Zamość was not a medieval town that gradually found its shape. Chancellor and military commander Jan Zamoyski founded it in the late sixteenth century as a planned private city, commercial centre, residence and fortress. He commissioned the Paduan architect Bernardo Morando, whose rectilinear streets and measured squares translated Italian “ideal city” theory into the climate, materials and traditions of Central Europe.
UNESCO inscribed the Old City in 1992 because that original plan remains exceptionally legible. The palace zone occupies the west, while the civic town develops around three squares to the east. At its centre, the Great Market Square is framed by arcaded merchants’ houses and dominated by the Town Hall’s high tower and sweeping staircase. Colourful Armenian houses along one side recall the merchants invited to populate a deliberately multinational trading city.
