Background
Giuseppe de Sacco was born in 1735 in Verona, Italy.
Giuseppe de Sacco was born in 1735 in Verona, Italy.
Giuseppe de Sacco was invited to Warsaw, Poland, in 1768. He worked on the tomb of the Queen Marie Leszczyńska and later on the project of St. John's Cathedral rebuilding.
In 1771, he was invited to Grodno by the Treasurer of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and administrator of royal estates Antony Tizengauz, who was a personal friend of Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last King of Poland. Sacco became the royal architect in the same year with the salary of 600 Polish zlotych. Sacco received several military titles in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in 1775, he was awarded the title of szlachta (legally privileged noble class in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth).
He supervised construction of the local royal manufactories. At the same time, he developed projects of numerous buildings in the Horodnica, an architectural ensemble that was part of an ambitious economic project by Antoni Tyzenhaus, designed to raise the economy of the region and bring the level of social life closer to the best European models of that time. The Horodnica ensemble included Tyzenhaus’s own palace designed by Sacco as well. In addition, the architect built several royal residences around Grodno, and was engaged in the reconstruction of the royal New Castle, built for the King August III, according to the project of M. D. Pöppelmann.
From 1771 to 1780, Sacco completed a number of orders of the local magnates, designed several famous palace and park ensembles, city residences. The Italian master often used the following techniques: chose baroque types of roofs: for example, a broken version with an attic; the front entrance could be decorated with a gallery with a colonnade; pilasters often were chosen ionic type; colors – light, the accuracy of the proportion is strictly measured and reconciled to the last centimeter; the roofs were crowned with pediments; the buildings, as a rule, had several floors.
In 1770-1776, de Sacco built a magnificent palace for Joachim Chreptowicz, well-known politician and poet of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, marshal of the Lithuanian Tribunal and the last Grand Chancellor of Lithuania, in Schorsy. In 1779, Sacco built the palace for the Volovichi noble family in Sviatsk. This legendary palace reminds French Versailles. It included a picturesque English park, artificial ponds and canals connected by galleries. The park was famous for its exotic plants cultivated by owners of the Svyatsk village. In 1760-1780, he designed a palace for Tyzenhaus in Postavy.
Stanislavovo Manor was also designed by de Sacco and is characterized by original architecture. This is a bright representative of the late Baroque: the chic brick palace is decorated with pilasters and a beautiful pediment. The center of the courtyard facade is decorated with a semicircular bay window on which the initials of the genus are engraved. The castle occupies a large area, on which also partly survived farm buildings, gates, a chapel, and also a large park.
Virtually all the structures that were created by the project of Giuseppe de Sacco, are in the territory of modern Belarus. Many buildings did not survive: some were destroyed during the Second World War, some could have been destroyed before. Almost all buildings are surrounded by picturesque parks with water reservoirs.
King Stanisław August Poniatowski awarded an architect an own estate Dubasna (near modern Bialystok, Poland) for his outstanding service. In 1781, de Sacco built a chapel, household and living buildings, set up a garden and an orchard. Unfortunately, de Sacco’s estate was destroyed. By the end of 1790, de Sacco became ill and moved to Grodno. He died in the house of masons in 1798.
In April 1788, de Sacco married Frantishka Man’kovskaya, a sister of an artist Tomash Man’kowski.