Forgotten portraits - Introduction - part A

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Foreign communities, merchants and travels

Majority of confirmed effigies of the Last Polish-Lithuanian Jagiellons are official, popular portraits pertaining to northern school of painting. As in some countries today, in the 16th century, people wanted a portrait of their monarch at home. Such effigies were frequently idealized, simplified and inscribed in Latin, which was the official language, apart from Ruthenian and Polish, of the multicultural country. They provided the official titulature (Rex, Regina), coat of arms and even age (ætatis suæ). Private and paintings dedicated to upper class were less so direct. Painters were operating with a complex set of symbols, which were clear then, however, are no longer so obvious today.

Since the very beginning of the Jagiellonian monarchy in Poland-Lithuania, art was characterized by syncretism and great diversity, which is best illustrated by the churches and chapels founded by the Jagiellons. They were built in a Gothic style with typical pointed arches and ribbed vaults and decorated with Russo-Byzantine frescoes, thus joining Western and Eastern traditions. Perhaps the oldest portraits of the first Jagiellonian monarch - Jogaila of Lithuania (Ladislaus II Jagiello) are his effigies in the Gothic Holy Trinity Chapel at the Lublin Castle. They were commissioned by Jogaila and created by Ruthenian Master Andrey in 1418. On one, the king was represented as a knight on horseback and on the other as a donor kneeling before the Blessed Virgin Mary. The vault was adorned with the image of Christ Pantocrator above the coat of arms of the Jagiellons (Jagiellonian Cross). Similar church murals were created for Jogaila by the Orthodox priest Hayl around 1420 in the Gothic choir of Sandomierz Cathedral and for his son Casimir IV Jagiellon in the Holy Cross Chapel of the Wawel Cathedral by Pskov painters in 1470. Jogaila's portrait as one of the Magi in the mentioned Holy Cross Chapel (Adoration of the Magi, section of the Our Lady of Sorrows Triptych) is attributed to Stanisław Durink, whose father came from Silesia, and his marble tomb monument in the Wawel Cathedral to artists from Northern Italy.

The presence of Italian merchants in Kraków is confirmed in 1424. While in the 14th century Genoese immigration predominated in the capital of the Kingdom of Poland, at the beginning of the following century Milanese and Venetian, and above all Florentine, predominated. In a letter from Florence dated January 5, 1424, the Florentine Council thanks Jogaila for releasing Leonardo Giovanni Mathei (Leonardum Johannis ser Mathei, mercatorem et dilectissimum civem nostrum) from prison and recommends Leonardo and his brothers, who are trading in Poland, while in a letter from Kraków dated April 16, 1429, the Kraków City Council certifies the verdict of the arbitration court between Antonio of Florence and Johannes Bank of Wrocław in the case of the dispute over Polish cochineal and furs sent to Venice. According to the letter of May 12, 1427, Hincza and Henryk of Rogów ordered expensive jewelry and clothing, including two hats set with pearls and decorated with heron feathers, from Margherita, widow of Guglielmo of Ferrara (Margaretha relicta olim Wilhelmi de Fararea Comitis, after "Rocznik Krakowski", 1911, Volume 13, p. 98-100, 103). Two splendid pieces of jewellery from the early 15th century found near Lublin bear witness to the high quality of local and imported jewellery.

The Italian merchants enjoyed the king's protection. According to a document dated November 15, 1430, the Florentine patrician in the service of Antonio Ricci, Reginaldo Altoviti, when questioned before a court in Venice to know if in dieto regno Polane redditur bonum ius Italicis, replied that justice is always rendered to Italians as to others arriving in this country and that the king would guarantee the money in the event of a debt to an Italian merchant (et eciam per serenissimum regem Pollane constringi posset ad huiusmodi et maiorem quantitatem solvendant cuilibet). 

Between 1485 and 1489, the Genoese Andreolo Guascho da Soldaja managed the estates of Uriel Górka (d. 1498), Bishop of Poznań, and then he went to Genoa to find a good gardener for the bishop. He concluded a contract with a certain Nicolaus de Noali, son of Paul, from the village of Coste Ripparoli for four years to "plant vines and all kinds of agriculture" (plantandi vineas et omne genus agriculture). Before 1486, the same Bishop Górka, when he wanted to order various types of silver goblets, did not turn to local craftsmen, but ordered them in Nuremberg from Albrecht Dürer, the father of the famous painter.

The relations of the Italian merchants were sometimes quite complex. Giacomo Tebaldi, who was a resident of the Duchy of Ferrara in Venice from 1516 to 1549, often dealt with Gaspare Gucci, a renowned merchant in Kraków in the 1540s, and an intermediary in the trade between Italy, Germany and Poland-Lithuania. Tebaldi also corresponded with Giovanni Andrea Valentino (Valentini, de Valentinis), influential physician to Queen Bona (e.g. letter from Kraków of April 18, 1521 addressed a Venetia a ms. Iacopo Thebaldos, after "La trama Nascosta - Storie di mercanti e altro" by Rita Mazzei). 

