Each magnate possessed several palatial residencies, usually designed by
Italian architects and built and furnished at fantastic expense. Once
built, each residence had to be maintained and supplied with a full
complement of butlers, maids, cooks, grooms, soldiers, and so forth,
totaling as many as several hundred people.
Of course, once the residencies were built and staffed they had to be
enjoyed. Magnates regularly hosted balls and prodigious feasts that
afforded the opportunity for showing off expensive imported clothing,
gourmet delicacies, silver and crystal tableware, and private orchestras
and entertainers.
In order to maximize good times, magnates were constantly on the road,
traveling among their own residencies and those of their friends.
Elźbieta Sieniawska changed residences at least twenty times between
January 1, 1719, and January 3, 1720. Such trips were not unaccompanied.
A magnate's entourage could be very large: in exceptional cases, it
included as many as sixty to seventy wagons and one thousand people, all
of whom had to be fed, housed, and clothed. Moreover, magnates did not
just spend money on themselves and their entourages. They prided themselves
on their patronage of the arts, literature, architecture, theatre, and
music as well as their contributions to religious institutions and to
charities.
"The Lords' Jews: Magnate-Jewish Relations in the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth during the Eighteenth Century", M. J. Rosman, pp. 9, 10
