History

The townhouse was built in the 1st quarter of the 17th century. In the 4th quarter of the 17th century, the 2nd storey was added and the house was remodelled by its owner – Jan Michał Link, a military engineer and architect from Zamość. The façade of the building, designed by Link, particular storeys were not separated by horizontal divisions and the building probably had no attics. Between 1760 and 1788, the townhouse was renovated. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the house was owned by the Lewandowski family. After a fire in 1833, the house was completely rebuilt.

From the mid-19th century to the 1960s, the house was owned by the Ronikiers. The first major conservation of the building took place in 1937-38 under the supervision of T. Zaremba. Another one was carried out in 1956, when the exterior plasters were restored, the roof, window and door woodwork were renovated and the balcony on the first floor was removed. Between 1977 and 1981, the house was thoroughly restored according to A. Misiorowski’s design. In 1999, the elevations were renovated. In 2004, renovation works also covered the courtyard. The window woodwork was also replaced then.

Description

The townhouse is located in the central part of the Old Town, at the west frontage of the Great Market Square. It forms one block with the neighboring townhouses. It is named after its owners: Jan Michał Link (military engineer and architect from Zamość) and the Ronikier family.  It has an oriented structure, with the market-facing façade towards the east. Built on an elongated rectangular floor plan with a two-section arcade on the ground floor. It is three-bay and two-partitie, with a wide hallway in the first bay and a staircase in the second bay. The layout of rooms on the upper floor is not clearly readable. The townhouse is made of bricks and covered with plaster. It has three storeys, including a residential attic. The building has cellars underneath and is covered with a gable roof with wall dormers (the front elevation comprises two one-window wall dormers, the back elevation comprises one wall dormer with two windows, covered with little gable roofs). The roof has sheet-metalcladding. Three-storey elevations. The front elevation is two-axial. In the lower storey, there are two-section arcades, a simple portal with a rectangular transom, a window with a rectangular surround and a parapet. Horizontal divisions are achieved by means of a prominent cornice with a polychrome bas-relief with panoply motifs, which separates the lower storey from the upper ones.

The walls are divided vertically by three Ionic pilasters with fluted stems (the pilasters span the height of the second and third storeys), supported on pedestals, which are optically prolonged by the buttresses attached to the pillars that support the arcades. On the upper storeys, the elevation is covered with a polychrome imitating façade bricks. The second-storey windows are surmounted by simple surrounds, whereas the third-storey windows have no surrounds at all. Between the window openings of the second and third storeys, there are semi-circular niches with busts: on the left axis – Minerva, on the right – Hercules. The base of the niches connects them with the upper surround of the second-storey windows, decorated with laurel and palm branches. The façade is crowned with a cornice, above which there is the full wall of the attic. The back elevation is three-axial, has no divisions and is topped with a simple crowning cornice. The stucco decorations are: grey, yellow and red. The cellars are barrel-vaulted. The arcade and the first suit of rooms on the ground floor have barrel-cross vaults. The other storeys are covered with a flat ceiling. 

Access to the site is limited.

compiled by Ewa Prusicka, Regional Branch Office of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Lublin,20 November 2016

Bibliography

• Baranowska Z., Sygietyńska H., Kamienice rynku zamojskiego w XVII wieku, /in:/ Zamość i Zamojszczyzna w dziejach i kulturze polskiej, Zamość 1969.
• Czterysta lat Zamościa, J. Kowalczyk (ed.), Wrocław-Łódź 1983
• Herbst S., Zamość, Warsaw 1954
• Kędziora A., Dawna architektura i budownictwo Zamościa, Zamość 1990
• Kowalczyk J., Zamość. Przewodnik, Warsaw 1975.
• Pawlicki M. B., Kamienice mieszczańskie Zamościa. Problemy ochrony, Krakow 1999.
• Zarębska T., Zamość – Miasto idealne i jego realizacja, /in:/ Zamość miasto idealne, ed. J. Kowalczyka, Lublin 1980 
• Record sheet, Residential House  Rynek Wielki 1, formerly Pl. Mickiewicza 1, Zamość, compiled by M. Kowalczyk, L. Lameński, 1997, Archives of the Voivodeship Office for the Protection of Historic Monuments in Lublin, Branch Office in Zamość and the Archives of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw.