A few remarks on the way the monarchs executed their right of patronage on the margine of an unknown document from 1390 issued by Władyslaw Jagiełło for Mikołaj Trąba

King Władysław Jagiełło had the right of patronage to over a hundred beneficiary parish churches in the Archdioceses of Gniezno and Lviv, several dozen prebendaries in cathedral and collegiate chapters, and to a difficult to assess number of chapels and church altar fundations all over the monarchy. The number of the beneficiaries under the king’s patronage was changing. It was being increased by the new churches and prebendaries founded by the king, and decreased by the benefices granted by the ruler to the Cracow’s University or religious congregations. As a patron, the king presented a candidate for a vacant benefice in writing. Due to the evanescent charcter of those documents, very few have survived until the present day. In the collection of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences a document written by Władysław Jagiełło in 1390 has been found. It presents Mikołaj Trąba as a candidate for the position of an altarist in the Cracow Cathedral. There is also another document worth mentioning in which seventeen years later Władysław Jagiełło presented Mikołaj Trąba as a candidate for the office of a parish priest in Przemyków, which became vacant after the death of king’s preacher and confessor, Jan Szczekna.

„Bread for the praiseworthy”. The inspection of the Crown lands in the Mościska District in 1627

In ancient Poland Crown lands constituted the “bread for the praiseworthy”, and they were granted by the king for broadly defined services for the mothercountry. Leasing and managing these properties was very profitable – after making the payments due to the Treasury, a Starost (a head of a district) would keep the rest. Thus, the starosts would try to maximise their profits. Studying the history of the districts one should make a note of the enforcement movement from the second half of the 16th century whose objective was to limit the free distribution of the state properties, a phenomenon characteristic of the Jagiellonian dynasty which tried to strengthen its position on the throne of Poland. Pursuant to the decision of the Sejm, from time to time the inspections of the respective districts were carried out, and the appointed (and sworn to office) inpectors made inventories of the properties and checked whether the starosts fulfilled their financial obligations to the Treasury regularly and accurately. One of the several hundred of districts of the Republic of Poland was the Mościska district, within the Przemyśl lands, in the Ruthenian Voivodeship, at first rich, but later ravaged due to the frequent Tatars’ raids.The inspection carried out in 1627 provides the picture of that district, the town of Mościska and the neighbouring villages. The annex includes this document, preserved as a copy from 1713. What must be emphasised is its importance for the research not only into the districts themselves but into the history of the eastern territories of Poland.

On the trail of the first women painters in old Poland

The article presents the Polonica in the works of Italian women painters, and the accounts about the activity of women painters in Poland. An amateur woman painter from the upper classes was Maria Eleonora, Princess of Anhalt-Dessau (1671–1756), wife of Jerzy Radziwiłł. The professional women painters in the first half of the 18th century were Wilelm Włoch’s wife and daughter, who contributed into the creation of his frescos and altar paintings in the Church of Norbertine Sisters in Imbramowice. The daughter single-handedly painted two altar paintings preserved in the Church of Bernardine Sisters in Kraków.

Juliusz Mien junior – painter. From the series: Forgotten inhabitants of Kraków

In multicultural Kraków from the times of Austrian-Hungarian monarchy there were many assimilated foreign artists whose figures are worth bringing back. One of them was Juliusz Mien junior (1865 Blanchefosse–1890 Kraków), a son of Juliusz (Jules) Mien, a French, poet and writer, who settled down in Kraków in 1870, and Petronela Wieczorkowska. Mien junior studied in the Cracow School of Fine Arts and in Munich, and very few of his paintings and drawings, self-portraits and portraits have been preserved in private collections and in the National Museum in Kraków. Like his father, he also wrote poems in Polish.

