Esther M. Lederberg
Szlachta Families

Borkowski Mielzynski Poniatowski Tarnowski
Chodkiewicz Ogiński Potocki Tęczyński
Czartoryski Ostrogski Radziwiłł Tyszkiewicz
Lanckoroński Ostroróg Sapieha Wiśniowiecki
Lubomirski Pac Sanguszko Zamoyski

Each magnate possessed several palatial residencies, usually designed by Italian architects and built and furnished at fantastic expense. Once built, each residence had to be maintained and supplied with a full complement of butlers, maids, cooks, grooms, soldiers, and so forth, totaling as many as several hundred people.

Of course, once the residencies were built and staffed they had to be enjoyed. Magnates regularly hosted balls and prodigious feasts that afforded the opportunity for showing off expensive imported clothing, gourmet delicacies, silver and crystal tableware, and private orchestras and entertainers.

In order to maximize good times, magnates were constantly on the road, traveling among their own residencies and those of their friends. Elźbieta Sieniawska changed residences at least twenty times between January 1, 1719, and January 3, 1720. Such trips were not unaccompanied. A magnate's entourage could be very large: in exceptional cases, it included as many as sixty to seventy wagons and one thousand people, all of whom had to be fed, housed, and clothed. Moreover, magnates did not just spend money on themselves and their entourages. They prided themselves on their patronage of the arts, literature, architecture, theatre, and music as well as their contributions to religious institutions and to charities.

"The Lords' Jews: Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century", M. J. Rosman, pp. 9, 10

Click to see: Polish Magnate art

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