Drzewica Castle is a

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

castle built between 1527 and 1535 by archbishop of Gniezno

Maciej Drzewicki Maciej Drzewicki (22 February 1467 – 22 August 1535) was the archbishop of Gniezno and primate of Poland in 1531. He was born in Drzewica, and was a humanist. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was bishop of Włocławek in 1513 and bishop o ...

Drzewica Drzewica is a town in Opoczno County, Łódź Voivodeship, Poland, with 3,778 inhabitants as of December 2021. From 1975 to 1998 the town was a part of Radom Voivodeship. Located on the Drzewiczka river (a tributary to the Pilica (river), Pilica) ...

, Poland. The archbishop built the castle on the peripheries of the town, by the river and encircled the fortress with

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

s, separated by a

bulwark Bulwark primarily refers to: * Bulwark (nautical), a nautical term for the extension of a ship's side above the level of a weather deck * Bastion, a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification The Bulwark primarily ref ...

. The building's plan is based on a regular rectangular shape. Its defence systems are based on four square towers located in each corner of the castle. The building burned down in 1814, remaining a well preserved ruin. Thus, the castle did not undergo any later modifications, remaining one of Poland's best preserved residences from the first part of the sixteenth-century.

See also