The list of professors of the Vilnius Academy, such as Emmanuel de Vega (d. 1640) from Portugal, Laurids Nilsen (1538-1622) from Norway, Laurentius Boierus (1561-1619) from Sweden, the Englishmen Richard Singleton (1566-1602) and James Bosgrave (1553-1623), as well as the Spaniards Garcia Alabiano (1549-1624), Miguel Ortiz (1560-1638), Santiago Ortiz (1564-1625) and Antonio Arrias (d. 1591), preacher of King Stephen Bathory, confirms that many foreigners also lived in the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (comapre "Wilno od początków jego do roku 1750" by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Volume 4, p. 29-36). Italian merchants from Poznań at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, such as the Genoese (Paolo de Promontorio and his brother Stefano, Peregrinus de Promontorio, Agostino Mazoni de Promontorio, Nicolaus de Noali, Eustachio de Parentibus, Antonio de Pino, Gian Antonio de Insula and Baptista Dologesa) and the Florentines (Marcioto, Raphael, Jacopo Betoni and Baptista Ubaldini) frequently operated in the area from Genoa and Venice to Vilnius, while Jewish merchants dominated trade with Grodno. In the 1530s, "Paul the seller of Venetian goods" (Paulus rerum venetiarum venditor) went to Vilnius and was recommended by the Poznań council in the trial against Lorenzo the Italian, who died in Vilnius (compare "Prace", Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, 1928, Volumes 5-6, p. 275). 

The so-called Madonna Scroll (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, inv. 116027), inspired by the Byzantine icon Salus Populi Romani and bearing the mark of the Chinese painter and calligrapher Tang Yin (1470-1524), indicates that Italian painting probably reached China in the early 16th century. The artist adapted the icon to Chinese standards, while the image is also believed to depict the Buddhist goddess of Mercy, Guanyin. It probably reached China via Portuguese or Venetian merchants or missionaries, illustrating the scale of Italian pictorial production during the Renaissance and its distribution.

Although the Netherlandish community was much larger in the northern regions of the country and in the major ports, it was also found in Kraków, where they imported cloth from Flanders and London.

​As in the case of the Boner family from the Palatinate and the Nuremberg painter Hans Suess von Kulmbach, as well as the Montelupi family from Tuscany and the workshop of Domenico Tintoretto in Venice, which is confirmed by the sources, it was merchants established in Poland-Lithuania who frequently recommended or facilitated contacts with artists from their countries of origin. King Sigismund Augustus's "servant" Roderik van der Moyen (Roderigo Dermoyen or Dermoien, d. 1567), a merchant and citizen of Lübeck, was sent from Knyszyn to Gdańsk and further to Brussels by the king with the order to make tapestries (according to a letter to Jan Kostka dated May 12, 1564), most likely black and white tapestries with the king's coat of arms and monogram (compare "Czarno-białe tkaniny Zygmunta Augusta" by Maria Hennel-Bernasikowa, p. 33), and in 1601 Sefer Muratowicz, an Armenian merchant from Warsaw, was sent by Sigismund III with the order to make kilims in Persia with the king's coat of arms. In both cases, merchants had to receive designs for fabrics (at least general) approved by the king.

Around 1620, the Venetian painter active in Kraków - Tommaso Dolabella, a pupil of Antonio Vassilacchi, known as L'Aliense, depicted the first king of the new dynasty kneeling before the crucified Christ, accompanied by his wife and co-monarch, Saint Jadwiga (Hedwig of Anjou, 1373-1399), Saint Florian, the Virgin Mary, Saint John Cantius, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Stanislaus. This large painting (oil on canvas, 381 x 362 cm), was probably painted for the theological lecture hall of the Kraków Academy (Jagiellonian University) and probably founded by Prince Ladislaus Sigismund Vasa (future Ladislaus IV). The royal couple restored the academy in the 1390s. In 1643, another Italian painter, Silvestro Bianchi, court painter to Ladislaus IV, made two separate portraits of Jogaila and Jadwiga, kneeling as donors, for the library of the university (after "Katalog portretów i obrazów będących własnością Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego ..." by Jerzy Mycielski, p. 9, 31, items 42-43, 186). In both cases, the painters based their work on original effigies of the period, from the late 14th century for the effigy of Jadwiga, dressed in medieval costume, and from the early 16th century for the portrait of Jogaila, dressed in Renaissance armour. This studio practice proves that skilled painters do not need to see the real model to create a good effigy and composition.

Since the Middle Ages, portraiture accompanied important international relations in Europe, particularly the marriages of the ruling houses. According to Jean d'Auton, or Jehan d'Authon (1466-1528), official chronicler of King Louis XII of France, portraits of Anne of Foix-Candale (1484-1506) and her cousin Germaine of Foix (ca. 1488-1536), later Queen of Aragon, sent to Vladislaus II Jagiellon (1456-1516), King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, eldest son of Casimir IV, played an important role in the marriage negotiations in 1501-1502. Vladislaus sent his ambassador to France called Georges Versepel from the Kingdom of Bohemia and identified as Jiří z Běšin (d. 1509), who brought him portraits of the two ladies "taken from nature" (pourtraictures d'icelles prises sur le vif, after "Chroniques de Louis XII", Volume 2, p. 215-216). Brides generally do not need to request a reliable portrait because effigies of important monarchs of Europe, including the kings of Poland, were well distributed and since the 15th century even coins provided a faithful effigy of the sovereign.

