“Złego sługę malarze tak figurowali” (“A bad servant was so depicted”): Sources of the Images of a Good and Bad Servant and of a Good and Bad Wife in Chapter 4 of Mikołaj Rej’s Źwierzyniec (‘The Bestiary’)

The chapter of Mikołaj Rej’s Źwierzyniec (‘The Bestiary’), entitled Jako starych wieków przypadki świeckie ludzie sobie malowali (‘As People Painted Secular Shapes from Old Times’), is a collection of epigrams accompanied by visual illustrations of various human features and vices. As proved in 1893 by Ignacy Chrzanowski, some of the pieces were inspired by Andrea Alciato’s emblems, hence the search for Rej’s sources focused on emblem literature. However, despite the evidence that Rej’s epigrams were intended as comments to illustrations, they still may be rooted in literary texts.

This article deals with the sources of four epigrams, namely, the one depicting a bad servant, a good servant, a good wife and a bad wife. The epigram Sługa dobry (IV 31, ‘The Good Servant’) may have been modeled on the popular treaty Οίκετηςsive De officio famulorum, written in 1535 by Gilbert Cousin, who described an image of a good servant, subsequently painted in French nobles’ chambers. It presented a human silhouette with a pig’s face, donkey’s ears and deer’s legs, which captured the idea of the servant being easy to feed, eager to listen and fast to follow the master’s orders. This image was widely popularized in 16th-century drawings, however none of them is known to have been familiar to Rej before 1562 and used by him as a pattern for his epigram.

Since a pig’s snout is associated with gluttony in Rej’s other texts, in the epigram Sługa dobry it is replaced by a bull’s head. The image of the snout is exploited in Zły sługa (IV 30, ‘The Bad Servant’). Rej equipped the bad servant with a wolf ’s ears – he will pretend to misunderstand orders for his own benefit, a bear’s paws –he steals, and a dog’s tail – he flatters his master.

The two epigrams presenting the images of a good wife and a bad wife, were inspired by verses that were echoed in Rej’s other works, for instance in Postylla (1557, ‘Postil’) and Żywot człowieka poczciwego (1568, ‘Life of a Virtuous Man’). The epigram Żona poczciwa (IV 32, ‘The Virtuous Wife’) alludes to Ps. 128(127):3, whereas Żona wszeteczna (IV 33, ‘The Profligate Wife’) to Prov. 11:22.

Military Spendings, Alms, the Splendour of Birth: Topoi and Arguments of Praise in Jakub Sobieski’s Funeral Speeches vs His Contemporary Preaching Tradition

The article deals with three arguments selected from a nobleman’s funeral praise of the 1st half of the 17th century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: bearing the military cost in defence of the homeland, endowing the building of churches, supporting monasteries and charitable institutions, and being well-born (praise e genere). The arguments are drawn from Jakub Sobieski’s (one of the best and the most famous Polish noble orators of his time) speeches delivered during funeral ceremonies of seven noblemen and noblewomen and sixteen funeral sermons dedicated to these decedents. Both sermons and noblemen’s funeral speeches (typical of old-Polish culture, yet different from the humanistic orations known and popular in the rest of Renaissance Europe) may seem to belong to the same genre of public orations, consequently, many scholars do not differentiate between them. In fact, their purpose, composition, and amplification of many topoi are very dissimilar.

Being closely related to the Old Polish role model of a nobleman, the three arguments of praise could be expected to be widely applied and amplified in any genre of funeral speech, as they glorified the deceased in the eyes of noblemen. However, in Sobieski’s orations these arguments are either omitted or mentioned only marginally, while in sermons they are developed extensively.

This paper offers a preliminary study of this problem, presenting a comparison of amplifying the three arguments of praise in two different genres of funeral orations delivered in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

This contribution provides an edition of Mikołaj Lubomirski’s epigrams on Polish-Lithuanian rulers. It consists of three major parts. Firstly, a preliminary study establishes the connection between Janicki’s vitae and Lubomirski’s work. Janicki’s vitae were written around 1542 and printed as late as 1563. Many subsequent editions and Polish paraphrases introduced changes, such as the pieces on the rulers who were not covered by Janicki. A few examples of such additions (for example, two versions of Andrzej Trzecieski’s epigram) and of Janicki’s vitae editions (Gdańsk 1621, Krakow 1631, Stendal 1670) are discussed.

Between 1621 and 1632, Lubomirski composed four additional (Latin) epigrams, which he included in a notebook that is partially preserved in: Krakow, Biblioteka Jagiellońska, ms. 5575 (codex unicus). The poems are collected in a separate unit (supplementum) and placed directly after the handwritten copy of Janicki’s vitae. It is argued that Lubomirski aimed to reveal the theme of Jagiellonian succession, mostly through the symmetrical composition of his cycle. Its framework is constituted by the first and the last epigram on the figures who are connected to the Jagiellonian dynasty, Sigismund II Augustus (supp. I) and Sigismund III Vasa (supp. IV). Within this arrangement, the second and the third poems are devoted to the first kings elected in

the so-called free election, Henri de Valois (supp. II) and Stephen Bathory (supp. III). Both pieces contrast with each other, however: Henry’s image is clearly negative, while Stephan is depicted overall positively, and thus his profile is similar to those of Jagiellonians. Other intersections between the poems, which exceed the frame and inset composition, can be observed as well.

After the critical edition of Lubomirski’s epigrams (second part) the commentary (third part) is structured not according to the chronology of the rulers, but in order to acknowledge the established theme of Jagiellonian succession. In addition to a few textual and philological issues, the commentary notes internal connections between the pieces in the supplementum. Some essential similarities and differences to other vitae cycles and texts are remarked, although the focus is on Janicki’s epigrams. Finally, the historical context is explained and the events, places, and figures that the poems refer to are identified.

The Oration Aderat nuper (1445) by Enea Silvio Piccolomini

The article consists of two parts: the introduction and a collective translation of an address delivered by Enea Silvio Piccolomini on 25 November 1445 in Vienna, and published subsequently. Currently referred to as Quodlibet Viennense, Aderat nuper oration or Piccolomini’s letter 104, the speech follows the convention of a free dispute (de quolibet). Its content and circumstances of the oration have been dealt with by Alphons Lhotsky, Guido Kisch, Michael Cotta-Schonberg and Juliusz Domański in their texts devoted to Piccolomini. The author refers to these works, focusing especially on the latest edition of Cotta-Schonberg (made public on the Internet) and Domański’s findings, as well as makes references to the 15th century incunabula items.

The introduction presents the circumstances of Piccolomini’s stay at the Vienna court of Frederick III in the 1440s. It also discusses texts in which Piccolomini shared his views on poetry, and goes on to characterise the structure of the de quolibet dispute in comparison to the speech under scrutiny, which reveals several differences between a typical quodlibet and Piccolomini’s text. Additionally, the question is raised about the presence and role of a third person involved in the process of writing down a spoken text, which is today known from print mainly.

The topics touched upon by Piccolomini’s address are also discussed. The orator replies to three questions that he has been asked, the most important of which is the second one, as evidenced by the space devoted to it. The three questions oscillate around i) ethical issues, i.e. alleged equipollence of knowledge on ethics (scientia moralis) with prudence (prudentia), ii) insufficient, but according to Piccolomini necessary presence of poets in social life and defence of poetry against accusations of immorality, and iii) high prices of such writing materials as paper and parchment. The translated text was created collectively during a Neo-Latin studies seminar carried out by Professor Juliusz Domański in the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of Warsaw in the academic cycles 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. Professor Domański has made a handwritten transcription of one of the manuscript versions of this oration, which was then read by the courses’ attendees.