Heads up!

A tiled-arch greets you as you turn from Pilies Street into Bernardinų Street. There are not many of these arches left in the Old Town, which were common in Renaissance Vilnius. Do you know what purpose they serve? First and foremost, they reinforce the walls of the buildings. Of course, arches add cosiness to a street. More practically, when fires ravaged Vilnius, the inhabitants could use them to escape to a neighbour’s house for shelter.

Visitors to the courtyard are greeted by a small angel holding a coat of arms with a double cross. The courtyard is made cosier by a flower bed in the middle of the courtyard, shaped like a country garden. The impression is reinforced by a tall birch tree and apple trees on either side at the end of the flowerbed. Raise your eyes higher and you will see the most impressive feature of the courtyard – Gedimino Castle, clearly visible above the low roofs of the buildings.

In the Gateway Arch, we are greeted by a high relief of a lion’s head. In the early 17th century, a small stone house was built here; only the cellars remain to this day. Let’s go into the courtyard, raise our eyes, and take a look around. From the courtyard, there are stairs leading to the wooden galleries that surround the courtyard from which apartments can be accessed. The basement, which you could access directly from the courtyard, was suitable for storing goods, as was the attic. The latter was accessed by a double swing  door, and a rope was thrown over a log that was inserted through an open window above the door to load the goods. Such galleries and lifts originated in Vilnius during the Renaissance and remained popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was Leonas Sapiega; he was also the Grand Hetman and Governor of Vilnius. Noble families required suitable resting places, so he built his family mausoleum – St. Michael the Archangel Church. It is located next to the Church of St. Anne and the Bernardine Church and (Clares) monastery. St. Michael’s is a rare example of Renaissance and early Baroque architecture in Vilnius.

Looking up at the façade of the church, the eye is drawn to the huge monogram of Jesus (IHS) in radiant aureole, above which is a smaller monogram of Mary (MARIA) and the date of completion of the building AD 1625 (Anno Domini, meaning ‘in the year of the Lord’). Can you make out these inscriptions?

Another interesting detail is that the façade is divided by pilasters with a Lithuanian motif – sprigs of Ruta graveolens (also known as rue and herb-of-grace), widely regarded as the national herb of Lithuania.

This is one of the largest transitional courtyards with through access in the Old Town. At the end of the 18th century, a botanical garden and a conservatory were established on this 300 m2 plot. The courtyard offers a magnificent view of the eastern side of the façade of St Johns’ Church. Lift your head and look up to the top of the church, which you cannot see from the rather narrow Pilies Street. Can you see the two black angels there?  

One legend has it that God created many angels, and two of them were black-coloured. He told them to go down to earth and help people. But when people saw the black angels, they were scared, thinking the angels were creatures that had been sent by the devil. Finally, the two angels ran out of patience and returned to God to complain. The Lord took pity on them and perched them on top of the Church of the St. Johns to watch over the people of Vilnius from on high.

Let’s come closer to the Church dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, and raise our eyes. You will see a stone memorial plaque from 1759 with a gruesome skull and crossbones. It is the epitaph by Jonas Alexandras Chreptovičius dedicated to the memory of three deceased women in his life – his wife, daughter, and aunt. Raise your eyes even higher and you will see a small, empty balcony with ornate metal details and a canopy. It once housed a man-sized figure of Christ crucified, symbolising the suffering of the victims of the plague that struck Vilnius in 1706-1710. Unfortunately, the crucifix disappeared from the balcony when the editorial office of the newspaper ‘Tiesa’ was established in the church during the Soviet era. Only photographs (e.g., those taken by J. Bulhak in 1914) have survived.

At the end of the 19th century, according to the Neo-Renaissance design by Aleksei Polozov, the building was renovated by Kazimierz Sztral. He also opened a café ‘Baltasis Štralis’, which later became a popular ‘place to be seen’ at high-society gatherings.

Of course, the building became most famous on 16 February 1918, when the Lithuanian Independence Act was signed. 

Let’s take a look upwards at this impressive building. On the second floor, there are two sculptures representing agriculture and fishing. If you think you’ve already seen them somewhere else, you’re not wrong – the same sculptures also adorn the State Small Theatre of Vilnius (22 Gedimino pr.) and the Vilnius Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Crafts (30 T. Kosciuškos g.). On the third floor, you will find busts of two men. One of them (the left one) looks very much like the Roman Emperor Caracalla. The roof of the building is decorated with a raised weathervane bearing the date 1895.

