The town of Nowy Wisnicz was laid out in 1616 and the fact of creation of the new seatlement
was proclaimed and approved by the monarch, king Sigismund III Vasa (Zygmunt III Waza) for the request of the owner of the lands, noble and a wealthy man, magnate Stanislaus Lubomirski ( Stanislaw Lubomirski)
Lubomirski invited an italian architect Maciej Trapola to be the major architect of his court and a newly created town and thanks to his talent the town became one of the most interesting little towns in lesser Poland of that time.
He rebuilt the castle( see my previous posts), built the baroque monastery for carmelite monks ( partly demolished during the second world war by germans occupating the territory) designed and built a baroque church and most importantly he traced the scheme of new streets in the checkers arrangemet with the central town square and a town hall.
Many of buildings were of timber log structure, many inhabited by wealthy jewish comunity .
Unfortunately all of the houses were burnt in a great fire in XIX century.
There is no remainings of those picturesque houses nowadays, but there are some contemporary buildings in town where you can see the architects attempt to keep the character of the previous buildings or even a replicate the past houses.
I am not judging the quality of the buildings but thought it would be interesting to show it in this article.
One of the captured replicated houses is even Maciej Trapola's - architect's house, replica in- situ.
I am also attaching the pictures taken by others of what the town looked like in early XX-th century and sketches of famous polish painter Jan Matejko ( he also used to spend his holidays in Nowy wisnicz)
The town was also a place of birth of another polish painter Juliusz Kossak who lived and created there as well.
Unfortunately one of not many remainings of jewish culture, is a cemetery located on one of Wisniczs hills.The remainings of the camedules cloister located to the right of the castle where adapted to a new quite opposite function, a prison for prisoners convicted for most cruel crimes - it became a kind of Alcatras of lesser Poland - you can see the picures of the prison/former monastery on the pictures - some of them showing the cloister in its original form, some, the building after terrible violating conversion.
You will find some more information also on:
http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/nowy-wisnicz/3,local-history/
http://www.nw.com.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1314&Itemid=257
http://katarzyna-monika.blogspot.com/2011/10/nowy-wisnicz-koscio-pw-wniebowziecia.html
http://www.bochenskie.republika.pl/karmel.html
I would like to thank to shetl.org.pl and nw.com.pl websites thanks to which courtesy I could publish some of the pictures.