This article presents the figure of Józef Bartłomiej Gherardyni (1681–1743), Cracow merchant and member of the Cracow patriciate. It also describes an interesting history of a Polish branch of the family whose roots went way back to Florence in Tuscany. Basing on his last will and an inventory, completed with the information from other sources, it was possible to retrace the alliances of the Polish branch of the Gherardyni family whose representatives, although not in any Cracow municipal offices themselves, allied with the families belonging to Cracow’s power elite and with the representatives of the nobility. In addition, the article discusses a very fast process of the polonisation of the Polish branch of the Gherardyni family whose third generation – the children of Józef Bartłomiej Gherardyni – could not speak the language of Petrarch and Boccaccio.

This article presents the figure of Józef Bartłomiej Gherardyni (1681–1743), Cracow merchant and member of the Cracow patriciate. It also describes an interesting history of a Polish branch of the family whose roots went way back to Florence in Tuscany. Basing on his last will and an inventory, completed with the information from other sources, it was possible to retrace the alliances of the Polish branch of the Gherardyni family whose representatives, although not in any Cracow municipal offices themselves, allied with the families belonging to Cracow’s power elite and with the representatives of the nobility. In addition, the article discusses a very fast process of the polonisation of the Polish branch of the Gherardyni family whose third generation – the children of Józef Bartłomiej Gherardyni – could not speak the language of Petrarch and Boccaccio.