History of the portraits of the Galician Sejm Marshalls in the collection of the National Museum in Cracow

The Galician Sejm was the supreme local government assembly for Galicia during its autonomy. The Galician Sejm was based in Lviv where, in between 1878 and 1881, its representative premises were built. Following the example of other supreme institutions of the times, Department of Sejm, the administrative and executive arm of the Galician Sejm, commissioned portraits of Marshalls from the most prominent Polish artists: Rodakowski, Matejko, Siemiradzki, and Pochwalski. All Marshalls were depinted apart from the last two, Adam Gołuchowski and Stanisław Niezabitowski, whose portraits were not commissioned in time. The portraits represented not only a collection of fine pieces of art but also a historical testimony of Galicia and its achievements. At times the portaits were a source of admiration and, at others, of waspish remarks. Unfortunately, they shared the fate of heroic Lviv during the First World War and the Polish-Soviet War. With the aim to save the collection, Marshall Niezabitowski sent the portraits to the National Museum in Cracow in 1916. After signing the Peace Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the paintings were returned to Lviv, where the war against Bolsheviks was still raging. The Parliament building was seized and the paintings were damaged. At the end of 1918, the collection was sent to the National Museum in Cracow for the second time. At first, they were considered a deposit but later on they became the property of the Museum. For more than 80 years the collection has been the glory of The Gallery of 19th-century Polish Art at Sukiennice.

Przekład: Kinga Kuchta

Ludwik Osiński’s libretto for „Andromeda”, the opera by Józef Elsner, from 1807 in the manuscript collection of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków

Among the literary texts available in manuscripts in the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków, one that draws attention is a libretto written by a poet and plawright, Ludwik Osiński (1775–1838), for Andromeda, an opera composed by Józef Elsner (1769–1854). The opera was first staged in 1807 in Warsaw to honour Napoleon Bonaparte, in the times of the Duchy of Warsaw, after the French victory over the Prussians. Osiński used a mythological theme to glorify the Emperor. Napoleon was in the audience during one of the performences.
The handwriting, grammar and spelling of the text suggest that the manuscript from the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences comes from the 19th century. No information as to who wrote down the text has been found either in the manuscript itself or in the library’s catalogues.
210 years after those events it is worth bringing this work back. The Libretto was printed in 1808 as one complete work in two languages: Polish and in French translation. Now it is a historic publication from the epoque. Andromeda was not included in the four-volume publication of the author’s works presented in between 1861 and 1862. This article is the first critical edition of Osiński’s work.

Magazines for women in the publishing heritage of Konstanty Majeranowski (1787–1851)

The journalistic output of Konstanty Majeranowski is big, although so far it has not seemed to be interesting for the historians of the press. The objective of this article is to show Majranowski as a creator of the magazines addressed to women. He was a precursor of this magazine genre not only in the Free City of Kraków but on Polish lands under partitions as well. He published “Pleasant and Practical Entertainments”, which later changed the title to “Polish Flora”, “Cracow’s Courier Devoted to Fair Sex and Literature” and the addition to “ Cracow’s Herald”, entitled “Wanda” – all of which were addressed to women. In the pages of these magazines the readers could find information from the world of fashion, and especially for them the romances and literary works were published there. There was also a substantial amount of humour. These magazines can be counted among press ephemerids as they were issued for a short time as they lacked a firm group of readers.

„Polish Woman” (1899–1907) as an example of a patronage magazine – a monographic outline

Issued in the years 1899–1907, “Polish Woman” is an example of a patronage magazine connected with the Christian-social movement established after Pope Leon XIII announced his encyclical Rerum novarum. The magzine was addressed to pious peasant women, townswomen, workers and craftsmen’s wives, undereducated women. A great contribution into the creation and development of the “Polish Woman” magazine was made by its publisher, a renown Cracow’s pro-education activist, Adela Dziewicka. A long-standing editor-in-chief was Katarzyna Płatek, who held a similar position in another patronage periodical – “The Servants’ Friend”. The duet Dziewicka and Płatek contributed to the foundation of the “Guardian Angle” an indpendent publication addressed to children, an addition to “Polish Woman”. In December 1903 the editorial office and the administration of the monthly were moved to Lviv and Father Adam Wesoliński was entrusted with these responsibilities. Under his direction “Polish Woman” was an independent publication, an addition to the “Sunday Gazette”, a weekly addressed to Catholic families. In the pages of “Polish Woman” one could find advice in the matters of housework and religion as well as literary works and texts on history.

