documented by Henryk Siemiradzki in a photogravure titled "Chopin u księcia Radziwiłła" ("Chopin's visit to Prince Radziwill"). Wealth The family acquired and maintained great wealth and influence from the 15th–16th century until 1939, when the Second World War started. The Radziwiłł family reached the heights of its importance and power during the Polish Golden Age. However, due to the activities of Janusz Radziwiłł during The Deluge, a series of mid-17th-century campaigns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the family lost much of its wealth and power. Regarding their wealth, the Radziwiłłs were not inferior to a royal family. In total, the Radziwiłł family has, over the centuries, had in its possession 23 palaces, 426 large and small towns, 2032 estates, and 10,053 villages. In present-day Belarus they possessed towns and boroughs like Haranyony, Davyd-Haradok, Kletsk, Dzyarzhynsk, Kopys, Dakhva, Mir, Nesvizh, Charnauchitsy, and Shchuchyn; in present-day Ukraine: Olyka with dozens of villages in the Wolyn province (Polish: wojewodztwo); in present-day Poland: Szydłowiec with villages in the Sandomierz province and Nieborów; and in present-day Lithuania: Biržai, Dubingiai, Kėdainiai, and others. The Goniądz-Meteliai line possessed, during the 15th – 16th centuries, estates like Goniądz, Zaigrad and Podlaskie Lowlands in Poland. In 1612 the Principality of Slutsk with some thirty-two villages passed over to the Radziwiłłs, after Janusz Radziwiłł had married the heiress Zofia Olelkowicz Słucka. Radziwiłłs also expanded their possessions with Brest, Ashmyany, Krychau, Lida, Mazyr and other administrative territories (starostwos). As a result, the Radziwiłłs were granted a lifetime privilege of being governors (starostas) of those territories. However, during Janusz Radziwiłł's lifetime, the interests between his family and the Polish Crown began to drift apart, as the Radziwiłłs sought to increase their wealth and power, safeguard Protestantism and support ethnically Lithuanian culture, which caused him to join the opposition against King Sigismund III Vasa in 1606. In 1586, the sons of Mikolaj "the Black" arranged for their fortunes to follow an ordynacja (fee tail), which was to have individual properties inherited by their male descendants; see "Radziwiłł Family Fee Tail". The ordynats of Nesvizh, Kletsk, and Olyka were thus formed. In the 19th century the Davyd-Haradok and Przygodzice ordynats were also established. Other possessions could be inherited by female heirs or alienated. Depending on the importance and size of owned lands, they were called either principalities (Nesvizh, Olyka, Biržai, Dubingiai, Kapyl, Slutsk, Staryi Chortoryisk, Stary Zbaraz, Goniądz and Medele), counties (Mir, Biała Podlaska, Dzyarzhynsk,