Zamość Fortress

Zamość Fortress (Polish: Twierdza Zamość) is a set of fortifications constructed together with the city of Zamość (southeastern Poland). It was built between 1579 and 1618, and the construction was initiated by Chancellor and Hetman Jan Zamoyski. It was one of the biggest fortresses of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, built so solidly that it was able to resist the attacks of both the Cossacks and the Swedes during the Deluge. It was taken down in 1866, although fragments survive.

Altogether, the fortress went through six sieges, with the first one taking place in 1648, during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. Eight years later it was surrounded by the Swedes, who came there again in 1703, then, in 1809, by the army of the Duchy of Warsaw, which captured it from the Austrians. The longest one was the siege of Zamość of 1813, when the Polish garrison for 8 months defended the fortress from the Russians. The last siege took place during the November Uprising, when Zamość was the last point of Polish defence which fell to the Russians. The fortress, which had in the meantime become obsolete, was closed down in 1866.

Zamość fortress, as well as the town of Zamość, are the brainchild of Chancellor Jan Zamoyski, who in the second half of the 16th century decided to found a new, private city in the middle of nowhere, named after himself. The foundation charter was issued on April 3, 1580, and the first name of the town was Zamośćie by the Wieprzec river.

Both fortifications and the city were planned by Italian architect from Padua, Bernardo Morando. He decided to take advantage of the two local rivers — Topornica and Labunka, whose waters were used to fill the moat.

The first castle was built in 1579, and in the following years additional buildings were added — the Arsenal (1582), Lublin Gate (1588), Lwów Gate (1599) and Szczebrzeszyn Gate, completed in 1603 by Blaise Gocman, each one with a drawbridge. The entire complex was not finished until 1620, by another Italian architect, Andrea dell'Aqua, who was helped by Jan Wolff and Jan Jaroszowic. The fortress was shaped as a septangle, with seven bastions, located around 200 meters from each other, as this was the range of the 17th century artillery. The fortress, with its impressive brickwork, 12 m high and 2.5 m thick, was one of the most modern and largest strongholds of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, together with Kamieniec Podolski.

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