Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio by Tomasz Treter as a 17th-Century Example of Emblematic Meditations. Graphic Sources and the Purpose of the Collection

The aim of this paper is first of all to present graphic sources of Symbolica vitae Christi meditatio by Tomasz Treter in three 16th-century emblematic works from the French and Dutch circles, namely by Junius Hadrianus (Emblemata), Claude Paradin (Devises heroïques), and Aneau Barthélemy (Picta poesis). It also presents an analysis of the composition of Treter’s collection and situates it in the context of emblematic meditations, promoted by Jesuits in the 16th century. Th e following four emblems are analysed in detail: Nativitas, Manifestata veritas, Circumcisio, and Continentia.

They provide both a metacommentary on the role of image in cognition and an illustration of the relationship between pair of emblems throughout whole collection. The first hundred emblems in Treter’s collection are arranged in pairs, in which the fi rst one shows an episode from the life of Christ, while the second one transposes the biblical story into a symbolic language. The quoted fragment of Jesus’ life is each time used to discuss a Christian virtue expressed through an abstract symbol. At the same time, the traditional tripartite construction of the emblem becomes less strict as in Treter’s collection emblems take the form of two icons sharing a single subscription.

Old Cracow Editions of the First Book of Polish Proverbs.
1. Stanisław Giermański as the Editor of the Edition of Salomon Rysiński’s Przypowieści polskie / Polish Proverbs from 1619

This paper is the first part of a triptych aimed at presenting the publishing history of three Cracow reissues from 1619, 1620 and 1634 of the collection of Polish proverbs Proverbiorum Polonicorum […] centuriae decem et octo prepared by Salomon Rysiński, which was first published in Lubcz on the Neman in 1618. This part is devoted to the fi rst of these renewals, which was published in Cracow in 1619 without  naming the printer. However, the woodcut strips used on the title page of the collection allow us to determine the publishing house in which it was issued. It was the workshop that operated under the aegis of Jakub Sybeneicher’s heirs. It was then managed by Stanisław Giermański, who was probably also the initiator and editor of the reissue.

He introduced a number of signifi cant innovations to his edition. He polonised the Latin title of the original, omitted the author’s dedication, poems recommending Rysiński’s collection, and the numeration of proverbs (turning the centauries of the fi rst print into chapters), and removed some 80 proverbs from the Polish list, almost 30 Latin equivalents of native proverb, which Rysiński provided in the original, assuming that his work would be used by foreign paroemiologists, as well as all source annotations discussing the origins of the Polish and Latin dicta. Moreover, a number of proverbial phrases noted by Rysiński were edited by Giermański, who changed their shape into one that was better known in Cracow. Most of these changes were dictated by mercantile considerations. On the one hand, the volume presented by Giermański was reduced by 1.5 sheets, as compared to the fi rst edition, which made it possible to reduce the printing costs and make the typographer  earn more on the reedition. On the other hand, thanks to the title translated into Polish and the omitted numeration of proverbs, the collection better suited the needs of the local audiences, whose needs Giermański, a book seller, knew better than Rysiński.

Pious and Merry Games of the Warsaw Discalced Carmelite Sisters. Bonaventure of St Stanislaus, Emblematy na obraz dziada—A Cycle from a 17th-Century Carmelite Manuscript

The research problem related to the achievements of religious orders in Poland in the early modern period is the incomplete knowledge of literary culture and reading preferences of religious communities in Poland in the 17th century. The popularity of emblems was particularly influenced by female readers and their reading preferences. This is exemplified by the addressees of the cycle presented below and  the discovery of a previously unknown series of emblems of Bonaventure from St Stanislaus, born Stanisław Frezer (1638–1687). The cycle is included in the codex that belonged to Bonaventure, who also authored ascetic and theological writings from the Carmelite circle. The handwriting of the text indicates his authorship. Th e cycle was commissioned by Warsaw Carmelites, whose spiritual patron was Bonaventure of St Stanislaus. The creation of this series of emblems was connected with a kind of social play that the Carmelite nuns engage in during their monastic recreation in 1677.

Seventeen short works were written by Bonaventure of St Stanislaus as complimentary to his painting depicting a beggar. The image, which has not survived to this day, and the circumstances of the creation of the emblem cycle were described in Frezer’s manuscript biography published in the same codex no. 243 held in the
Discalced Carmelite Sisters’ Library in Cracow. The unusual inspiration of the character that belonged to the low culture is evidenced by subsequent works whose titles always evoke the attribute of the beggar, a characteristic feature of this character or his activity: Old age, Grey hair, Beard, Poverty, Coat, Cold, Hunger, Bag, Basket, Pot, Stilt or Stick, Singing, Name of God, Alms, God bless you, Prayers. The motto is biblical, usually partly localized. The subscription to the emblem provides a joint interpretation of the motto and the title, as well as a devotional instruction as to the conduct or devotional practice. Only one manuscript with this text has survived to date.

On the Aesthetics of Jacopo Mazzoni.
Jacopo Mazzoni, Della difesa della Comedia di Dante, a cura di Claudio Moreschini e Luigia Businarolo, Società di Studi Romagnoli, Cesena 2017, 641 pp.

The study examines Jacopo Mazzoni’s aesthetic thought expressed in his monumental, erudite work Della difesa della Comedia di Dante (1587). The first critical edition of the opening book of the treatise was published in 2017, with a preface, commentaries and notes by Claudio Moreschini and Luigia Businarolo. The edition includes also Introduttione e sommario—an extensive introduction to Della difesa that summarizes Mazzoni’s main aesthetic arguments, more broadly discussed in the subsequent seven books of his treatise.

The paper briefly describes the genesis of Della difesa, stemming from the late 16th-century debate on Dante’s Comedy as well as Mazzoni’s main sources, and the interrelation between his aesthetic thought and philosophical ambition to create a synthesis and reconciliation of Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. Mazzoni’s  poetics is based on a reinterpretation of Plato’s doctrine mixed with Aristotle’s conception of mimesis. Outlining main directions of the past and recent research on Della difesa, the paper emphasizes the most original and vanguard of Mazzoni’s positions on the nature of poetry. Firstly, the defi nition of mimetic arts in terms of creation of eidola (idoli) derived from poet’s intellect and imagination. Secondly, the ‘rehabilitation’ of sophistic art and the identifi cation of poetry with antique sophistry (in this context, Mazzoni’s reading of Plato’s Sophist is particularly important). These arguments involve a fairly novel claim that poesy derives from fantasy, which leads to the appreciation of ‘fantastic imitation’, and a re-evaluation of the Aristotelian theory of poetic probability interpreted as credibile maraviglioso, i.e. plausible and credible wonder including fantastic, imaginary elements, and even falsehood, provided that it seems probable and serves to evoke astonishment and aesthetic pleasure.

Mazzoni’s insights on the imaginative nature of poetic creation—though criticised by his contemporaries (Torquato Tasso and Francesco Patrizi were the most acute adversaries of Mazzoni)—precede not only Francis Bacon’s statement about imaginative origins of poetry, but also 17th-century poetics of conceit with its liberal attitude towards poetic truth and falsehood, and furthermore, as emphasised in recent scholarship, S.T. Coleridge’s and T.S. Eliot’s views on poetry.