Zhovkva

Zhovkva was founded in 1597 by the Polish hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski as a fortified private town. Laid out on a Renaissance plan around a market square and castle, it stood at a crossroads north of Lviv. Poles, Ruthenians, Armenians and Jews settled within its walls, and King Sigismund III granted it town rights in 1603.

In the later seventeenth century Zhovkva became a favoured residence of King John III Sobieski. Its churches, castle and fortified synagogue reflected the patronage of its owners and the diversity of its inhabitants. The town celebrated Sobieski's victory at Vienna in 1683; the following year he received papal gifts here. A Jewish printing press began work in 1693, and Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł founded a faience works in 1747. The wooden Church of the Holy Trinity, founded in 1720, belongs to the Carpathian tradition of timber church building.