Dubno Castle was founded in 1492 by Prince Konstantin Ostrogski on a promontory overlooking the Ikva River not far from the ancient Ruthenian fort of Dubno, Volhynia.
Ostrogski castle was rebuilt in stone in the early 16th century under the Lithuanian rule when the city was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It had a church, a two-story palace, and an impressive array of 73 cannons. It was there that the treasury of the Ostrogski family was kept. These fabulous treasures brought the predatory Crimean Tatars to the castle on several occasions.
Prince Janusz Ostrogski, the last of his family, undertook major renovations of the castle in the early 17th century. He made use of the trace itallienne, or "Italian style" of fortification, to transform Dubno into the most advanced fort in the region. Prince Janusz's palace still stands in Dubno.
During the Khmelnytsky Uprising, the vicinity of Dubno Castle was the scene of heavy fighting between the Poles and the Cossacks, some of it described by Nikolai Gogol in the novella Taras Bulba. The castle passed to Polish Prince Władysław Dominik Zasławski as part of the Ostroh inheritance and survived a Russian siege in 1660.