The Readership of Zodiacus vitae in Early Modern Poland, Pomerania and Silesia

Abstract

Zodiacus vitae, an influential philosophical poem by Marcello Palingenio Stellato, enjoyed popularity in Early Modern Europe, as evidenced by over sixty foreign editions, several translations and a 16th-century Polish-language paraphrase. Despite the latter being a testimony to Palingenius’work being read by the most prominent Renaissance humanists in Poland, the poem’s readership in Old Polish literature has remained largely unknown. The goal of this article is, therefore, to outline a new map of its readership in Early Modern Poland, Pomerania and Silesia, citing its presence in book inventories, public libraries, book collections and monastery libraries. Zodiacus circulated for instance in the 16th and 17th centuries among booksellers and bookstore owners in the most important printing centre in Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth − Lviv (Piotr of Poznań, Baltazar Hybner) and Cracow (Helena Unglerowa, Franciszek Jakub Mercenich). It was no less popular in the private book collections of the townspeople, physicians, noblemen and aristocracy. Among the owners of the poem can be found for example: famous scholar and professor Jan Brożek, historian at the court of King Stephen Bathory –Giovanni Michele Bruto, poet Jan Gawiński, reformer of education and the mayor of Toruń−Henryk Stroband. Some light on the problem of the Zodiacus’popularity is also shed by an analysis of copious amounts of marginal notes in over seventy extant copies of Palingenius’work preserved in Polish libraries.