 The history of the Staszic Palace dates from 1620, when King Sigismund III of Poland ordered the construction of a small Eastern Orthodox chapel, as an appropriate burial place for the former Tsar Vasili IV of Russia and his brother, Dmitry Shuisky, who had died in Polish custody after having been captured several years earlier during the Polish-Muscovite War of 1605-18.As the Polish capital's population was mostly Catholic, Protestant or Jewish, there was little call for an Orthodox chapel, and in 1668 another Polish king, John II Casimir, transferred the chapel to the Dominican Order, who were caretakers of the building until 1808.In 1818 the building was purchased by Stanisław Staszic, a leading figure of the Polish Enlightenment, who commissioned its renovation.