Supervisions of churches in Kraków in the years 1800–1853. Organisation and responsibilities

The article presents the origins and the system of the institutions supervising Churches established by the Sejm of the Free City of Kraków in 1833. Their responsibility was mainly to supervise parish properties, of which they informed the government, and to participate in the construction and redecoration works around the churches, parochial houses, vicarages, cemetries etc. Supervising institutions included collators, parsons, parishoners and District Commissioners who represented the Governing Senate. The article also reconstructs a few cases of construction and redecoration works connected with churches and parish buildings in Kraków and in the so called Kraków District in which supervising offices played their role. The study is mainly based on the archival documents from the National Archives in Kraków.

Pokucie in the botanical studies of the Cracow Scientific Society and the Academy of Arts and Sciences

Realising the programme of researching Galicia, the Botanical Section of the Physiographic Commission of the Cracow Scientific Society (later the Academy of Arts and Sciences) carried out work in, inter alia, Pokucie. Pokucie was considred to be a geographical and historical area by the upper Prut River and the Cheremosh River. It is seperated from the located to the north Podole by the Dniester River valley, its south border is marked by the Chornohora Mountain Range.

Field research carried out in Pokucie was the work of both field co-operators of the Physiographic Commission and the employees of the Botanical Section. Especially worth mentioning is the field work of J. A. Śleńdziński, E. Wołoszczak, H. Zapałowicz and A. Wróblewski. The model co-operation between field co-operators of the Physiographic Commission and the Cracow scientists connected with it should be especially emphasised. In result many new research positions and descriptions of new species were provided.

It is worth mentioning that until the research of the Botanical Section, Podole had been weakly explored from the point of view of flora. The research into this area was continued during the interwar period. There is no doubt that the contribution of the Botanical Section of the Physiographic Commission into the research and establishing the knowledge of flora in Pokucie was enormous.

Oscar Vladislas de Milosz (1877–1939) and the ,,Queen’’ Karomama

In 1906 a French Symbolist poet published a poem Karomama in a volume of poems entitled Les sept solitudes. The poem was influenced by a fascinating impression experienced by its author in Louvre where he saw a bronze figurine of a young girl (Pl. I, II), brought from Egypt in 1829 by Jean François Champollion. This antique presents Karomama Meritmut, daughter of Osorkon II or granddaughter of Osorkon I, who during the rule of the 22nd Dynasty (870–825 BC) held a very important office of God’s Wife of Amun/Divine Adoratress of Amun. The figurine, an exquisite example of metal sculpture, was founded by Iahentefnakht, God’s Father of Amun, the overseer of Treasury of the House of Divine Adoratress of Amun. The figurine served cultic puropses in one of the chapels in Karnak; Divine Adoratress offered two sistrums to Amon in sacrifice, as shown on a relief sculpture from the Egyptian Museum in Berlin (Fig. 1). Other antiques connected with Karomama (including a few shabtis figurines with her name) were found in West Thebes, in the area of the Temple of a Million Years of Ramses II. However, Karomama’s disturbed tomb, from which these findings most certainly came from, had not been discovred until the archeological excavations in 2014 carried out in the area of a cemetry located there in the times of the 22nd Dynasty. Almost physical fascination with the image of the Egyptian “queen” from Louvre, apart from the above mentioned poem included in at least a few anthologies of Milosz’s poems, is confirmed by her presence in one of his mystery plays (Saul de Tarse, 1913; published 1970). The poem Karomama translated by Maria Leśniewska (1983) constitutes the annex to this text. [English translation of the poem by Edouard Roditi: [in:] C. Bomford (ed.), The Noble Traveller, 1985, p. 73/75].

The correspondence between Marian Gieszczykiewicz and his fiancée and a wife-to-be, Elżbieta Schreyer, from a private collection of Ann Elizabeth Gieszczykiewicz- Jaron – the history of the set and its historical and sentimental value

The author of the present article, a historian, Piotr Świątczak, presents an edition of the letters from Marian Gieszczykiewicz (1889–1942) to his fiancée and a wifie-to-be, Elżbieta Schreyer (1890–1983). He also presents the history of the collection and emphasised its historical and sentimental value.

