Bogactwo związków italskich Polski w dobie pogrunwaldzkiej

Abstract

The victory at Grunwald (1410), and the preceding renewal of the University in Cracow (1400), which was to serve the new missionary requirements in Lithuania, were direct and unavoidable consequences of the need to defend the union of Poland and Lithuania against attempts at annexation by the German Order of the Teutonic Knights. As a result of this situation, in the interconciliar period, from Constance (1414—1418) to Florence (with its memorable, though ultimately unsuccessful endeavour to effect ecclesiastical union with the Greeks and Ruthenia, 1439) the young Polish-Lithuanian state, under the sceptre of Vladislaus Jagiełło, found itself in a novel and civilisationally highly creative position. This paper presents the intellectual and ideological links joining early fifteenth-century Poland and Italy, both in the European conciliar context, and also through the most important individual personalities and events. The presentation is a parallel one, showing the question both from the Italian point of view (as, for example, the Poles studying in Italy), and from the Polish aspect (the numerous Italian scholars and diplomats visiting Poland). The events described include the Venetian anti-Luxemburg episode, whereby at the turn of 1411 and 1412 the Most Serene Republic proposed Jagiełło as candidate to the Imperial crown; the Papal appointment in May 1418 (at Constance) of Jagiełło and Witold as the Church’s generales vicarii intemporalibus in Lithuania and Ruthenia (including territories not under Jagellonian rule, such as Novgorod and Pskov); and the role played by Jagiełło’s Italian servants in international diplomacy. There are detailed accounts of the Polish sojourns of Paulus Venetus, the Nuncio Antonius Zeno, Cardinal Branda Castiglione, Giuliano Cesarmi, and Francesco Filelfo. There is a description of the interesting career of Jagiełło’s nephew, Cardinal Aleksander, Bishop of Trent, a Prince of the Mazovian line of the Piast dynasty, who died in 1444. There are mentions of the Italian echoes of the military defeat and death of the young Polish King, Vladislaus III, at Varna. A brief account is given of contemporary Italian manuscripts in the Jagellonian Library, and also of what the Italian Humanists wrote about Poland. Finally there is a relation of the historically and culturally significant Polish episodes of St. Giovanni da Capestrano (John Capestran) and Blessed Marco da Bologna.