Stories of open courtyards

At the end of the 16th century, this building belonged to the Vilnius Cathedral Chapter; it was rebuilt in the 17th century but retained its Renaissance façade. Apparently, the new building was adjoined to a Gothic house built in the 15th century. At that time, homesteads were still being built in the countryside outside the city gates, surrounded by high wooden or stone fences with lockable gates and gateways. The dwelling house stood at the edge of the plot with the back facing the street; the property consisted of outbuildings such as a granary, barn, coach house, stables, shed for livestock, bathhouse, beer house, and a latrine, as well as a garden at the end of the yard. A staircase leads from the street to the cellar of the house. The house itself now remains by the gateway.

In the middle stands the door to the entrance hall. In one corner, there was a hearth, while in the other, a tile stove heating the room with windows facing the street. There was an enormous table, a master bed, wide benches and storage chests on which people also slept. On the opposite side, the larder could be found. Later, the room facing the street became a merchant’s shop or a craftsman’s workshop, and the larder was repurposed as a living room. The two-storey house had an open staircase from the courtyard to the second floor. The architectural forms show that the house was extended into the courtyard on several occasions until it reached the neighbour’s fire barrier wall. There were no windows in that wall because looking through the windows into the neighbour’s courtyard was forbidden. The outbuildings and gardens gradually disappeared – small rented flats in the courtyard proved far more profitable. Storage sheds were added to the wall towards Bernardinų Street to store firewood and serve the other needs of the tenants. In the 19th century, one basement still had a well with a spring flowing from a tub, and on the ground floor, there were even two rooms with earthen floors. The courtyard is paved with fieldstones. Nowadays, the cellars and the ground floor are used as small shops.

As the Gothic masonry remains uncovered by the architect restoring the building reveal, a Gothic palace belonging to wealthy noblemen stood on the corner of Bernardinų and Šiltadaržio Streets. At the end of the 17th century, the palace, which had been damaged by wars and fires, was bought by the Vilnius Cathedral Chapter and managed until the Soviet period. The windows and the ornate portal indicate a Baroque reconstruction. It is believed that in the 19th century, the servants’ quarters in the outbuildings were converted into rented flats, as were the coach houses and stables later on. Adding to the charm are the cosy porches leading to the apartments, the flowers on the window sills, and the flower bed in the middle of the courtyard, reminiscent of the type you might find in a quaint village. The impression is enhanced by the tall, graceful birch tree and the plump apple trees at either end of the bed of flowers; Gediminas’ Castle is visible, peeping above the roofs of the low buildings in the corner of the courtyard.

The Gothic brick houses, converted into Renaissance palaces, were damaged by fire in the mid-18th century. With its burnt-out palace, the estate was acquired a few years later by Mikołaj Łopaciński, who hired the architect Johann Christoph Glaubitz to rebuild the palace. The result was a magnificent Baroque palace with a mansard roof and interior rooms decorated with wall paintings. The second-floor Great Hall is particularly beautiful, with its windows offering unparalleled views of the Old Town. The courtyard contained barns, stables, a conservatory, a garden, and an orchard. The Olizar family, who owned the palace at the beginning of the 19th century, soon sold it on to Józef Zawadski, a printer at Vilnius University. The Zawadski family publishing house and printing house operated here until the Soviet period; it is notable that it continued to print Lithuanian prayer books even during the period of the Lithuanian press ban when books in the Latin alphabet were forbidden by the Imperialist Russian authorities (1865 to 1904). In the Zawadski’s time, an outhouse was built in front of the palace with an ornate gate separating it from the palace, as well as a wing of the palace at the back of the courtyard and an outbuilding next to Šiltadaržio Street. Thus, the courtyard was constantly changing. During the First World War, the sculptor and architect Antoni Wiwulski had a workshop in the basement of the palace; after his death, the sculptor Rafal Jachimowicz moved into the space. The palace is now home to the ‘Shakespeare Hotel’. The courtyard is enlivened by the steel and copper sculpture ‘The Minotaur’s Appearance’ by the painter, photographer and sculptor Algis Griškevičius.

