At the northern base of Gediminas Hill, at the confluence of the Neris and Vilnia rivers, stands the Old Arsenal, another branch of the National Museum of Lithuania.
From the 13th to the 16th centuries, the area of the current Old Arsenal complex contained both wooden and later brick defence walls and towers. Archaeological research has revealed that a craftsmen’s settlement existed between the Old Arsenal and the shore of the Neris River.
Defence walls protected the base of Gediminas Hill from the effects of flooding. Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund Augustus began building the Arsenal in 1547. At the time most of the existing stone walls were torn down or their materials were reused in the foundations of new structures.
The first element of the Old Arsenal to be erected was the main and largest structure of the compound; its back pushes against the slope of the hill, where a stone defence tower once stood.
Construction of the Arsenal was related to the extensive activities of the Vilnius canon foundry right there along the shore of the Vilnia. Cannon building and gun casting were among the most important roles within the Lithuanian army of the era. The Arsenal was headed by a special official called a cekwart. We can get a sense of the size of the Vilnius Castle Arsenal at that time from a Venetian envoy’s 1560 report stating that Sigismund Augustus kept 180 heavy cannons and many smaller ones, most of them beautifully decorated, in the city. According to a 1565 inventory of the Vilnius Arsenal, during the times of Vytautas the Great the Vilnius Arsenal continued to hold the cannons used by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s ruler.
With time, the Old Arsenal complex grew and came to also include the North and West wings.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s artillery Arsenal continued to function right up to 1795. When Russia conquered the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Old Arsenal, along with other Vilnius Castle buildings, became a subdivision of that power’s armoury.
Throughout the 18th century, these buildings saw many reconstructions: first the main, eastern, Old Arsenal was lowered and became a storage building; the north wing later became a barracks, and Vilnius commandants settled in the west wing. Under Imperial Russia’s occupation, that building also housed an interrogation commission and prison.
The Old Arsenal continued to serve military purposes until the end of the 1960s.
In 1960–1987 the compound was converted to a cultural space: the eastern wing was restored according to 18th century Lithuanian artist Pranciškus Smuglevičius’s original drawings and was handed over to the National Gallery of Art of Lithuania, while the National Museum of Lithuania took over the western and eastern wings. The latter is where today’s visitors can find the largest and most valuable collection of Lithuanian archaeological artefacts.
