The Belweder, also called Belvedere, came into being in 1659 through the reconstruction of an older structure from about 1600. It was Krzysztof Zygmunt Pac, the Grand Chancellor of Lithuania, who erected a palatial villa at the edge of a tall escarpment for his wife, Klara Izabella de Lascaris, who was an attendant at the court of Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga. Owing to the beautiful scenery one could admire from the villa's windows it was named the Belvedere (from Latin "bellus vedere", literally "beautiful view"). In the 1730s, the old building was replaced with a new brick building of rectangular shape designed by architect Józef Fontana.