The arch of the gate features a high relief of a lion’s head. At the entrance are protruding stone gateposts, which in the 16th and 17th centuries protected the manor from the middle-ranking and minor noblemen who attended the local assemblies (sejmiks). In the early 17th century, a modest stone house was built here, of which only the cellars remain today. By the middle of the 18th century, there were already two houses with their ends facing the street. Later, the addition of buildings by the street and at the back of the yard led to the formation of a closed courtyard surrounded by wooden galleries. From the courtyard, stairs led up to the galleries, which granted access to the apartments. The ground floor was rented out to shops. The basement, which is accessed directly from the courtyard, and the garret were suitable for storing goods. A double-sided door opened into the latter, 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, which appeared in Vilnius during the Renaissance, remained popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Adam Mickiewicz, a 19th-century Polish Romantic poet of Lithuanian origin, born in Navahrudak (Naugardukas) in present-day Belarus, wrote about Lithuania and Lithuanians in Polish. He spent nine years in Lithuania, studying at Vilnius University and teaching in Kaunas, where he wrote the poem ‘Grażyna’. At the end of 1822, he settled on the ground floor of this house and edited the poem there. Nowadays, the Adam Mickiewicz Memorial Museum is housed here, and traditional literary Wednesdays and other events are held in the basement.

The Department of Journalism of Vilnius University is located on the other side of the courtyard.

At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, Leonas Sapiega – the Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Grand Hetman, and Governor of Vilnius – built his family mausoleum, St. Michael the Archangel Church, next to St. Anne’s Church and the Bernardine (Clares) monastery and convent. The Rules of the holy order were stringent. Having entered the nave of the church for the last time in the presence of the laity, the nuns took their perpetual vows. After that, during services, they would sit in the second-floor gallery behind barred windows whose bars were so thick that they couldn’t look around the church while praying. Occasionally, they could talk to their closest relatives through the barred curtained window. They only went down to the church during the convent’s closed services. The nuns cared for, taught, and educated poor young noblewomen. Their day was strictly divided into prayer, singing, eating, needlework, work, and rest. They rested in the cloistered courtyard of the convent by the south wall of the church, with a spacious corridor linking the cloisters for walks and processions. The convent was surrounded by a high brick wall.

The lay people from the congregation used to enter the church through a gate in the churchyard. The remnants of a processional route for the laity, marked by columns, remain in the churchyard. The first Calvary Stations, which were installed in the churchyard of the Vilnius Church of St Francis of Assisi (Bernardine) in the 17th century, and which reached the churchyard of St Michael the Archangel Church via the Bernardine cemetery, were damaged during the war in the middle of the 17th century and were later removed. The churchyard can be admired by visiting the Church Heritage Museum, which is now housed in St. Michael the Archangel Church and the Bernardine Monastery.

One of the largest transitional courtyards in the Old Town has been preserved with a passage from Šv. Mykolo Street through to Pilies Street. In the early 16th century, Konstanty Ostrogski, the victor of the Battle of Orsha, owned a plot of land that occupied almost a fifth of the quarter. At the end of the 16th century, one of the first printing houses in Vilnius was located in the neighbourhood of the Reformed. This is where Daniel Łęczycki printed books for the Evangelical Reformed, Jokūbas Morkūnas published M. Rej’s ‘Postilla’ in Lithuanian in 1600, and Jonas Karcanas started publishing calendars in the early 17th century. By the end of that century, it was already a Jesuit property. In the middle of the 18th century, the College of Nobles of Vilnius Academy was established, and at the end of that century, the College of Medicine of Vilnius University was established, which was later transformed into the Academy of Medical Surgery. There was a chemistry laboratory, an anatomy room, some lecture halls, a library, and accommodation for the professors. In 1782, Jean-Emmanuel Gillibert established a botanical garden and a conservatory in a 300-square-metre plot in the yard, cultivating around 2000 native and imported plants, even very rare ones. The botanical garden was later moved to Sereikiškės. The green area enclosed by a hedge and the recently planted ginkgo tree remind us of that first botanical garden. Many famous men who lived here are remembered for their contribution to the history of science. We see memorial plaques to the Polish poet Juliusz Słowacki and the painter Ferdynand Ruszczyc, a lover of old Vilnius. We can find memorial plaques to other famous professors and students of the University in the courtyards of Vilnius University and the Church of the St. Johns, whose upper part of the eastern façade – with its ornate Baroque crosses, angels, and flowers that have not withered for several centuries – is so beautifully visible from this courtyard.

