Chrystian Piotr Aigner acquired extensive knowledge of architecture in the course of several journeys to
Italy that he made in the company of his patron and subsequent collaborator and friend
Stanisław Kostka Potocki. He studied in Italy. Later, during a long association with the city of
Warsaw, he created many
Classicist buildings in the
Polish capital. A member of
Rome's
Academy of St. Luke, and of the
Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning, and from 1817 a professor of architecture at
Warsaw University, he was active in Warsaw until 1825 and in
Kraków before leaving for Italy for good in 1827. Aigner at first applied the decorative forms of early
Neoclassicism (Marynka's Palace in
Puławy) or made reference to the works of
Andrea Palladio (the façade of
St. Anne's Church in Warsaw). In a later period, he reworked patterns drawn directly from the architecture of
Antiquity (the Puławy
parish church;
St. Alexander's Church in
Warsaw), and even erected
Neogothic structures (the Gothic House in Puławy). He also published a pattern book,
Budowy kościołów... (Church Building...), which exerted a great influence on Polish sacral architecture in the first half of the 19th century. Aigner's work represents a mature classicism, inspired directly by Italian influences, and later enriched by
Empire and
Romantic influences. The Romantic influences, reflecting a growing interest in Poland's past, were expressed chiefly through the use of
Neogothic forms and enriched spatial arrangements (palaces with
rotunda in a corner). His theoretical writings include "
Rozprawa o świątyniach u starożytnych i o słowiańskich,"
Roczniki Towarzystwa Warszawskiego Przyjaciół Nauk ("A Treatise on Ancient and Slavic Temples," Annals of the
Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning), 1808. During the
Kościuszko Uprising, Aigner wrote
"Krótka nauka o kosach i pikach" ("A Brief Treatise on Scythes and Pikes"), which provided a theory for operating on the field of battle with formations of
scythemen and
pikemen. ==Works==