Ivan Franko Park (Парк імені Івана Франка), formerly known as Kościuszko Park and the Jesuit Gardens, is a park in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. It is the oldest park in the country.

History

In the 16th century, the land of the park was the property of the Szolc-Wolfowicz family and Antonio Massari, a Venetian consul. They passed the property to a Jesuit order. The park's former name Jesuit Gardens derived from that history. The monastic residents built a brewery and an inn with the elegance of Italian refinery. During a siege by Moscow's army in 1655, a rampart wall was built around the property. By the end of the 18th century, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, following his policy of confiscating monastic holdings, ordered the establishment of a municipal park in Lviv. In 1799, restaurateur Johann Höcht leased the park and opened a French resort on the site. It was redesigned by horticulturist

Karl Bauer Karl Konrad Friedrich Bauer (1868–1942) was a German artist, print-maker and poet. Bauer's traditional skills in draftsmanship made him a popular illustrator and portrait artist in the early 20th century. In his later life he made a number of port ...

as a landscaped park in 1855.Ivan Franko Park (formerly, Jesuit Gardens)
''Lvivcenter.org''

Location

The Ivan Franko Park (

) is located on a hillside of the Lviv Heights between Lystopadovoho Chynu and Krushelnytskoi Streets. It is near

Lviv University The University of Lviv ( uk, Львівський університет, Lvivskyi universytet; pl, Uniwersytet Lwowski; german: Universität Lemberg, briefly known as the ''Theresianum'' in the early 19th century), presently the Ivan Franko Na ...

, which is also named after

Ivan Franko Ivan Yakovych Franko (Ukrainian: Іван Якович Франко, pronounced ˈwɑn ˈjɑkowɪtʃ frɐnˈkɔ 27 August 1856 – 28 May 1916) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, interpreter, economist, ...

. The park fills a parallelogram between Marshalkovska, Mitskevych, Mateyko and Krashevsky Streets (presently, Universitetska, Lystopadovoho Chynu, Mateyko, and Krushelnytskoi) (Miasto Lwów, 1896, 318) A large statue of Ivan Franko towers over the park.Jozef Wittlin, Philippe Sands
City of Lions
''Books.google.fr'', 21 March 2017

Ecosystem

The park contains maples, oaks, linden, chestnut, and other trees of varying ages.

References

Lviv Parks in Ukraine {{Ukraine-stub