Giovanni Battista Trevano

Who was Giovanni Battista Trevano?

Giovanni Battista Trevano was an Italian-speaking architect who worked in Poland as royal architect for King Sigismund III Vasa, of the Vasa dynasty, which ruled Poland at the time.

Trevano started working in Poland around 1600. He was one of the team of architects and craftsmen who rebuilt the Royal Castle in Warsaw, on the basis of the old Gothic castle of the Masovian princes, which had already been completely remodeled by Italian architects in the second half of the sixteenth century. New work was undertaken in the years 1598-1619. He was not alone in this project: Giacomo Rodondo, Paolo del Corte and Mateo Castelli were all involved in remaking the castle into a new Baroque structure, on its imposing site along the bank of the river Vistula. The castle, much altered over the years, was bombed and dynamited by the Nazis as a symbol of Polish culture and was rebuilt in the years 1971–1988 as a national monument.

In Kraków, on the Wawel hill, following a fire in 1595, Trevano rebuilt the state apartments of the Royal Castle for Sigismund III Vasa.