Praga Biskupia and Praga Książęca

Originally a village owned by knights and nobility on the right bank of the Vistula River, opposite Old and New Warsaw, close to Targowa settlement. It was first mentioned in a document in 1432. The settlement became important and started to develop when the Jagielloński Bridge was built in 1573 before the first general elections of the king, which took place on the fields of Kamion village. It was closely tied to neighbouring villages and later with Golędzinów and Skaryszew jurydyka townships. In 1583 some of the Praga lands were acquired by Bishop Marcin Białobrzeski from Kamieniec Podolski, and that is why from that time on the lands belonging to him were called Praga Biskupia (Bishop’s Praga). It became an important trade and crafts settlement thanks to the bridge across the Vistula. In 1648 it received its town charter. “Loreto House” Chapel was established there and later a Benedictine Brotherhood church and monastery. The jurydyka township Praga Magnacka developed on the rest of the Praga lands, later known as Praga Książęca. The town and jurydyka developed spontaneously together with the neighbouring jurydyka and Golędzinów and Skaryszew townships. Praga Biskupia and Praga Książęca took up the area of today’s Zoological Gardens and Praski Park, Jagiellońska Street region and part of today’s Praga I and II housing estates. The Praga market was on the widened part of Szeroka Street (currently Jagiellońska Street) where today it crosses with Ratuszowa Street, an old road that led onto the bridge across the Vistula. Until the end of the 18th century on both sides of the Praga township and jurydyka there were many residences belonging to the nobility and two monasteries. It also included royal Salt Works buildings, which controlled the Wieliczka and Bocheńska salt transport across the Vistula to Gdańsk. Also there were numerous houses, breweries, malt houses and tanneries. Praga Biskupia and Praga Książęca went through particularly intensive growth during the 18th century. Even in those days it had an excellent street grid. This can be seen on 1765 plans by Maciej Deutsch and the Baraczykowska Panorama from the end of the 18th century. A major part of the Praga lands and dwellings together with Skaryszew and Golędzinów were encircled by Marshal Lubomirski’s defensive embankments, as were most of the Warsaw townships and jurydykas that belonged to the crown. This whole area became part of Warsaw after 1791. At that time the three jurydyka townships, including both parts of Praga were 469 ha in size and had 10,000 inhabitants. The existence of jurydyka townships that developed in the 17th and 18th centuries came to an end with the insurrections and the “Praga slaughter” conducted by General Suvorov’s army, as well as due to the building of Napoleon’s fortifications during the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807-1811 when most dwellings that had survived were demolished. Today, all that remains of Praga Biskupia and Praga Książęca, as well as of the old Golędzinów and Skaryszew are the “Loreto House” on Ratuszowa Street, a cemetery, a length of the Jagiellońska Street and numerous underground foundations of houses, palaces and old streets.