Józef Garampi i początki studiów nad dziejami polskiej nuncjatury

Abstract

The first scholar who began to study the history of the Polish nunciature was Joseph Garampi, papal nuncio in Poland 1772-1776. During his sojourn in our country, he not only put in order and described the archives of the nunciature in Warsaw, but, based mostly on its content, he also composed two very important writings, which he dedicated to his successors in order to facilitate their work, especially in the matters of diplomatic protocol and jurisdictional controversies. Both of these writings are conserved in manuscripts. The first is Index rerum praeo:pue ecclesiasticarum Regni Poloniae a historical encyclopedia of Polish institutions, seen from the Roman-Catholic and papal point of view. This is conserved in two big codices in the Vatican Archives (Indice 190, 191). The second work is Synopsis legatorum et nuntiorum apostolicorum in Polonia. This writing was considered lost up to the present day. Wojtyska discovered in the Vatican its last redaction (Fondo Garampi, ms 23) and a number of notes and letters, which served in its composition. Based on these, he describes the work, containing a very rich amount of information on the history of the Polish nunciature from its beginnings to 1700. Reconstructing the stages of its becoming from the sources and the method used by Garampi, the author underlines his quite modern approach to the sources, completness of research and methodical perfection in justifying written assertions. All these render both of Garampi’s unknown works scientifically valid until today.