Lubartów

Lubartów lies north of Lublin in the historic Lesser Polish lands. In 1543 King Sigismund the Old authorised the nobleman Piotr Firlej to found a private town here, originally called Lewartów after the Firlej family's coat of arms. The town became an important centre of Calvinism in the following years. It was badly damaged during the Swedish invasion of the seventeenth century and declined for a long period afterwards. In the early eighteenth century Paweł Karol Sanguszko inherited the town and promoted its economic recovery. At his request, King Augustus III confirmed its town rights in 1744 and changed its name to Lubartów. Its history reflects both the influence of noble proprietors and the effects of war on a small town in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.