Perfectly conversant with Latin and the other languages of medieval and renaissance Europe, Poles, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Germans and other ethnic groups of the multi-ethnic country, traveled to different countries of Western Europe, thus various fashions, even the strangest ones, like the effigies of Christ with Three Faces or effigies of crucified, bearded female Saint Wilgefortis, easily penetrated Poland-Lithuania.

Portraits in disguise

Disguised portraits, especially likenesses in guise of the Virgin Mary were popular in different parts of Europe from at least the mid-15th century (e.g. portraits of Agnès Sorel, Bianca Maria Visconti and Lucrezia Buti). Often unpopular rulers and their wives or mistresses were depicted as members of the Holy Family or saints. This naturally led to frustration and sometimes the only possible response was satire. The diptych by anonymous Flemish painter, most likely Marinus van Reymerswaele, from the 1520s (Wittert Museum in Liège, inventory number 12013), referring to diptychs by Hans Memling, Michel Sittow, Jehan Bellegambe, Jan Provoost, Jan Gossaert and other painters is obviously a satirical criticism of these representations. Instead of the rosy cheeks of a "virgin" holding a red carnation flower, a symbol of love and passion, the curious viewer will see brown cheeks and a thistle, a symbol of earthly pain and sin. In a 1487 diptych of Hieronymus Tscheckenburlin by the German painter, the rosy virgin is replaced by a rotting skeleton - memento mori (Kunstmuseum Basel, inv. 33).

One of the earliest confirmations of disguised portraits made in 15th-century Italy is found in Russian sources. In 1469, Giambattista della Volpe, a merchant from Vicenza in the Venetian Republic, known in Russia as Ivan Fryazin, was sent to the papal court in Rome to initiate official negotiations for the marriage between the exiled Byzantine princess Sophia Palaiologina (d. 1503) and the Grand Prince of Moscow Ivan III (1440-1505). According to Sofia Second Chronicle (Sofiyskaya vtoraya letopis'), della Volpe returned to Moscow with a portrait of the princess that "was written [painted] on the icon" (a tsarevnu na ikone napisanu prinese), which "caused extreme surprise at court," according to later authors. The Byzantine princess was therefore most likely depicted as the Virgin and Child or a Christian saint, like Saint Sophia of Rome, which was typical for many Western European paintings at that time. However, some authors who were probably unaware of the tradition of disguised portraiture, interpreted this fragment that the chronicler called the portrait an "icon" not finding another word, since this portrait is considered the first "secular image" in Russia, or that it was a parsuna, a portrait painted in the iconographic style. The fate of this painting is unknown. It is believed that it perished during one of the many fires in the Kremlin. However, since many valuable objects related to the Russian tsars have survived, it seems more likely that it was destroyed in 1654 or 1655, during the iconoclasm in Moscow (compare "Art Judgements: Art on Trial in Russia after Perestroika" by Sandra Frimmel, p. 212). Furthermore, although the portrait is considered to have probably been painted by one of the painters of the papal court, it is also possible that della Volpe was only given a drawing and that the painting was executed in one of the famous Venetian workshops, such as that of Giovanni Bellini. The stopover of the Russian legation in Venice in 1469 is confirmed in the Sofia Second Chronicle, moreover, they were accompanied by a certain "Pan Yurga" (Mr Jurga), most likely a Pole, who knew the route to Venice and Rome (I poslal pana Yurgu s nim v provozhatykh, potomu chto on znayet tot put': idti na Novgorod, ottuda k Nemtsam i na Venetsiyu gorod, i ottuda k Rimu, tak kak tot put' k Rimu blizhe. I on, pribyv v Venetsiyu ...). A portrait of such an important figure was probably not made in a single copy, so perhaps a copy made for the Pope or Sophia's family in Italy is waiting to be discovered hidden under a religious disguise.

Interestingly, a painting attributed to Giovanni Bellini perfectly meets all the requirements for such a copy. It is now in the Khanenko Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine. It comes from the collection of Bohdan Khanenko (1849-1917) and his wife Varvara Tereshchenko (1852-1922) and was previously attributed to Bartolomeo Montagna from Vicenza, considered a student of Giovanni Bellini. The previous provenance is not known, the couple probably bought the painting during their travels, while Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Florence are mentioned as the places they visited. About 100 valuable paintings were acquired from famous collections put up for sale in Rome and Florence, the Borghese collection is also mentioned. Before settling with his wife in Kyiv, Khanenko lived in Warsaw between 1876 and 1882 and before that in St. Petersburg, where he also bought paintings, and in Moscow. "The Infanta Margarita" from the collection of the Infante Sebastian (1811-1875) in Pau was purchased at auction in Hamburg in 1912 (Galerie Weber, February 20-22, 1912, lot 176). The painting is undated and in the catalogue of the Fototeca Zeri (Numero scheda 28317), the period between 1480 and 1530 approximately is proposed with an attribution to the painter's studio. Giuseppe Fiocco (1884-1971), who attributed the work to Giovanni Bellini, also noted the Castel Sant'Angelo, the tallest building in medieval Rome, in the background (cf. "Treasures of Ukraine" by Dmytro Stepovyk, p. 53). The layout of the city, the castle and the bridge correspond perfectly to the views of medieval and renaissance Rome, such as the 1493 illustration in the Nuremberg Chronicle, the view by Sebastian Munster from around 1560 or the map by Braun & Hogenberg from 1572. The view in the Kyiv painting of is taken from the north-east, where Moscow (and Venice) are located, and for obvious reasons, the "Madonna" covers with her right arm another important building in Rome - St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican, the seat of the Pope. The facial features of the Virgin - elongated face, prominent lips and the shape of the nose, are reminiscent of the forensic facial reconstruction of Sophia Palaiologina from 1994.​

