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By the early 1300s, Gostynin emerged as an important administrative center of Mazovia. In 1329, it became the seat of a castellan. In 1352, Siemowit III for the first time used the title “Duke of Gostynin”. It was probably during his reign that a defensive castle with a tower was built. Siemowit IV expanded the castle, making it his favorite residence. W³adys³aw II Jagie³³o visited Gostynin twice (1414, 1419). Siemowit IV died here in 1426, and after his death, the complex was rebuilt, with a wooden chapel added to it in 1439.
In 1612, Russian Tsar Vasili IV died at the Gostynin castle, in which he had been kept with two brothers since 1611. In 1793, following the second partition of Poland, Gostynin was captured by Prussian army. The castle, which had for long time been neglected, was pulled down, and its archive was seized by the occupiers. In 1824, the government of Russian-controlled Congress Poland invited to Gostynin 124 German cloth makers, who came with their families. The town began the process of recovery: St. Martin church, town hall and inn were rebuilt, and ruins of the castle were turned into a Protestant church.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.