The 17th CENTURY

Population – 10,780
Houses – 2,156
Streets – 49

New residential, public and factories buildings were built in Brest Litovsk in the first half of the 17^th century. In 1641, a new stone town hall was built on the Market Square. It housed shops, the magistrate and the court. The most important industry was flour manufacture which was represented by ten water mills.

Education was growing. In 1623, a Jesuit college with a library and a pharmacy was built in the central part of the town. The college taught seven liberal sciences, theology, Latin and Greek. Since 1634, only professors taught here.

Like the brethren school, the college provided free education to young people of any social class. The famous atheist thinker and socio-political figure Casimir Liszinski studied there. He later worked as an assistant to the rector and taught philosophy. He was executed in Warsaw in 1689 for his treatise "On the Non-Existence of God". At the end of the century, Belarus’ first school theater was opened in the college. Students performed secular and religious plays which were very popular among citizens.

In the 17^th century Berestye witnessed military hostilities which were associated with the Russian-Polish-Swedish wars. In 1656, the Swedes tried to seize Berestye but failed. A year later, the Swedish army again besieged the town and was successful that time. Weakly fortified, with a garrison of 400 soldiers, Berestye was taken, looted, its many buildings burned. The first graphic image of the town on paper dates back to that time.

King Charles X Gustav of Sweden liked the natural position of the town and the castle on hard-to-reach islands. He ordered artist Eric Dahlberg to draw the town layout and its views.

Eric Dahlberg's engraving "The Siege of Berestye by Sweden in 1657" shows earthen bastions, with a view onto the town center (the current central island of the fortress). It depicts tall houses of several floors in the Gothic style, monasteries, Catholic churches, Orthodox churches with many bell towers. The bridge connects the Town Hall Square of the central island with the castle, located at the confluence of the left arm of the Mukhavets River and the Western Bug. The castle towers are barely visible because of the town’s buildings.

In 1659, the Warsaw Sejm passed a resolution to open a Lithuanian mint in Brest for minting a small coin - a solidus - in order to pay the debt to the troops and replenish the empty state treasury. Due to hostilities and related economic difficulties, Belarus’ first mint in Brest was opened as late as in 1665. Over its history it minted 240 million copper solids worth more than 2.5 million zlotys. Coins, called "boratynka", named after Italian Tito Livio Burattini of the Krakow Mint, are still found in our lands.

Bernardine Compound

Located on the island adjacent to the castle, the monasteries of the Bernardines, their churches, the Bernardine bridge and the square created a unique integral urban ensemble. The Bernardines first came to Berestye on the invitation of Bishop Marcin Szyszkowski of Lutsk and Brest, who gave the monks his plot of land with a house in the Volyn suburb and had a chapel built for them. With the generous donations of Leu Sapieha and Jan Galemski, the construction of a stone church of the Bernardine Monastery began. A year later, a wooden Covent and Church of St. Dorothy rose next to it. Later, in the 18th century they were rebuilt into stone.

During the war against Sweden in 1654-1667, the Bernardine church was dismantled to reinforce the castle. Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Pavel Sapieha compensated the monks for the damage, allocating 80,00 zlotys from the treasury for the restoration of the church. By decree of the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Bernardine monks received 500 zlotys annually from Brest citizens.

In 1680, the church was rebuilt anew as a three-nave church, typical for Belarus, in the Baroque style with a sculpture of Christ in an arched niche above the entrance. The building was crowned with a four-tiered tower with bells. Seven altars had sculptures of Saints Francis, Anthony, and Clara. Ornamental work on the pulpit and altar of the church was performed by carving artist Bulovsky. Multi-colored frescoes on the walls and vaults of the church were painted by A. Delamars, I. Misengilevich, B. Mazurkevich. founders and patrons of the church were buried in its basement. Among them were Piotr Paciej, Jan Galemski, Aleksander Zwierz, Marcjan Tryzna, Bernard Aragon.

The Bernardine monastery, built in the typical Baroque style, had three functional zones: church, residential (monks' cells, refectory) and workshops (bakery, kitchen, pantry).

The church of the Bernardine convent was built in the 17^th century on the site of a wooden temple and was a single-nave basilica with elements of the “Vilna Baroque”.  Two four-tiered towers, the main volume of which was hidden in the main hall of the church, completed the main facade of the building. There were six gilded altars in the church. The main altar was gilded by Brest artist I. Misengilevich. The floor in the church was made of brick, the section in front of the great altar - of wood.