In the 17th century, this house changed hands. An enclosed courtyard with galleries evolved, and of the outbuildings, only the small stables remained. Later, some of the galleries were boarded up, similar to the way balconies are glazed nowadays. In 1926, the house was bought by Jurgis Šlapelis, a doctor and linguist, and his wife, Marija Šlapelienė, the owner of the most famous bookshop in Lithuania.

Marija Piaseckaitė, a nobleman’s daughter, was encouraged by the priest Juozapas Ambraziejus to become involved in the early days of the Lithuanian revival movement. She married the doctor and linguist Jurgis Šlapelis, a member of several Lithuanian societies and a publisher of Lithuanian books, Marija founded a bookshop with her husband in 1906. Jonas Basanavičius, Vydūnas, Marcelinas Šikšnys, Antanas Žmuidzinavičius, and many others visited and stayed with the Šlapelis family. The occupying authorities repeatedly tried to close down the bookshop, but to no avail – the house and bookstore remained a centre of information for Lithuanian cultural activities until Soviet times. The Lithuanian bookshop was finally closed in 1949.

Jurgis Šlapelis died in 1941. At the end of the war, the three children of the Šlapelis family – Skaistutis, Laimutė Elena and Gražutė Marija – fled to the West. After the war, some of the books were secretly transferred to the Lithuanian Language Department of Vilnius University, while others ended up in the Book Palace and scientific libraries. In the remnants of the bookshop, rare Lithuanian publications were kept in a part of the cramped flat Marija had been left, which was also where she herself lived. Marija passed away in 1977 and was buried next to her husband in Rasos Cemetery. There is a monument by Antanas Kmieliauskas on her grave. After Lithuania regained its independence, her daughter Gražutė Marija Šlapelytė-Sirutienė, who lived in the USA, asked for the house to be returned and gave it to the city of Vilnius, as evidenced by the plaque in the yard. The museum has memorial rooms and the following permanent exhibitions: ‘Lithuanian National Revival from the Mid-19th Century to 1918’, ‘Vilnius and the Political and Cultural Situation of Vilnius Region 1920-1940’, and ‘Marija Šlapelienė’s Lithuanian Bookshop 1906-1949’. Temporary exhibitions and events are held on the ground floor and in the basement. The Vilnius City Municipality has placed a sign at the gate inviting Vilnius residents to visit the courtyard of the House of the Šlapelis family.

Sometimes legends overshadow reality. In the 14th century, Lithuania was a tolerant pagan country, with both Eastern and Western Christian churches in Vilnius, which was already the capital in Gediminas’ time. Long before it was Christianised, Lithuanians were tolerant of pagans. However, there is no record of pagan temples being demolished and replaced by shrines to foreign gods. Even though we cannot know whether our ancestors really venerated such a holy figure, we do know that the Orthodox Church of St. Paraskeva the Martyr was built by Duke Algirdas’ wife, Maria, on the same site as the demolished pagan Temple of Ragutis. This is the oldest Orthodox church in Vilnius, with the features of a neo-Byzantine Orthodox church of the middle of the 19th century. This is what is written on the plaques that architect Nikolai Chagin has embedded in the walls of the Orthodox church, on the initiative of Muravyov Villensky (nicknamed ‘the hangman’), in search of Russian origins. We do not forget the legend of Abram Gannibal, the ancestor of the Russian poet A. Pushkin, baptised here by Tsar Peter the Great. In 2011, on the initiative of the Russian community, a monument to the poet Alexander Pushkin and his ancestor Gannibal was erected in the churchyard. According to Jolanta Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė, “Two hands with the portraits of the poet and his ancestor stamped on the palms of the hands, and a cross growing out of the fingers, as if to symbolise Gannibal’s baptism and the blessing of God that accompanies them. The underside of the palms, curled like parchment, is a reference to the importance of written and oral history.” The sculpture by Vytautas Nalivaika can be found in the cosy and beautiful courtyard between the Orthodox Church and the bell tower.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII founded an Alumnatas seminary with a dormitory in Vilnius, under the supervision of the Jesuits. It was not only attended by future priests of the Commonwealth of the Two Nations, but also by young men from Livonia, Denmark, and Sweden. After the ecclesiastical union of Brest, the main concern was the training of future Greek Catholic priests. Seminarians came from the eastern lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Pope provided funds for their maintenance. A stone house was bought on the street, and in the early 17th century three Renaissance buildings with galleries formed a magnificent courtyard. The street-side building was the refectory where the seminarians took their meals; they also studied in the library and prayed in the chapel at the back of the courtyard. Lectures were also held at the Academy. The men lived in cells, which were accessed through galleries. These galleries were also the professors’ apartments; here they are less graceful than in Italy, looking a little cramped on the third floor, but they were decorated with frescoes and ornamental compositions in sgraffito technique. They were very suitable for short walks in foul weather. Once they had graduated, the seminarians used to find a wife who shared the same faith – only if they were married could they be ordained and become a parish priest in their home country. The Alumnatas was closed at the end of the 18th century when the Lithuanian state was divided by its neighbours. The picturesque courtyard, restored in 1976-1984, is open to Vilnius residents and visitors. 

