Liberal Arts and Philosophy According to Students of Vilnius Academy: Editing and Translation of a Panegyric on the Promotion of Marcin Śmiglecki
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RIS BIB ENDNOTEPublication date: 25.02.2026
Terminus, 2025, Volume 27, Issue 4 (77), pp. 499-535
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843844TE.25.024.22952Authors
The Gratulationes in promotione […] Martini Smiglecii was composed in 1594 in Vilnius to celebrate the promotion of Marcin Śmiglecki, a Jesuit and professor at the Vilni-us Academy, to the degree of Doctor of Theology. This work constitutes a handwritten panegyrical cycle authored by four philosophy students—Wawrzyniec Koch, Jan Prze-ciszowski, Stanisław Młodecki, and Sebastian Rozmusewicz—and was likely presented to Śmiglecki as a gift in a single copy. Beyond its function as a tribute to the honouree, the panegyric focuses on the description and praise of the liberal arts and philosophy. In their treatment of philosophy, the authors draw upon a wide range of the then-popular representations, opinions, proverbs, and commonplaces concerning wisdom and the system of knowledge. They explicitly reference the widely circulated view—found, among others, in Erasmus’ of Rotterdam Institutio principis Christiani—which, following Plato’s Republic, emphasizes the connection between philosophy and gov-ernance. In defining individual arts and philosophy, the text reflects the influence of medieval and early modern encyclopaedic traditions, and in expressing the idea of the whole system of knowledge, it employs the allegory of the tree of knowledge—a motif known since at least the eighth century, echoed in sixteenth‑century works such as Johannes Artopoeus’s Arbor eruditionis. Through the composition of the cycle, and likely drawing from the broader tradition of representing the artes liberales and the circulation of motifs already detached from their original sources, the authors express an idea of a hierarchical system of knowledge rooted in late ancient theories of the liberal arts and philosophy, such as those found in Augustine’s De ordine. The present edition includes a brief introduction outlining the Gratulationes manuscript and its connections to contemporary Jesuit panegyrical prints, a transcription of the manu-script with explanatory notes—clarifying, among other things, key references and traditions relevant to the cycle—and a translation of the text.
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Information: Terminus, 2025, Volume 27, Issue 4 (77), pp. 499-535
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Published at: 25.02.2026
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