Chapter 1 Land, War, and Castles: The Management of Landed Wealth
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Abstract
Focusing on the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest states in early modern Europe, this chapter examines the overlapping political and economic careers of great landowners and their building projects. Like their contemporaries in the Veneto, the Commonwealth’s elites amassed latifundia and turned to villeggiatura, a rural lifestyle whose ancient pedigree was widely circulated in agricultural texts and the practices of oeconomia (household management). In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, however, the great landowner’s active service in state politics and military – particularly in the eastern borderlands – necessitated the fortified character of their villa residences and newly-built cities, which were constructed by foreign military engineers. The resource-based economy, furthermore, compelled the interest and development of land-based knowledge (ranging from agriculture, geodesy, cartography), enabling the connectivity between private estates and international markets.