Rai (Raj), a village in Brzezany county, 3.75 km. southwest of Brzezany. It is bordered on the east by Brzezany; on the south by Olchowiec and Nadorozniow, on the west by forests belonging to the estates of Brzezany and Kurzany; and on the north by Lesniki and Brzezany. The manorial and peasant lands belong to the gmina [district] of Nadorozniów. In 1880 there were 461 inhabitants in the district, 131 on the manor grounds. (...) The major estate belongs to the Brzezany estate and is the property of Count Stanislaw Potocki. (...)

There is also a palace, the owner’s residence. During the times of the Sieniawskis and Czartoryskis, it was a small palace for hunting, square in shape with four towers on the corners. Later the inside was built up even with towers. Princess Elzbieta Lubomirska, of the Czartoryski princely family, the widow of Marshal Stanislaw Lubomirski, moved there from Brzezany.

The palace stands in the middle of a splendid park through the center of which a stream flows, creating artificial ponds. Little bridges over these ponds connect the palace garden with the natural park. From the palace windows there is an enchanting view of the park’s ravines and ponds and, farther off, the hilly surroundings, as well as of distant Brzezany and the Bernardine monastery on a high and steep mountain, where it was built by Mikolaj Hieronim Sieniawski, the voivode of Ruthenia, in 1673. The park, which covers an area of 30 mórgs, is planted with fir trees, chestnuts, plane-trees, and spreading ash trees, and consists of two uneven parts. In the southern part, which slopes upward toward the south, the rotten and wasted trees were felled in 1879 and an orchard of fruit trees was created. The ponds are fed by the source of the Rajowka, which springs forth in the park and flows into the Lipa near Brzezany. Formerly there were dikes, but today only boulders remain. The park is somewhat neglected; in the greenhouses are very old orange trees, lemon trees and camellia, which were imported by Count Aleksander Potocki.

On two sides the park borders on the village, whose inhabitants, at one time obligated to do compulsory labor in the gardens (there was no manorial farmstead), are mostly gardeners. On the third side it borders on farm buildings and a cropped French garden, today utterly neglected. Beyond it stretches a vegetable garden covering several mórgs. On the fourth side (the south) is a sizable forest of beeches. Near the park stands a small [Orthodox or Greek Catholic] church of stone, remodeled in 1878 from a forge.

The palace is a tall, square two-story building crowned with a circular gloriette. Count Aleksander Potocki built it before 1830. On the ground floor from a beautiful vestibule there are stairs leading to the second floor, as well as the doors to the chapel and the billiards hall; a number of old portraits hang there. The chapel has beautiful Renaissance-style alabaster door-frames, and in the vaulting there is a similar alabaster altar chiselled by Leonard Marconi (circa 1879). In the billiards hall, which also serves as a dining room, hang four paintings depicting Jerzy Ossolinski’s entrance into Rome. There are also interesting Venetian glass articles (drinking glasses) with the Sieniawskis’ coat of arms (Leliwa). Farther on the library hall contains 3,030 works in 4,032 volumes and 544 brochures, among them many rare 18th-century lampoons and political writings, as well as 47 manuscripts, the oldest of which dates back to the 13th century. There are printed works of Haller and Rakowski, the Ostroga Bible, Victoria Deorum (see Maciszewski, “Information on Count S. Potocki’s Library in Raj,” Przeglad bibliograficzny, Warsaw 1882, pages 299-312). The upstairs is arranged differently. Most important is the large drawing-room over the library, with a ceiling painted by Enrico Conti of Florence in 1871 (he also painted the castle chapel) and a fireplace (L. Marconi). There are also many beautiful paintings and a magnificent antique tapestry depicting an Oriental scene. Zacharjewicz built the guest palace around 1882.

[B. R. {Boleslaw Rozwadowski} - Mac. {Dr. Maurycy Maciszewski}]<?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O />

Source: Slownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego - Warsaw [1888, vol. 9, pp.492-493]