Among the earliest portraits "in guise" in European painting are the portrait of a lady (Aloisia Sabauda, ​​perhaps from the House of Savoy) as the Sibyl Agrippina (Egyptian Sybil), painted by Jacques Daret in the 1430s (Dumbarton Oaks, inv. HC.P.1923.01.(O), inscription: SIBYLLA AGRIPPA), the portrait of Isabella of Portugal (1397-1471), Duchess of Burgundy as the Persian Sibyl by the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden from around 1450, (Getty Center in Los Angeles, inv. 78.PB.3, inscription: PERSICA SIBYLLA 1A), the portrait of a lady as Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Sandro Botticelli from about 1475 (Lindenau-Museum, inv. 100), the portrait of a man as Saint Sebastian by Jacometto Veneziano from the late 15th century (Brooklyn Museum in New York, inv. 34.836) or portrait of a lady as Saint Justina of Padua by Bartolomeo Montagna from the 1490s (Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 14.40.606). The effigy of Pope Joan (Joannes septimus, John VII), the legendary female pontiff, holding her child in Hartmann Schedel's Registrum huius operis libri cronicarum ..., published in Nuremberg in 1493 (Bavarian State Library in Munich, Rar. 287, p. 169v), is clearly inspired by the effigies of the Virgin and Child from the late Middle Ages. Ladislaus the Posthumous (1440-1457), King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia and his fiancée Magdalena of Valois (1443-1495) were represented as Ahasuerus and Esther in the so-called Mazarin tapestry from around 1500 (National Gallery of Art in Washington, inv. 1942.9.446). 

Around 1502, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (1477-1549), better known as Il Sodoma ("the sodomite"), considered a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, painted his splendid self-portrait at the center of a religious scene depicting Saint Benedict repairing a broken colander through prayer, at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, on the road from Siena to Rome. Although it had long been common for artists to leave their image in their works, it is highly unusual for them to do so in such an ostentatious manner. The artist, dressed in a rich costume, holding a sword, and accompanied by his pets, badgers and ravens, dominates the scene, while Saint Benedict and his nurse, Cyrilla, appear here as secondary characters. The effigy of Judas looking out at the viewer in a fresco of the Last Supper in the church of San Bartolomeo a Monteoliveto in Florence, painted by Sodoma around 1515-1516, is also considered to be his self-portrait (after "Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book" by Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase, p. 226-227).

Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo lend their features to Plato and Heraclitus in Raphael's The School of Athens, painted between 1509 and 1511 (Apostolic Palace, Vatican), while Emperor Charles V was depicted as King Sapor of Persia humiliating Emperor Valerian, in a small painting by School of Antwerp from about 1515-1525 (Worcester Art Museum, inv. 1934.64). 

In Peter Vischer the Younger's Allegory of the Victory of the Reformation, created in 1524, the naked Martin Luther (LVTHERVS) in the form of Hercules leads the Conscience from the ruins of the Roman Church towards Christ (Klassik Stiftung Weimar). The highly idealized portrait of a lady as Judith in the art collections of the University of Liège (inv. 38) is traditionally known to be a disguised portrait of the unspecified Margaret of Rochefort (Margarete von Rochefort als Judith). Dated "1526" and inscribed IVDIT, this painting, although considered a work by Cranach or his circle, is closer to works attributed to Hans Kemmer.

The portrait of Francis I (1494-1547), King of France as a transgender composite deity combining the attributes of Minerva, Mars, Diana, Cupid and Mercury from around 1545 (National Library of France, Na 255 Rés.) is certainly one of the most intriguing paintings of this type. The same can be said of the portrait of the "sodomite" Gaucher de Dinteville, lord of Vanlay, and his brothers depicted in the painting "Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh" (identified by the inscriptions on the hems of their robes), probably painted by Bartholomeus Pons in 1537 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 50.70). In this scene, Gaucher's brother, Jean de Dinteville (1504-1555), lord of Polisy, known for Hans Holbein the Younger's famous Ambassadors, is depicted as a seductive, half-naked Moses. In turn, the marble bust of the young Beatrice d'Este (1475-1497), Duchess of Bari and Milan, preserved in the Louvre Museum, bears an inscription in Latin "To the divine Beatrice, daughter of Duke Ercole" (DIVAE / BEATRICI / D[ucis] HERC[ulis] F[ilae]) indicating that the boundary between divine and human beings was not as clearly defined in the Renaissance as it is today.