The Christian inhabitants of Vilnius were governed by the Magdeburg Law from 1387. The Jewish community emerged much later. In 1507, Sigismund the Old reaffirmed the privileges granted to the Jews of Brest by Duke Vytautas of 1388. These privileges allowed the Jews of Vilnius to govern themselves as an autonomous community. Their affairs were administered by the Kehilla, whose authority was both religious and secular. Cases between Christians and Jews were settled by a magistrate’s court with the participation of representatives of the Kehilla. The communities coexisted relatively peacefully. The centre of the Jewish community was around the Great Synagogue and near the Jewish Street Market. Women were also involved in trade and crafts – not only selling their wares at the market, but also through the door or window in every yard, with makeshift signs and advertisements. So, a baker would hang up a homemade bagel, a cobbler – a boot, and a barber would advertise his service by handing a pair of scissors outside. The living space was cramped. Second or third-floor apartments were accessed through galleries. Early in the morning, when women went to the galleries or to fetch water, they would hear the latest news not only from their own courtyard but those in the vicinity, as the galleries of the other courtyards were also open, separated by a low wall.

In the 16th century, the long and narrow Gothic houses on Stiklių Street were built with their backs facing the street, close to each other. In the 1970s, having studied the historical material in the archives, experts carried out archaeological and architectural research during the complex restoration of the living quarters along this street. The foundations of one house in this courtyard, which were slightly raised and extended into the courtyard, and of another which was later built with the side towards the street, have been exposed. The site of the former houses has been grassed over to differentiate it from the paved courtyard. The spruce tree planted on the site of the long house has now grown into a large spruce tree. The courtyard remains passable, separated by a brick fence with a lockable gate from the twin red-brick Gothic houses that were restored at the same time. The sculptor Marius Grušas lived in this courtyard next to the headquarters of the Lithuanian Association of Hunters and Fishermen. Grušas’ diploma work ‘Medeinė’ – a sculpture of the old pagan Lithuanian goddess of forests and hunting – provides a decorative feature and enlivens the courtyard.

Replicas of the work stand in the Changchun City Sculpture Park (China) and next to the ‘Dome of History’ in Alexander, Maine (USA) in the Art Park founded by Rolandas Dzintaras and Gražina Paegliai.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the plot on the corner of the present-day Didžioji and Stiklių streets was the large estate of the burgomaster of Vilnius, Jokūbas Babičius. In the Christian part of the buildings near the Town Hall Square settled a Ruthenian citizen of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL), Francysk Skoryna, who was born in Polotsk and graduated from Prague University. With the support of the burgomaster, between 1522-1525, he published the first printed books of the GDL, the ‘Little Travel Book’ and the ‘Apostle’. A memorial plaque on the side of the Town Hall Square testifies to this. Later, the printing house was given to the Mamonich family. Books for the Orthodox community and, after the Brest Ecclesiastical Union, for the Unitarians were printed here, as well as the third edition of the Statute of the GDL, the Regulations of the Supreme Tribunal of Lithuania, and the orders of the rulers. The specific location of the printing house is unclear – the building has been reconstructed several times. On the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of Vilnius, the sculptor Vaclovas Krutinis, a graduate of the Academy of Arts, built his diploma work ‘The Metraštininkas’ (‘The Annalist’) in the beautiful Gothic courtyard without getting permission and coordinating with the authorities. He put it up temporarily until he defended his thesis, but the sculpture remained. It is a monument to the first Vilnius printer. The courtyard, which also houses the Old Town Renewal Agency, is now known as the ‘Metraštninko’ courtyard.

