Lithuania: Kaunas – Pazaislis Monastery
Just outside of the city of Kaunas sits an absolute stunning monastery and church complex – Pazaislis Monastery. Founded in 1662, this became the largest and most decorated religious complex in the Great Duchy of Lithuania, a sprawling powerful state incorporation large territory of present day Lithuania, Belarus, and parts of Ukraine, Russia, and Poland. Italian master we’re invited to design and decorate the church. What resulted was the a hexagonal church (first in Europe), richly decorated in baroque style with marble and stucco work inside on the ceilings and walls. Sadly after the 19th century, the monastery complex caught a long bad luck streak – fist Napoleon used it for horses in 1812, then Germans made a hospital in it in WWI, finally the Soviet Union converted it into a psychiatric ward after WWII. Despite all this, most of artwork by Italian artists Giovanni Battista Frediani, brothers Pietro and Carlo Puttini, Joano Meri, Giuseppe Rossi, and the Florentine painter Michelangelo Palloni, all withstood the test of time and can be seen today.
