THE ENGLISH VOYAGE OF MICHAŁ JERZY WANDALIN MNISZECH AND PLAN TO FOUND THE POLISH MUSEUM

Abstract

It is the plan to found the Polish Museum declared in 1775 by Michał Jerzy Wandalin Mniszech (1748–1806) that is tackled in the paper. Argumentation is presented that the major impulse for the idea to establish a museum in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was felt by Mniszech following his visit to the British Museum in 1766. It is from the inspiration by that Museum that the overall structural scheme of the Polish Museum, adjusted to the Polish potential and conditions was conceived. Just like the latter, the Polish Museum was to be funded with public financing and opened to the general public, while its main raison d’être, similarly as that of the London museum, was benefit understood as supporting and popularizing knowledge, since Mniszech’s museum first of all was to be an educational institution targeted mainly at young people and calculated to yield future advantages. Next to the reformed general public system and the academy of sciences, it was to become an essential element of the coherent system of science and education which M.J. Mniszech considered a condition and basis of the wealth and success of the state and nation. The ambitious and unaccomplished plan to found the Polish Museum formed part of the committed programme of the revival and civilizational promotion of the state suffering at the time the process of degradation.