Łukasz Rodakiewicz, born and bred in Lublin, a former officer in Napoleon’s army, engineer and architect, chartered surveyor and “deputy engineer of the Lublin Voivodeship”, embarked on the construction of a theatre for the city of Lublin on the site of derelict townhouses (as well as the remnants of a small church, most likely part of the adjacent monastery and hospital). The form of the building today largely tracks its original shape.
As local lore has it, the Jezuicka theatre was built out of love. Łukasz Rodakiewicz was believed to have constructed it for his newly wedded wife Marianne, daughter of Kacper Drewnowski and reportedly an aficionado of the thespian arts.
