Vilnius Town Hall is a historical town hall in the square of the same name in the Old Town

Vilnius Old Town

The Old Town of Vilnius , one of the largest surviving medieval old towns in Northern Europe, has an area of 3.59 square kilometres . It encompasses 74 quarters, with 70 streets and lanes numbering 1487 buildings with a total floor area of 1,497,000 square meters...

 of Vilnius

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

, Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

.

Palace

The town hall in Vilnius was mentioned for the first time in 1432. Initially it was a Gothic style

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

 building, and has since been reconstructed many times.
The current Vilnius Town Hall was rebuilt in neoclassical style

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 according to the design by Laurynas Gucevičius

Laurynas Gucevicius

Laurynas Gucevičius was an 18th century architect born in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and most of his designs were built there....

 in 1799

1799 in architecture

The year 1799 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* In England, the Chester Shot Tower, a grade-II*-listed shot tower, is built in the Boughton district of Chester, England....

. It has remained unchanged since then. Its Gothic cellars have been preserved and may be visited.

Nowadays it is used for representational purposes as well as during the visits of foreign state officials and rulers, including George Walker Bush and Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

.

Square

The Town Hall Square at the end of the Pilies Street

Pilies Street

Pilies Street is one of the main streets in the Old Town of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. It is rather a short street, running from Cathedral Square to the Town Hall Square....

 is a traditional centre of trade and events in Vilnius. Major annual fairs, such as Kaziukas Fair

Kaziuko muge

Kaziuko mugė is a large annual folk arts and crafts fair dating to the beginning of the 17th century. It was originally held at the two main markets in Vilnius, Lithuania, as well as in the city streets....

, are held in this square, the main Christmas tree

Christmas tree

The Christmas tree is a decorated evergreen coniferous tree, real or artificial, and a tradition associated with the celebration of Christmas. The tradition of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas started in Livonia and Germany in the 16th century...

 is decorated here, various concerts and other attractions are organised as well as celebrations of the important dates of the state.

History

As far back as the early fifteenth century, the square was bordered by small shops. With the expansion of the city and the development of trade the number of small shops was increasing. Most of them were selling salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

, iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

 and meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

 products. It is known that all of these shops could not have been sold, donated or transferred freely as everything was strictly regulated. Trading on the Town Hall Square was restricted by regulations such as the prohibition for the Jewish

Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania:...

 butchers to build their butcher’s shops both on the urban market and on Vokiečių (German) Street. It was also prohibited to buy up products on the roadsides and sell them later in the city at a higher price. It was a measure to avoid the season of high prices, especially if there was a shortage of some product such as grain

Cereal

Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...

 in deficit times. Any violations were punished with monetary fines, flogging, imprisonment and confiscation of merchandise. Confiscated goods were donated to various refuges and hospitals.

Following the example many established cities Vilnius was granted the Magdeburg Rights

Magdeburg rights

Magdeburg Rights or Magdeburg Law were a set of German town laws regulating the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages granted by a local ruler. Modelled and named after the laws of the German city of Magdeburg and developed during many centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, it was...

. Those rights granted a right for merchants on the routes through Vilnius to stop in the capital and to sell their goods in a market

Market

A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...

. In 1503, due to the number of foreign traders the city built a special guest house for them to stay, on the site of the present day National Philharmonic. They had rooms for merchants and their retinues and premises to store their goods as well as room for horses, carts and sledges. Strict regulations were also imposed on traders and guilds regarding the construction of their market places and participation in the city’s events.

However, fighting with resellers was often a real challenge: powerful owners of jurisdictions would not always obey the orders of the rulers. Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 and Jewish tradesmen in the seventeenth century were forbidden to trade in gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

en, silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

, silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

 and semi-silk fringe

Fringe (trim)

Fringe is an ornamental textile trim applied to an edge of an item, such as drapery, a flag, epaulettes, or decorative tassel.Fringe originates in the ends of the warp, projecting beyond the woven fabric...

s and edgings, but this prohibition was not applied to the said articles produced in manufactures of Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

.

Many attractions and events were organised in the square such as the performances of bears, travelling acrobats, comedians, and various troupes. The mysteries, or semi-religious performances, were also popular.

The Town Hall Square was the place where various celebrations were announced such as meetings with important guests and foreign rulers and family festivals of local noblemen.

External links

• Official Website