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Renaissance route in Malopolska

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Kraków - Branice. Branicki Villa - Lamus

Kraków - Branice. Branicki Villa - Lamus

Kraków - Branice. Branicki Villa - Lamus

Kraków - Branice. Branicki Villa - Lamus

Kraków - Branice. Branicki Villa - Lamus

Kraków - Branice. Branicki Villa - Lamus

Built by the Branicki family as a villa next to their main residence, it acquired its current shape around 1603. The construction works were conducted by the workshop of Santi Gucci: the royal architect and sculptor, designer of the complexes in Książ Wielki and in Łobzów, and a handful of Kraków residences.

This building on the plan of a rectangle approximately 12 m × 10 m, has three cellar bays with barrel vaulting. Polish style brickwork is visible in the walls of the ground floor. The floor has retained an entry hall with a stairway to the upper floor, and a large room with lunette vaulting. A similar bipartite division is present on the upper floor under a ceiling resting on larch beams. The roof is obscured by a parapet wall with blind niches and a characteristic toothed crenellation. The walls are decorated by sgraffito rustication, imitating a stone wall and typical of the Renaissance. The chiselcraft of the masters gathered around Santi Gucci is manifested in the late Renaissance decor of the room on the upper floor, especially the sculpted fireplace from Pińczów limestone (1603) decorated with animal herms, cornices, and cartouches bearing coats of arms.

Due to its later use the building is referred to as the lamus - a separate building used for storing things, sometimes quite bulky, that may come in handy. It is situated on the premises of a park and residence complex which today houses a branch of the Museum of Archaeology in Kraków.