Moments of Prof Dr Rimvydas Petrauskas' lecture "The Pacs: between Gardin and Florence"

On 28 November, the rector of Vilnius University, historian Prof. Dr. Rimvydas Petraukas gave a lecture "The Pacs: between Gardin and Florence". After the wars of the mid-17th century, the so-called Twilight period, a new family appeared at the top of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's nobility, alongside the Radvilas and the Sapiegas - the Pacs. Although the ancestors of the family considered their place of origin to be the remote Rožanka estate near Gardin, such a geography of origin was insufficient for the nobles of the 17th century who were making their political careers. This is how the Pacs "discovered" their Italian roots. This lecture will discuss the history of the Pacs family from its first known representatives at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries to its heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries.