełkowski - the first owner of Śmiełów from this family.

The Śmiełów residence was incorporated into a picturesque landscape with many view openings. To the north and east of the palace, a 14 ha park was created with a clear layout of serpentine paths and the old riverbed of the Lutynia River, with an island and three bridges, forming a miniature of an English garden. Numerous ornamental flowerbeds, a rose flower bed, a rockery, a grove, a kitchen garden, and an orchard found their place near the palace. In the park there are also: a pavilion on the island, a hunting lodge in the eastern part called “the grey willow”, an orangery, a vineyard, a swing. The views of the surrounding area opening up in many points were important in the park composition. Both during the walk and during a boat (gondola?) ride on the Lutynia River, one was particularly struck by the successful combination of economic benefits with the exquisiteness of the entire complex, described in 1875 as a park of “charming beauty”. In the park you can admire interesting groups of monumental trees: oaks, larches, alders and lime trees, as well as various bushes. You can also admire the lime and hornbeam avenue and the orchard called the grove with old varieties of fruit trees. This has made the park a habitat for many bird species. In “Zosia’s Garden” there is a place for traditional herbs and a sculpture, the “Harvester”, from 1930 (by Stanislaw Jackowski). Next to the monument of Adam Mickiewicz, reconstructed in 1970 (the monument was erected in 1931), there is a unique monument dedicated to the oak tree of Mickiewicz.

The Śmiełów residence is complemented by the buildings of the manor yard, located to the west of the palace and park. The buildings of the stables and the granary were given classicist forms designed by Stanisław Zawadzki. The elevations are articulated with pilasters with decorative capitals and semicircular windows. Despite the passage of time, the buildings are still in use, although their elevations and interiors have been partly transformed. The roof covering was also changed to corrugated eternit. Originally the roofs of the buildings were covered with ceramic tiles.

Visitor access. The site is accessible to visitors. Museum interiors can be explored during the opening times of the museum; the park is open to the public

Compiled by: Teresa Palacz, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Poznań, 14.12.2017

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