1526-1700
In 1529, Warsaw for the first time became the seat of the General Sejm, permanent since 1569. By this reason, an Italian architect, Giovanni di Quadro, rebuilt the King’s Castle in the Renaissance style. The incorporation of Mazovia into the Polish Crown spelt fast economic development, which is demonstrated by a population growth: in that time there lived 20,000 people, whereas 100 years earlier only ca. 4500.
In 1572 died the last king from the Jagiellon dynasty, Sigismund II Augustus. On the Sejm’s seat in 1573, there was passed that from this moment on Polish kings would be elected by gentry. On the same seat, there was also passed so-called Warsaw Confederation which formally established religious freedom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The first “free election” (in Polish: wolna elekcja) was held in April and May 1573 in Kamień (today’s Kamionek estate, close to the Wschodnia Station). The next elections, however (already in 1575, when Stephen Báthory became a Polish king), were held in another Warsovian suburb – at Wielka Wola (now that city's western, Wola district). The stormiest elections were those of 1575 and 1587, when matters came to blows among the divided nobles. Following an election, the king-elect was obliged to sign pacta conventa (Latin: "agreed-upon agreements") - laundry lists of campaign promises, seldom fulfilled - with his noble electors. The agreements included "King Henry's Articles" (artykuły henrykowskie), first imposed on Prince Henri de Valois (in Polish, Henryk Walezy) at the outset of his brief reign (upon the death of his brother, French King Charles IX, Henri de Valois fled Poland by night to claim the French throne).
Due to its central location between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's capitals of Kraków and Vilnius, as well as relatively closely to Gdańsk, from where Sweden was always threatening, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and at the same time of the Polish Crown in 1596, when King Sigismund III Vasa moved the court from Kraków. The King’s decision had been brought forward by the fire of Cracovian Wawel Castle. The royal architect, Santa Gucci, started to rebuilt the Warsovian Castle in the Baroque style, therefore the King live there only temporarily; but in 1611 moved here for good. At the time of the transformation of Warsaw from one of the main Polish towns into the country's capital, it already numbered some 14,000 inhabitants. The old walled city had 169 houses; the new Warsaw outside the walls numbered 204 houses, while the suburbs had as many as 320. In 1576, the first permanent bridge was built on Vistula; it was destroyed in 1603 by an ice floe and until 1775 did not exist any permanent connection between Warsaw and Praga on the Vistula’s right bank.
In the following years the town expanded towards the suburbs. Several private independent districts were established, the property of aristocrats and the gentry, which were ruled by their own laws. Such districts were called jurydyka. They were settled by craftsmen and tradesmen. One of these “jurydykas” was Praga, which granted a city charter in 1648. The peak of their development came in the wake of Warsaw's revival after the Swedish invasion which had seriously ravaged the city. Three times between 1655-1658 the city was under siege and three times it was taken and pillaged by the Swedish, Brandenburgian and Transylvanian forces. They stole many valuable books, pictures, sculptures and other works of art - mainly, the Swedish troops. The mid-17th century architecture of the Old and New Towns survived until Nazi invasion. The style was late Renaissance with Gothic ground floors preserved from the fire of 1607. In the 17th and early part of the 18th century, during the rule of the great nobles oligarchy, magnificent Baroque residences rose all around Warsaw. In 1677, King John III Sobieski started to build his Baroque residence in Wilanów, a village ca. 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of Old Town.
Read more about this topic: History Of Warsaw