The author of the letters was a graduate from St. Anne’s Grammar School in Kraków and then Medical Department of the Jagiellonian University. After finishing his studies, he started his career as a scientist, researcher and lecturer at this University, and in 1924 he became a full professor. He also held the position of the Dean of the Medical Department of the Jagiellonian University. He was considered to be a distinguished bacteriologist. During WWII he took part in the undergound resitance movement. Due to that fact he was arrested by the Nazis (in 1941). He was a prisoner in the Montelupich Street prison and KL Auschwitz, where he died (in 1942). His life companion, E. Schreyer, graduated from the Queen Jadwiga Private Grammar School for Girls in Kraków and the Philological Department of the Jagiellonian University (Polish and German philology).

The set comes from a private collection of the scientist’s granddaughter, Ann Elizabeth Gieszczykiewicz- Jaron, who lives in England. It is unique in its character as it has never been made available to anyone, studied and published. Thus the present article is of great epistemic value. It consists of four parts. The first one is an extensive preface, in which the author presents the biographical notes about the sender and the recipient of the letters, and provides an analysis of their content, describes what they look like and what is the state of their preservation. The second, third and fourth part provide the editions of the letters: from the years 1917–1918 (to his fiancée from the southern front of WWI), from 1933 (to his wife and children spending their winter holidays in Zakopane) and from 1942 (to his wife and children from KL Auschwitz). The text is followed by the appendix with the reproductions of exemplary letters and photographs.

„Polen im Zeitalter der Jagiellonen 1386–1572”. The Jagiellonian Dynasty exhibition in Schallaburg (May 8–November 2 1986) and in Warsaw (March– June 1987). A recollection on the 30th anniversary

The Jagiellonian Dynasty exhibition presented in Schallaburg in Lower Austria and then in Warsaw was a very important cultural event for Polish and foreign recepients from the 80s of the 20th century. The article describes how, in completely different political and technical conditions, this exhibition came into being. The article is based on reviews published in newspapers issued in the People’s Republic of Poland and in foreign ones, mostly Austrian, on the direct recollections of the authors of the exhibition – Dr. Franciszek Stolot (1937–2006) and Dr. Gottfried Stangler (1948–2005), letters and comments written by the visitors to the exhibition.

The exhibition presented the times of the Jagiellonian rule in Poland, beginning with Władysław Jagiełło until Zygmunt August, 1386–1572, it was artistic and historical in character , but dominated by the works of art from state and church collections. It was held in 22 rooms of Schallaburg Castle and consisted of 600 exhibits. On the occasion of the exhibition a catalogue Schallaburg‘86 Polen im Zeitalter der Jagiellonen 1386–1572 was published, it consisted of 596 pages and 92 colourful illustrations compiled by 60 authors. The exhibition was a cognitive element not only for foreign tourists but for Polish visitors as well beacause it gathered the antiques from the Jagiellonian period in one place. Due to the success of the Jagiellonian Dynasty exhibition in Schallaburg, it was presented a year later in the Warsaw Castle. A modest catalogue Poland of the Jagiellonian Dynasty 1386–1572 was also published. It was edited by Prof. Aleksander Gieysztor, then the director of the Warsaw Castle.

The Schallburg exhibition was reviewd nad commented upon by Wilfried Schaber in “Weltkunst”, and it triggered international interest in the culture from the period of the Jagiellonian rule not only in Poland but also in the Czech Republic, Hungary, on the territory of the present Slovakia (Upper Hungary) and in Romania (Transylvania), and initiated scientific publications on that topic. As a result, an exhibition was organised in 2012 in Kutna Hora. It later visited Warsaw and Potsdam. The catalogue of the exhibition Europa Jagellonica 1386–1572 Art and Culture in Central Europe under the Jagiellonian Dynasty was published. It was edited by Jiři Fajt.

The international exchange of the publications of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in the years 2000–2016

The present article discusses the way the international exchange functioned in the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in the years 2000– 2016. It describes the changes that it was been undergoing since the Library had been incorporated into the structures of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. Apart from presenting the main scientific institutions and establishments which were continuing partners, the article discusses the challenges and problems connected with the international exchange that the Scientific Library faced in that period. The decrease in the number of the titles sent as well as the co-operating institutions was a result of a limited number of the magazine copies acquired by the Library for the exchange. The fact that certain titles completely ceased to be published also led to the end of the exchange with many entities. The dynamic conversion of the magazines into an electronic form, making them available on the Internet and cuttting the costs are the main reasons for the changes in the way the international exchange has been carried out by the Scientific Library in recent years.