Before 1570, Luca Longhi (1507-1580), a painter active in Ravenna in the Papal States, created a large painting for the church of Saint Barbara depicting the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints (Ravenna Art Museum) in which he lends the features of his daughter Barbara Longhi (1552-1638) to her saintly patron. Luca also depicted his daughter as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, holding attributes of that saint, a wheel and a palm of martyrdom, which was later copied by Barbara, also a talented painter (both paintings are in the Ravenna Art Museum). Barbara painted several copies of this effigy as well as other portraits in guise of Saint Catherine (e.g. paintings in the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna and the Museo Canonicale di Verona). "This type of self-imagery assisted the devotee, in this instance Barbara Longhi, the painter, to visually impersonate a favorite female saint and emulate the martyrdom experience of said saint", furthermore, in 16th century Italy, "the artist's virtuosity became regarded as artista divino (the divine artist), demonstrating that the artist's genius was inspired by God, as exemplified by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo" (after "Barbara Longhi of Ravenna: A Devotional Self-Portrait" by Liana De Girolami Cheney, p. 23, 26, 29, 31).

In the scene of the Adoration of the Magi by Paolo Caliari (1528-1588), known as Paolo Veronese, the servants of three men ostentatiously demonstrate their coats of arms on their liveries (Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, deposit of the Louvre Museum, inv. A 79). They not only commissioned this painting, but were also depicted as the Magi, as their faces and costumes indicate. Thanks to the coats of arms, Florence Ingersoll-Smouse recognized three members of the Contarini, Cornaro (or Corner), and Molini (Molin or Molino) families (from left to right), probably Venetian Camerlenghi. The African page, wearing the Contarini coat of arms on his costume, hands his lord a silver bowl bearing the same coat of arms. The painting was probably painted for the palace of the Magistrato di Camerlenghi in Venice, at the request of the three members of these families (after "L'inventaire Le Brun de 1683 ..." by Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée, p. 419). ​Another religious scene once attributed to Paolo Veronese: The Wedding at Cana takes place in Venice (or more generally in the Venetian entourage) and the ladies seated at table table with Christ proudly display their splendid costumes (Ansorena in Madrid, April 8, 2021, lot 88). This painting is now attributed to Jacopo Negretti (1549-1628), better known as Palma the Younger (il Giovane), who painted works in Venice commissioned by King Sigismund III Vasa.

Among the oldest indirect (implicit) confirmations of the existence of disguised portraits in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia is the letter of Giovanni Andrea Valentino, court physician of Sigismund I and Bona Sforza, to Alfonso d'Este (1476-1534), Duke of Ferrara (June 1529 from Vilnius), in which he informs the Duke that the court barber had to kneel before the portrait of Federico II Gonzaga (1500-1540), Marquis of Mantua, with his hands folded in prayer. This portrait was sent from Mantua to Queen Bona and was most likely painted by Titian. Another interesting document is the letter of Queen Anna Jagiellon to the priest Stanisław Zając dated June 19, 1586 from Warsaw. According to this letter, the queen sent her portrait to the Sigismund Chapel in Kraków, the Jagiellonian burial chapel. The elected queen warned: "And lest it be worshipped, let it always be well covered, and never uncovered, unless someone is very eager to see it" (A iżby się mu nie kłaniano, niechaj zawzdy dobrze zakryty będzie, a nigdy go nie odkrywać, chyba iżby kto bardzo się go napierał widzieć, compare "Rex et Regnum Poloniae..." by Juliusz A. Chrościcki, p. 152). A direct confirmation of this practice can be found in the 1661 inventory of the paintings from the Lubomirski collection that survived the Deluge, which mentions the portraits of Helena Tekla Ossolińska (1622-1687) "in the form" of Saint Helena and another "in the form" of Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt, as well as the portrait of Renée du Bec-Crespin (1613/14-1659), comtesse de Guébriant "in the form of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw, 1/357/0/-/7/12).​

As in other countries in Europe, during the Renaissance and early Baroque, Greek and Roman mythology was extremely popular and, despite enormous destruction, traces of a kind of inclination towards the Roman goddess Venus, not to say a cult, can still be found, notably in poetry. Venus and Cupid and other Roman deities were frequently part of theatrical performances, masked processions, and other festivities, while chandeliers in ballrooms or dining rooms in castles and palaces were often shaped like a biblical or mythological figure, composed on the theme of Judith with the head of Holofernes or Cupid with a bow, as for example in the Krasicki castle in Dubiecko or in the Korniakt manor in Zolotkovychi (compare "Życie polskie w dawnych wiekach" by Władysław Łoziński, p. 13, 181). Aleksander Stankiewicz describing a Renaissance tile from the 1570s found in the Old Castle of Żywiec and decorated with the coat of arms of the owner and his wife (Żywiec Municipal Museum, inv. 1663), concludes that the naked Venus in this tile could represent the Virgin Mary, which the Komorowski family revered, as evidenced by the family's numerous foundations (compare "Trzy zespoły kafl i z zamku w Żywcu", p. 42). In the poem "Psyche", Jan Andrzej Morsztyn (1621-1693) describes Venus finding Cupid in the queen's gardens at the Villa Regia palace in Warsaw (Tam ją zastała wtenczas Erycyna, Z swemi nimfami siedzącą, i syna). 

Sometimes also historical scenes were represented in a mythological or biblical disguise or in a fantastic entourage. This is the case of a painting depicting the Siege of Malbork Castle in 1454 seen from the west - one of four paintings by Martin Schoninck, commissioned around 1536 by the Malbork Brotherhood to hang above the Brotherhood bench in the Artus Court in Gdańsk. To emphasize the victory of Gdańsk and the Jagiellonian monarchy over the Teutonic Order, the painting is accompanied by the Story of Judith, a mere woman, who overcomes a superior enemy, and effigies of Christ Salvator Mundi and Madonna and Child (lost during World War II).