After the demolition of the remains of the buildings that were bombed during the Second World War, a house was built, on the facade of which we can see a plaque commemorating Adam Mickiewicz. The house here was the poet’s last residence in Vilnius before his exile. Another demolished house was used as an inn in the 17th century, where members of the Brotherhood of Beggars gathered every month. During the gathering, each of them would put a grosz coin into the coffers. The statutes of this exotic guild were approved by King Vladislav Vasa in 1636. The members of the guild elected 4 chiefs and 4 whippers, who made sure that those who could work did not beg, that the beggars behaved decently, attended mass, did not loiter in the streets, did not carouse or make noise, and did not disturb people with their festering wounds. If they caught one begging, they would be interrogated and, if necessary, referred to the chiefs, who could allow them to spend three days begging in the city. Then they would whip them out of the town, just as they would whisk away those who were disorderly. If they found a homeless person lying in the street, they would take them to St Nicodemus’s Hospital outside the Gates of Dawn. They buried dead members at the expense of the Brotherhood and supported their orphaned children.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Jozef Frank, a doctor of medicine, came to Vilnius University from Vienna. Many changes began in this period; Frank founded the Smallpox Vaccination Institute, Europe’s first Maternity Institute to support poor mothers, and together with others, he established the Charity Society. He organised concerts to raise money to buy medicines for the poor. On the site of the current Institute of Hygiene, he established the first university dispensary in this courtyard. On the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Institute of Hygiene, a granite monument sculpted by Eimantas Stankevičius was erected in the picturesque courtyard in honour of Jozef Frank.

Most of the inhabitants of Vilnius were engaged in crafts and trade. The most protected were the craftsmen who worked for the ruler and the nobility, known as the ‘patrimonials’ (‘tėvoniniai’), as they inherited their positions. In the 16th century, during the reign of Sigismund Augustus, there were 19 craftsmen working on the Vilnius estate, both from abroad and local artisans. At the end of the 15th century, the Vilnius goldsmiths formed a guild, and Duke Alexander approved the guild’s regulations in 1495. In 1509, the guild was approved for barber-surgeons, and in 1516 for blacksmiths, furriers, and locksmiths; by the end of the 16th century, there were 25 guilds, comprising 44 craftspeople. The guilds were well organised, and their products were of high quality; moreover, they took care of their members and their families. Guilds were active in Vilnius for almost 400 years until the end of the 19th century. Craftsmen who were not members of the guilds, the so-called ‘partaczy’, found it difficult to withstand the competition. The regulations of the guilds deal with the election of chiefs, the procedure for acquiring qualifications, the rights, duties and obligations of craftsmen, apprentices and ‘gizeliai’ (assistants). The wealthier guilds had their own brick buildings, where the guild chest containing privileges, weapons, musical instruments, flags, and money was kept; gatherings and festivals also took place in these buildings.

Architectural research suggests that there was a Gothic building that faced the street in the 14th-15th centuries. The second floor was accessed by a staircase in the porch, and there was a hearth in the porch. A fresco from the 16th and 17th centuries, equal in age and value to the masterpieces of the wall paintings, has been found in the hall of the ground floor and restored. A chronicle from the mid-17th century states that the building was called ‘kamienica Nohowniczowska’ and housed the Sharp-armed Weapons Workshop. At the end of the 20th century, the intention was to establish a museum of Vilnius craftsmen’s guilds here. In 1996, the premises were handed over to the Commission for Cultural Heritage.

The former guild building separates the yard from the buildings at Rūdninkų g. 11. At the end of both courtyards, another courtyard has been formed – the entrance to Ligoninės Street, as if connecting all these courtyards. The first courtyard of Rūdninkų g. 13 is the most interesting. As you enter from the street, there is an open gallery on the left, which leads to the apartments and the Riflemen’s Gallery, which has been reconstructed next to a fragment of the city’s defensive wall. The defensive wall was built between 1503 and 1522 by all the citizens of Vilnius and maintained and defended by those who lived closest to it. It is likely that the members of the Sharp-edged Weapons Guild, which was located closest to the wall, performed this duty, especially since the guilds were subject to conscription. Each of them had to form an armed detachment with its own flag, and the members of the guild had to have a rifle and a sword and take part in annual military exercises in the square by the Rūdininkai Gate.