The collection of underground prints from the Martial Law times in Poland

The article refers to the collection gathered by the author of the present text, mainly „post stamps” which were published underground among other “out of cencorship” publications after the introduction of Martial Law which was proclaimed on the 13th of December 1981. One of the first publications, and maybe even the first one, was an analysis of the legal grounds for the Martial Law, printed with the use of a duplicating machine, signed by the “Jagiellonian University lawyers”. Among those anonymous lawyers was Andrzej Zoll, later the President of the Constitutional Tribunal.

The publishing activity started to flourish quickly in various underground structures. There were fliers, calendars and finally books; postcards and “post stamps” started to be issued. The present collection includes mainly the publications published in Warsaw or those that were brought there. There are also publications from Lublin. In Warsaw one of the collecting points where one could pick “out of censorship” publications was located at Górnośląska Street in the apartment of Mr and Ms Bart; from the Lublin district they were delivered by my husband’s nephew, Jan Dutkiewicz, who was active there. I delivered the underground publications mainly to the Jagiellonian Library, and distributed what was left among friends leaving some part for myself. First of all, I gathered post stamps. Initially, the quality of the print was very primitive, however, it improved later. Sometimes the underground stamps resembled the official ones, published by the state postal service. I put two of those stamps on letters, one to my husband and one to myself. The post office stamped them and the postman delivered them to the addressees.

The complete collection was donated to the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków.

Amateur ornithology at the end of the 18 century. A few th words about „Histoire des oiseaux” by François-Nicolas Martinet and its illustrations on the 230 th anniversary of its publication

The article presents one of the modern ornithological works published in the years 1787–1796, Histoire des oiseaux by François-Nicolas Martinet. The engraver produced a compendium constituting part of the history of French illustrated nature encyclopaedias which goes back to the mid-16th century. Consecutive depictions of animals were created in the circles of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Since the mid-17th century its members had compiled various compendia presenting mammals and birds living in the royal menageries. Since around 1765, François-Nicolas Martinet had been hired to create colourful ornithological illustrations for one of such encyclopaedias prepared by Georges Leclerc de Buffon. On the basis of the copperplate engravings made at that time, in 1787 Martinet began to publish his own depictions of birds with descriptions. Produced during the French Revolution, the collection was popular with readers due to its light yet scientific character, but also because of its convinient format. One of the buyers of Histoire des oiseaux was Aleksander Lubomirski whose grandson, Leon Rzewuski, donated six volumes of this compendium to the Cracow Scientific Society in 1865. The book collection of the Society laid the foundations for the collection of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków.

The gift of the engravings for the Print Room in 2016

In 2016 the Print Room of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków enriched itself with the gift of 49 works of eminent Polish modern arists. The gift encompasses the engravings of the established artists of several generations begining with those who started working before WWII and ending with the individualities of the middle generation. They are all connected with Kraków, either through years of studies spent here or their later artistic work. The works include engravings produced by means of various traditional techniques such as endway woodcut, elongated woodcut, linocut, etching, mezzotint, all of them approached by the artists, especially by the young ones, in their individual way. Among the engravings there are a few works produced by means of a technique used/invented by Marian Malina – cellocut.

The individualities discussed here: Bogna Krasnodębska-Gardowska (1900–1986), Jerzy Panek (1918–2001), Marian Malina (1922–1985), Leszek Sobocki (b. 1938), Piotr Kmieć (b. 1949), Małgorzata Żurakowska (b. 1952), Wiesław Skibiński (b. 1961), Hanna Michalska-Baran (b. 1963) and Bogdan Achimescu (b. 1965), may represent different attitudes in their works due to the generation gap, experiences or temperaments, however, they contribute enormously into Polish graphic art of the last few decades. Taking into consideration the fact that the collection of the Print Room, which includes old engravings, is a closed collection, the examples of Polish modern graphic art acquired now seem all the more important.