​During the Renaissance, the two traditions – Christian and Greco-Roman, the Bible and ancient mythology also mixed. The best example is Judith and the Infant Hercules, attributed to the Master of the Mansi Magdalen (National Gallery in London, NG4891). In this painting, naked Judith, resembling Cranach's Venuses and holding the head of Holofernes, is accompanied by the infant Hercules, who strangles two snakes sent by the jealous goddess Juno to kill him. This symbolism (overcoming male dominance and female jealousy) indicates that the woman depicted as Judith most likely commissioned this painting to address these issues in her life.

​The widespread popularity of the "Metamorphoses" and other works of the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD) also contributed to the popularity of disguised portraits in Poland-Lithuania. The poet lived among the Sarmatians, legendary ancestors of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility, and was therefore considered the first national poet (compare "Ovidius inter Sarmatas" by Barbara Hryszko, p. 453, 455). In the "Metamorphoses" he deals with transformation into different beings, disguise, illusion and deception, as well as the deification of Julius Caesar and Augustus since both leaders trace their lineage through Aeneas to Venus, who "struck her breast with both hands, and tried to hide Caesar in a cloud" in an attempt to rescue him from the conspirators' swords. 

​The portrait of Philip II (1527-1598), King of Spain, preserved in the famous Renaissance Hardwick Hall (inv. NT 1129159), is very interesting from the point of view of metamorphoses in portraits painted in the 16th century, as well as effigies based on works by other painters. The author of this work, an unidentified English painter, was undoubtedly familiar with the portraits of the husband of Queen Mary Tudor (1516-1558) by Hans Eworth and other Flemish and Dutch painters. However, intentionally or not, the facial features of the Spanish monarch closely resemble the earlier effigies of Mary's father, King Henry VIII (1491-1547), such as his portrait by Joos van Cleve (Royal Collection, inv. RCIN 403368). Only the Habsburg jaw and costume reveal that this is in fact the portrait of Philip II. Dark hair and blond beard of the sitter are other typical features of portraits from this period.

​Adam Jasienski, describing the portrait of a woman, perhaps of the person who commissioned the painting, as Saint Barbara, painted in Spain in the first half of the 17th century (Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid, inv. 08107), provides some characteristics of such representations in religious scenes: "The woman who kneels in the foreground is represented according to the conventions of period portraiture: her facial features are particularized, and, whereas Christ's face is painterly, with eyes downcast, hers is highly finished and confronts the viewer with a direct gaze. Tellingly, the angel also looks out from the picture: he, too, is a portrait, likely of the sitter's young son" (after "Praying to Portraits", p. 1-2). 

The Jagiellonian era was also a time of lavish balls, feasts, and festivities. The splendor of the festivities organized by Sigismund Augustus at the grand-ducal court in Vilnius is evidenced by the expenditure on dyeing horses and making shields for tournaments, as well as the use of artillery and fireworks. In 1546, on the occasion of the stay of the king's cousin, Duke Albert of Prussia, a tournament was held, in which Gabriel Tarło fought ad hastiludium ("lance game") against Kaspar von Lehendorff, a servant of the duke. Another time, races were held, the participants of which were disguised as Ethiopians and wild forest peoples (personis ad instar Ethiopum et hominis silvatici ad hastiludium). On March 25, 1546, the expense of 67.28 florins was entered as court expenses for the costumes paid for this event, paid to Michaeli, stipatori, who also received 10.10 florins "for a certain image of a naked woman" (Pro quadam imagine feminae nudae per eundem dati). Equally grand was the spectacle that took place on February 22, 1547, during the Lithuanian Diet. It included three items on the program: a tournament, hussar competitions (torneamentum hussaronicum), and the capture of a defensive castle. The king himself took an active part, fighting with his cupbearer, Mr. Ligęza, and the courtier Frikacz. A certain Zofia Długa (Sophia Long), a woman of easy virtue (meretricam), also participated in the tournament, for an appropriate fee. Dressed in specially commissioned armor, she fought in a jousting tournament against the courtiers Herburt and Łaszcz, thus adding spice to the competition (after "Turniej rycerski w Królestwie Polskim ..." by Bogdan Wojciech Brzustowicz, p. 287-288). She was paid 2.15 florins according to the court's expenses (Die 22 Dlugiey Zophiey, meretrici, quod se passa est indui armis ad hastiludium cum domino Herburth et Lascz, sexagenam Lithuanicam, facit, after "Rachunki dworu królewskiego 1544-1567" by Adam Chmiel, p. 217, 233).

​One of the most memorable events was also the wedding of King Stephen Bathory's niece, Griselda (1569-1590), to Jan Zamoyski in June 1583. Kraków's market square was filled with the Olympus of the Gods, recalling the triumphs of the Roman emperors. The most illustrious lords of the kingdom, dressed in various masks, participated in this celebration. The procession was inaugurated by Mikołaj Wolski (1553-1630), the Crown Sword Bearer, in the guise of an African. The famous military commander Stanisław Żółkiewski (1547-1620) led the fourth procession, dressed as Diana, goddess of the hunt, "surrounded by nymphs, he shone like the dawn", according to Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. Joachim Ocieski (ca. 1562-1613), starost of Olsztyn, was dressed as Cupid. The procession was closed by Venus, who dragged Paris tied with a chain, undoubtedly symbolizing the triumph over male domination and most likely referring to Queen Anna Jagiellon. The goddess of love approached the newlyweds and, smiling, offered them the golden apple.

