The nobility of Studies: Padua between diplomacy, culture and religion

The paduan noble ideology looked with interest in higher education both for the possibilities of employing nobles as lector and for the rich «propinae» derived from the degrees in the Sacred Colleges. The city encompassed, however, an extensive educational system with a prestigious Jesuit college and a military academy. Even the venetian patriciate developed the University according to careful cultural policies: state financing, engagement of famous professors and social control of the city. Religious, economic and cultural ties made the mobility of Polish nobles students to Italy particularly appreciated. The letters of an illustrious student, such as chancellor Jan Zamoyski, testify to the persistence over time of the ties also in terms of the history of European culture and the formation of its élites. The creation of flexible commissions for the granting of academic degrees encouraged these relationships.

Petrarch’s Padua, the Poles’ Padua: the De viris illustribus and virile portraiture

The article illustrates how visitors coming to Padua could learn about Italian humanism by studying Petrarch, not only where he had lived and what he had written but also how his legacy was represented and thus perpetuated under the direction of Petrarch’s former secretary and copyist, Lombardo della Seta, particularly in the fresco by Altichiero in the Oratory of Saint George to the right of the façade of the Basilica of Saint Anthony.

Marco Mantova Benavides, friend and protector of the Poles, promoter of Latin translations of Petrarch

The present paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of Latin translations of vernacular works on the example of the Latinisations of Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, contained in the commentary on Petrarch’s work by Marco Mantova Benavides, entitled Annotationi brevissime, sovra le rime di Messer Francesco Petrarca (1566). The Latin translations of Petrarchan texts included in the commentary are RVF 126, Chiare fresche e dolci acque, by Marcantonio Flaminio, RVF 128, Italia mia, and RVF 366, Vergine bella, by Pietro Amato and RVF 291, Quand’io veggio dal ciel, by Francesco Luigini. Marco Mantova Benavides, a humanist from Padua, jurist, lover and collector of antiquities and works of art, and professor at the Studio patavino, had friendly relations with Polish scholars, notably Jan Kochanowski and Andrzej Patrycy Nidecki. The exegetical activity of Mantova Benavides and the Latin translations of Petrarch’s texts belong to the colourful cultural context that Polish students in Padua had to deal with.

Gentiluomo armato. Military Contexts of the Presence of Polish Students in Padua

Studies in Padua became firmly established in Polish intellectual culture primarily as a place for the education of eminent representatives of the First Republic, from whom a rich writing legacy remains. Hence, among the wide range of so-called ‘Paduan’ people identified, writers and poets are associated with the Paduan Athenaeum in the first place, followed by medics, especially professors and lecturers at the Kraków Academy, or royal secretaries. The article addresses the hitherto overlooked issue of military education, and in the wider context of military culture, encountered by students arriving from Poland to a university city under the strict control of the Republic of Venice. Research in this area makes it possible to better understand not only, for example, the European circulation of knowledge on the art of fortification, but also the origins of the Zamoyski Academy or the sources of the assimilation of the idea of honour into Polish language and culture.

Libera cuique esset fides. Some Remarks on religious Background of Jan Kochanowski, Student of the University of Padua

The article presents religious attitudes of Humanists acting in the environment of Padua University in the middle of 16th century. At this background it follows development of religious beliefs of Jan Kochanowski during his studies in Padua (1552‒1559), then his strategy of coexistence with various confession groups in Polish Res Publica.

The author analyses the career and academic work of those distinguished professors at the University of Krakow who studied in Padua in the age of first elective monarchs (from the 1570s to ca. mid-17th century). One of the key questions in the article is to what extent the Paduan stage of education influenced the university career and intellectual culture of the Polish academics. More broadly, the author tries to indicate future research prospects of the studies on the implications of the University of Krakow professors’ Paduan background.

The students educated in Padua had great influence on the royal chancery of Poland-Lithuania and it dates back to the Middle Ages. These studies offered a possibility of career, and the significance of Padua in the context of royal chancery centres around the preparation of renowned lawyers much needed in the activities of the state. The reconstructing the education of chancery secretaries or notaries requires further research on this large group of several hundred characters.

