Jan's son Nicholas Radziwill the Black destroyed the wooden castle, and built a more fortified stone one on the site of the ancient settlement. The subsequent grandiose reconstruction took place under Nicholas Christopher Radziwill the Orphan in 1583. The Nesvizh Castle was built according to the design of the Italian architect Giovanni Bernardoni, who built not just a castle, but almost a palace, consisting of 12 halls, a kuntskamera, and a library.
The castle had the shape of a quadrangle with an area of 170x120 meters, was surrounded by a land rampart with bastions located at the corners, a water moat (forming an inner ring), a fairly wide road and artificial reservoirs. To protect and defend the structure, a shaft up to 20 meters high was reinforced with stones, stone stables were installed in it and secret passages were left, arsenals and chambers were located in the bastions, and over time, four defensive towers were built at the corners of the bastions. The castle housed the first cannon foundry in Belarus - Ludvisarnya.
Nesvizh fortress steadfastly withstood numerous sieges. For the first time, the castle in Nesvizh was taken and destroyed by the troops of Charles XII in 1706. Already by 1726 The Radziwills had restored the damaged castle and further strengthened it, but work on its reconstruction and expansion was carried out throughout the entire 18th century. Until the 90s of the 18th century, the owner of Nesvizh Castle was Karol Stanislav Radziwill, better known by his nickname «Pane Kokhanku». It was under him that the castle-fortress finally turned into a palace and castle ensemble. The palace, decorated in Baroque style, simply amazed with its splendor.
The main element of the front lobby was a wide three-flight staircase, decorated with frescoes on the theme of military triumphs (among the Radziwills there were many famous hetmans). From the vestibule, halls and galleries diverged in different directions. Some halls had their own names: Royal, Hetman, Golden, Marble, Armory, Hunting - and each had a unique decoration. The walls and vaults were decorated with stucco garlands, gilded cornices, carved oak panels, frames with picturesque silk, leather and linen inserts, and fabulously expensive Dutch tiles. The floor was a mosaic of stacked oak parquet. The rooms had fireplaces and multi-colored tiled or white earthenware stoves.
The collection of portraits by famous and unknown artists in the Nesvizh gallery numbered about a thousand canvases. The faces of Russian tsars, Polish and Lithuanian kings, political figures, and theRadziwills themselves looked out from the walls. In the hall with faience busts of ancient philosophers there was a magnificent library of 20 thousand volumes, rare manuscripts and early printed publications, domestic and foreign chronicles, almost the entire state archive of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: historical acts, letters in the Old Belarusian language, letters, including Peter I, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Charles XII, Bohdan Khmelnitsky. In the library room there were geographical maps, earth and astronomical globes, and navigation aids.
In the Armory Hall there is a whole arsenal of knightly armor, marshal's batons, samples of Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and European weapons. Luxurious furniture made of precious wood, wax figures of historical figures, stuffed exotic animals and fish. The castle housed collections of coins, works of decorative and applied art, including porcelain, glassware and crystal, gold-woven Slutsk belts, tapestries - products not only of numerous manufactories owned by theRadziwills, but also of the best factories in Europe and East.
The last representative of the Nesvizh line of the family Dominik Radziwill in the war of 1812 sided with Napoleon, after whose defeat he was forced flee to France. By decree of Alexander I, the Nesvizh Castle was transferred to new owners - also the Radziwills, only along a different line. And in the last quarter of the XIX - early XX centuries. through the efforts of Princess Maria de Castellan - the wife of the penultimate Nesvizh ordinator Antony Radziwill - the palace was supplemented with a system of landscape parks. They were laid out on both banks of the Castle and Wild Ponds (Stary, Japanese and Castle parks on the right bank, New and English parks on the left).
The last eminent owners left the castle in 1939, when the annexation of Western Belarus to the USSR began. A period of desolation began in its history. Interior items, dishes, and ancient costumes that the owners did not take abroad with them were transferred to theaters as props. Much was simply stolen. During the Great Patriotic War in the castle occupied by the Nazis there was a military hospital for pilots, and since 1945 - a special-purpose sanatorium Nesvizh. At the end of the 1990s the sanatorium left the castle and stood in disrepair for some time. In 2000 Nesvizh Castle received a chance for a new life - its restoration began.
Nesvizh Castle also has its own ghost - Black Panna Barbara Radziwill, a victim of ardent love and palace intrigue. According to legend, she appears to warn of impending danger. This is how she was seen the night before the fire in 2002
Today, there are more than 30 exhibition halls in Nesvizh Castle.