Tolerance, morality and iconoclasm

Poland-Lithuania was the most tolerant country of Renaissance Europe, where in the early years of the Reformation many churches simultaneously served as Protestant and Catholic temples. There are no known sources regarding organized iconoclasm, known from western Europe, in most cases works of art were sold, when churches were completely taken over by the Reformed denominations. Disputes over the nature of the images remained mainly on paper - the Calvinist preacher Stanisław Lutomirski called the Jasna Góra icon of the Black Madonna "an idolatry table", "a board from Częstochowa" that made up the doors of hell, and he described worshiping it as adultery and Jakub Wujek refuted the charges of iconoclasts, saying that "having thrown away the images of the Lord Christ, they replace them with images of Luther, Calvin and their harlots" (after "Ikonoklazm staropolski" by Konrad Morawski). Unlike other countries where effigies of "The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies", nude or half-naked images of saints or disguised portraits in churches and public places were destroyed in mob actions by Protestant crowds, in Poland-Lithuania such incidents were rare.

Before the Great Iconoclasm, many temples were filled with nudity and so-called falsum dogma appearing at the time of the the Council of Trent (twenty-fifth session of the Tridentium, on December 3 and 4, 1563), which "means not so much a heretical view, but a lack of orthodoxy from the Catholic point of view. Iconography was to be cleansed of such errors as lewdness (lascivia), superstition (superstitio), shameless charm (procax venustas), and finally disorder and thoughtlessness" (after "O świętych obrazach" by Michał Rożek). The "divine nakedness" of ancient Rome and Greece, rediscovered by the Renaissance, was banished from churches, however many beautiful works of art preserved - like naked Crucifixes by Filippo Brunelleschi (1410-1415, Santa Maria Novella in Florence), by Michelangelo (1492, Church of Santo Spirito in Florence and another from about 1495, Bargello Museum in Florence) and by Benvenuto Cellini (1559-1562, Basilica of Escorial near Madrid). Nudity in Michelangelo's Last Judgment (1536-1541, Sistine Chapel) was censored the year after the artist's death, in 1565 (after "Michelangelo's Last Judgment - uncensored" by Giovanni Garcia-Fenech). In this fresco nearly everyone is naked or seminaked. Daniele da Volterra painted over the more controversial nudity of mainly muscular naked male bodies (Michelangelo's women look more like men with breasts, as the artist had spent too much time with men to understand the female form), earning Daniele the nickname Il Braghettone, "the breeches-maker". He spared some female effigies and obviously homosexual scenes among the Righteous Men (two young men kissing and a young man kissing an old man's beard and two naked young men in a passionate kiss). 

Another interesting example of censorship after the Council of Trent is the tomb of Pope Paul III Farnese (1468-1549), the pope who convened the Council in 1545 and commissioned Michelangelo to direct the construction of the basilica in 1547. This splendid bronze and marble monument in St. Peter's Basilica was sculpted by Guglielmo della Porta (d. 1577) between 1549 and 1575. With a payment order to the bank of Tiberio Ceuli dated April 2, 1593, Cardinal Odoardo Farnese (1573-1626) advanced 50 scudi to Guglielmo's son Teodoro Della Porta, who had inherited his workshop, for the "metal robe to be made on the naked marble statue of Justice, placed on the tomb of our Pope Paul, Holy memory" (veste di metallo che deve fare sopra la statua nuda di marmo che rappresenta la Giustizia, posta mella sepoltura di papa Paulo nostro, Santa memoria, after "La leggenda del papa Paolo III: arte e censura nella Roma pontificia" by Roberto Zapperi, p. 14). The statue was dressed at the request of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini (1536-1605), shortly after his election as pontiff (January 30, 1592). Interestingly, this nude statue, which is still covered with this "metal robe", is considered to be an effigy of Paul III's sister, Giulia Farnese (1474-1524), mistress of Pope Alexander VI Borgia (1431-1503), and the half-naked statue of Prudentia on the same monument is supposed to represent the features of their mother Giovannella Caetani (after "Tesori d'arte cristiana" by Stefano Bottari, Volume 5, p. 51).

Rediscovered in 2014 portrait of Isabella de' Medici (1542-1576), who died tragically, now housed at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (inv. 78.10.2), illustrates not only 19th-century falsification and idealization (the sitter's face has been reshaped), but also the censorship of controversial elements of the painting. Paolo Giordano I Orsini's wife, dressed in a splendid costume, was depicted holding an attribute of Saint Mary Magdalene: an alabaster vase containing an ointment in her right hand, and with a halo around her head, both repainted later.​

Gabriele Paleotti (1522-1597), doctor of civil and canon law, archbishop of Bologna and great contributor to the reform of the Church during the Council of Trent, commented in his "Discourse on Sacred and Profane Images" (De imaginibus sacris et profanis, 1594) on the merits of painting for a Christian, among which is to create not only an art that imitates the natural world but also an art that imitates the glory of God. He added that likenesses of holy figures "should be of a good and intelligent person revealing the nature of devotion" and warned painters against composing a portrait of a saint using the image of a commoner or frivolous person, well known to others, as this would be considered a shameful action (compare "Barbara Longhi of Ravenna: A Devotional Self-Portrait" by Liana De Girolami Cheney, p. 28-29).