The building on the corner of Pilies and Literatų Streets is accentuated by a handsome neo-Gothic bay window with tall, tapered windows and a balustrade on top. If you step back from it and raise your head, you can see the date of the building’s reconstruction, 1910, and the owner’s initials in Cyrillic. The owner was Abramas Davidovičius Ickovičius, a Jewish booklover and antiquarian. On the ground floor of the building, he sold old and new books, mainly in Yiddish and Hebrew. It was one of the oldest and longest-established bookshops in Vilnius (1890-1940).

This courtyard is often called ‘Victoria Courtyard’ after the café by that name that was located here in the 19th century. However, for several decades, the main attraction of this courtyard has been the sculpture of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which, according to local residents, was once brought here by an antiquarian. If you look even higher, you can see the preserved part of the lifting mechanism log above the Virgin Mary. The log would be pulled forward acting as a primitive pulley wheel, a rope would be thrown over it, and the load would be lifted to the upper floors.

During the Soviet era, it was home to art workshops where Stasys Krasauskas, Arvydas Každailis, Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė, and other artists worked.

As we walk along Sirvydo Square, let’s pause and turn our heads back in the direction of the bell tower of Vilnius University. Did you notice the three cats and the bird? How do you think this drama will end?

Vilnius priests’ seminary, called the ‘Alumnat’ was established in 1582. This three-storey palace with a courtyard arcade was built in 1622. The street façade was decorated with frescoes – as many as 47 portraits of popes. Unfortunately, the frescoes were painted over in the mid-19th century. However, one of them is still exposed today – let’s raise our eyes and find it. 

Let’s go inside – the courtyard of the ‘Alumnat’ is considered to be one of the most beautiful courtyards in Vilnius.

The building was designed by Elena Nijolė Bučiūtė (who also designed the National Opera and Ballet Theatre). The design work took a remarkable 20 years (1977-1997). Not only did the political systems change during this time but also the architectural styles – from modernist to postmodernist. The architect decided to replicate the forms of the previously existing houses in her design. The fourth Gothic house would have narrowed Totorių Street, so the architect simply ‘suspended’ its façade in the air. This ‘hanging’ façade is a true postmodernist gem in Vilnius architecture.

The building acquired its present appearance in the mid-19th century. Dominikonų Street is not very wide and the house is quite tall, so you’ll need to lean back to admire the building’s interesting mouldings. At the very top, above the third-floor balcony, you will see a deer’s head. Why is the deer so high up? Probably to hide from the four lions that are perched under the second floor windows. 

Think you’re observant? So have you noticed the swastikas on the second-floor balcony?

In 1789, the palace passed from the Tiezenhaus family to a general’s wife, Theodora Fitinhof, so the building is sometimes referred to as the Tiezenhaus Palace and sometimes as the Fitinhof Palace. In 1790, General Fitinhof’s widow reconstructed the palace according to a design by the architect Martin Knafuss, giving it an early classicist appearance.

The most ornate part of the façade is the roof frieze, where we can see compositions of objects, animals, people, demigods, and gods. These are classic images from antiquity, from laurel wreaths and arms to altars and pegasuses. The Classicists loved, used, and reproduced them.

Let’s go into the courtyard of building 24 and look around. On the left, you will see the bell tower of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And if you raise your head and turn to the right, you will see an area of exposed bricks in the second floor wall. You probably don’t need anyone to remind you what this shape evokes…  

This courtyard also has a charming little tunnel known as the ‘Dwarf Passage’ (and sometimes called the ‘Love Tunnel’). After crossing it, turn your head to the right again and raise your eyes. We will see a little wooden angel hiding in plain sight and watching us. 

The building that today houses the Institute of International Relations and Political Science (Vilnius University) is known as Žuko House. Aronas Žukas was the last owner of the building before the war. The house was fortunate enough not to be damaged during World War II and is worth a closer look. Lift your eyes to the roof of the building and slowly move your head down focusing on the frieze under the dentilled eaves cornice; it is decorated with a floral motif. Look closely – hidden among the plants are two fascinating mythical creatures.

Both Barbora and Sigismund Augustus had to go through fire and water to be crowned. In front of us is Vladas Vildžiūnas’ sculpture ‘Barbora’. If you stand in the right place and raise your eyes to Barbora’s head, you will see her secretly trying on St. Casimir’s crown.