The New Castle in Hrodna, Belarus is the royal palace of Augustus III of Poland and Stanisław August Poniatowski where the infamous Grodno Sejm took place in 1793.
The royal residence was built on the high bank of the Neman River at a little distance from the Old Hrodna Castle which had suffered great dilapidation in the aftermath of the Swedish occupation in the early 18th century. The two castles are joined by a 300-year-old arch bridge.
The palace compound was designed by Carl Friedrich Pöppelmann. Construction was carried out between 1734 and 1751 under the supervision of several other Saxon architects, including Johann Friedrich Knöbel and Joachim Daniel von Jauch. The palace was completed under the direction of Giuseppe de Sacco in 1789 and remained home for King Stanisław II August until 1797.
Used as a hospital and barracks throughout most of the 19th century, the palace was renovated by the Polish administration in the interwar period. Scarcely anything is left of the original fabric of the castle, whose refined Rococo detailing vanished during World War II. There followed a hasty and rather superficial refurbishing of the palace by the Soviets with a view to making it the headquarters of a local obkom.
A plaque on the wall of the palace commemorates the council of war held in the royal residence by Tadeusz Kościuszko on 30 October 1794.
References:The Cathedral of Saint Mary Major, often called Lisbon Cathedral or simply the Sé, is a Roman Catholic cathedral located in Lisbon, Portugal. The oldest church in the city, it is the seat of the Patriarchate of Lisbon. The cathedral has survived many earthquakes and has been modified, renovated and restored several times. It is nowadays a mix of different architectural styles.
The site where it stands was the principal mosque of Lisbon when it was an Arab settlement. The construction of the cathedral started around 1150, three years after the city was conquered from the Moors during the Second Crusade. Shortly after the victory the English knight Gilbert of Hastings was named bishop of the city of Lisbon.
One good reason to visit the Cathedral is to visit its charming cloisters located in the back. There are several tombs in the cathedral, the most notable of which is the beautifully sculpted tomb of Lopo Fernandes Pacheco and his wife.