St. Casimir Church in Warsaw is one of the most beautiful Baroque churches in the capital. It was built in 1688, designed by the Polish architect Tilman Gamerski. The church is located on the Market Square of the New Town, 350 meters from the Warsaw Barbican, which was the northern border of the Old Town.
The New Town is a district of Warsaw, which began to be actively built up after King Sigismund III Vasa moved the capital from Krakow to Warsaw in 1596. Before that, Warsaw was the capital of a small Masovian principality. Stone houses in the city appeared only in the 14th century, and the Old Town of Warsaw occupied a small territory fenced by a fortress wall.
From the north side, the Old Town could be entered through the Florian Gate, in front of which a Barbican, a powerful round fort with 7 towers, was built in 1540. The construction of a New Town began near this Barbican. A Market Square was also equipped in the New Town.
On this square in 1688, King Jan III Sobieski began the construction of the Church of St. Casimir in honor of the victory over the Turks in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the countries of Eastern Europe were under constant threat of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The Turks conquered new lands in Europe until the decisive battle took place in 1683.
This battle was preceded by a 2-months siege of Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The combined army of the Austrian emperor and the King of Poland, Jan Sobieski, defeated the Turks in the battle near the walls of Vienna, completely removing the threat of expansion from the Turks for Europe.
It was a great event for the countries of Eastern Europe, so the Polish king decided to build such a beautiful Church of St. Casimir in the fashionable Baroque style. In the 18th century, members of the Sobieski family were buried in the Church.
During the WWII, the Church of St. Casimir was used as a hospital. The nuns sheltered wounded members of the Warsaw Uprising here, so the German troops destroyed the Church of St. Casimir before other houses of the Old Town. After the war, the Church of St. Casimir was completely restored to its original appearance.