The symbolism of Poland and its rulers in the Dichiaratione dell’arco fatto in Padova nella venuta della Serenissima Reina Bona di Polonia

The purpose of this article is to analyse the symbolism concerning Poland and the reigning house of the Jagellonian dynasty, represented, together with various symbols of other institutions, in a temporary triumphal arch, created in 1556 on the occasion of the arrival of Queen Bona Sforza in Padua. The city authorities asked Alessandro Maggi, a Paduan scholar and collector of antiquities, to take charge of the arch, designed by the Veronese architect Michele Sanmicheli, and to provide it with a symbolic-decorative apparatus. In order to immortalize the event, Maggi decided to write, in the form of an open letter, and to give to the press Dichiaratione dell’arco fatto in Padova nella venuta della Serenissima Reina Bona di Polonia, a chronicle in which he not only narrated Bona’s stay in the lands of the Venetian Republic and the festive procession that took place in Padua, but also meticulously described the structure of the arch, explaining, at least in part, its symbolism. In particular, the iconographic and iconological analysis of the allegorical representations and selected inscriptions will allow us to understand his level of knowledge of the realm of which Bona Sforza, consort of Sigismund I, had been queen for almost forty years, as well as what meanings Maggi ‒ through personal interpretations and the application of his profound knowledge of the ancient Roman world to the era contemporary to him ‒ intended to convey to onlookers.

Notes on the stay of Mikołaj Tomicki and some of his compatriots in Padua

The purpose of the work presented here is to enucleate some details of the Padua sojourn of Mikołaj Tomicki, dedicatee, moreover, as is well known, of a sonnet by Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, and of his friendships, on the basis of primary sources, especially the letters addressed to him by Antonio Maria Graziani and Giulio Poggiani.

Meetings in the text: Andrzej Schoen’s Fidus comes and its contexts

The main purpose of this paper is to show how a literary work (in this case Fidus comes, published in 1601 in Kraków) mirrors non only the author’s humanist culture and worldviews, but also his intellectual and social relationships. In addition, it deals with the idea of a text as a form of making oneself present, demonstrating that Andreas Schoneus (1552‒1616), a humanist and poet from Silesia being not able to travel with his former pupil (a Polish magnate, Jan Magnus Tęczyński, 1579‒1637) to the Netherlands, makes his own book the addressee’s companion. The analysed poem displays the importance of their former journey to Italy, and Padua’s milieu is involved in its history. The book served also as a kind of “portfolio”, commending the author to the Belgian humanist Justus Lipsius. The article is divided into four parts. The first presents short biographic profiles of the Fidus comes’ author and its addressee. The second describes the work, its genesis, metamorphoses and context. The third analyses the portrayal of Tęczyński in the poem in the context of his further career. The last one explains the interplay of ideas and contexts and the main function of Schoneus’ work.

The Republic of Venice: A Perfect Republic? The Image of Venice and Its Political System in De optimo senatore (1568) by Wawrzyniec Goślicki

The article discusses two passages from the treatise De optimo senatore libri duo, in which Wawrzyniec Goślicki evokes Venice as a model of a mixed form of government. It is shown that the image of Venice in the work of the Polish writer does not differ from that established in Italian literature of the 15th and 16th centuries by Pier Paolo Vergerio, Gaspare Contarini, Donato Giannotti. It has been shown that Goślicki, unlike the aforementioned authors, made the prosperity of the state dependent not on the wellfunctioning governmental bodies, but on the moral excellence of the ruling class.

Entertainments of Padua’s Polish community: Hieronim Morsztyn’s poetic letters from 1617/18 as a source for the history of customs

This article is devoted to a collection of poetic letters written by Hieronim Morsztyn in Padua in late 1617 and early 1618. Their collegial tone and lack of self-censorship made them a unique source of the everyday life of Padua’s Polish community. Mentions of numerous libations, love affairs with virgos and married women, the use of courtesans and, finally, the pregnancy of one of them, all add up to a colourful picture of the social life of students and travellers visiting Padua and nearby Venice. Even the two letters concerning attendance at a public autopsy, which was carried out at the Pallazo del Bo by anatomy professor Adriaan van den Spieghel between 25 January and 19 February 1618, are focusing on an account of the dissection of male and female genitalia.

‘Once it was a thriving city...’, or the image of Padua in the letters of Tomasz Kajetan Węgierski from 1779

Tomasz Kajetan Węgierski (1755–1787) is one of the most outstanding and controversial figures of the Polish Enlightenment. In 1779 this talented poet and satirist made a tour around Italy, during which he regularly wrote letters. They have been preserved in the collections of the Manuscripts Section of the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow, unfortunately as an incomplete copy. The aim of this article is to analyze the poet’s impressions from his stay in Padua. In his notes, full of anecdotes and jokes, we find broad descriptions of the art and architecture of the city, longer characteristics of the inhabitants, as well as their customs and everyday life. An attempt to reconstruct the Polish poet’s perception of Padua during the Enlightenment will undoubtedly contribute to a better understanding of the history of the city and its famous university.