The provisions of Trent reached Poland through administrative ordinances and they were accepted at the provincial synod in Piotrków in 1577. Diocesan synod of Kraków, convened by Bishop Marcin Szyszkowski in 1621, dealt with issues of sacred art. The resolutions of the synod were an unprecedented event in the artistic culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Published in Chapter LI (51) entitled "On sacred images" (De sacris imaginibus) of Reformationes generales ad clerum et populum ..., they created guidelines for the iconographic canon of sacred art. Holy images could not have portrait features, pictures of the naked Adam and Eve, Saint Mary Magdalene half-naked or embracing a cross in an obscene and multi-colored outfit, Saint Anne with three husbands, Virgin Mary painted or carved in too profane, foreign and indecent clothing should be removed from temples, because they contain false dogma, give the simple people an opportunity to fall into dangerous errors or are contrary to Scripture. However, the bans were not overly respected, because representations of the Holy Family, numbering more than twenty people, including Christ's siblings, have been preserved in the vast diocese of Kraków (after "O świętych obrazach" by Michał Rożek). Between 1615 and 1618, the stonemason Andrzej Jastrząbek (Jarząbek), who decorated the Chapel of St. Hyacinth of Poland in the Dominican Church in Kraków with Mannerist reliefs, incorporated into the decoration the image of a naked Cleopatra, in the Venus pudica type, with two putti (western wall, internal pilaster on the right side of the entrance arcade). The current form of the chapel was given by Zofia Stadnicka, née Sienieńska (wife of Andrzej Piotr Stadnicki of Żmigród), who allocated 6,500 florins for its construction and decoration (Capellae S. Hyacinthi sumptibus Magnificae Dominae Zophiae de Sienno Stadnicka). The chapel project was presented to the monks for approval on April 4, 1615 (after "Sztuka w kręgu klasztoru Dominikanów w Krakowie", p. 50-51, picture 13).

The victorious Counter-Reformation and the victorious Reformation opposed shameless lust and shameless charm and a kind of paganism (after "Barok: epoka przeciwieństw" by Janusz Pelc, p. 186), but church officials could not ban "divine nakedness" from lay homes, and nude effigies of saints were still popular after the Council of Trent. Many of such paintings were acquired by clients from the Commonwealth abroad, in the Netherlands, in Venice and Rome, like, most likely, the Busty Madonna by Carlo Saraceni from the Krosnowski collection (National Museum in Warsaw, M.Ob.1605 MNW). It was the time of high infant and maternal mortality, less developed medicine, lack of public health care, when wars and epidemics ravaged large parts of Europe. Therefore, virility and fertility were considered by many to be a sign of God's blessing (after "Male Reproductive Dysfunction", ed. Fouad R. Kandeel, p. 6). 

​Several paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger perfectly illustrate the notion of disguised portraits and eroticism in religious paintings, as well as Renaissance morality. The painter depicted his mistress Magdalena Offenburg née Zscheckenbürlin (1490-1526), ​​a woman well known in Basel for her beauty and loose morals, as Lais of Corinth, an ancient Greek courtesan, who charged dearly for her favours (inscription: : LAÏS : CORINTHIACA : 1526 :), and as Venus with Cupid, also attributed to the painter's workshop and also believed to represent Magdalena's daughter, Dorothea (both paintings are in the Kunstmuseum Basel, inv. 322 and 323). Magdalena's pose in these paintings echoes that of Jesus in Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper". The Meyer Madonna (Darmstadt Madonna), painted around the same time, between 1526 and 1528 (Würth Collection, inv. 14910), is also widely considered to bear the features of Magdalena Offenburg (compare "Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man" by Derek Wilson, p. 112). A few years earlier, between 1515 and 1520, Holbein created with Hans Herbst (1470-1552) a painting of the Flagellation of Christ, most probably for the Church of Saint Peter (Peterskirche) in Basel (Kunstmuseum Basel, inv. 307). In this painting, which by today's standards can be considered obscene, three men proudly displaying their big codpieces torment the naked Christ. Comparable in this respect are some paintings by the Dutch painter Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574) depicting the Lamentation of Christ and Christ as the Man of Sorrows. In the Lamentation, dating from around 1527-1530, the section depicting the genitals was partially overpainted and censored, probably in the 19th century. These changes were largely reversed during the last restoration, before 2002 (Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, inv. WRM 0586). Heemskerck's Man of Sorrows of 1532, preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent (inv. S-53), is considered to depict the erection (ostentatio genitalium), a symbol of the resurrection and continuing power of Christ (after "The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion" by Leo Steinberg, p. 89, 324). This is particularly evident in another version of the composition, held before 1996 at the Bob Jones University Museum and Gallery in Greenville (inv. P.70.488), now in a private collection. The painter and his workshop created two other similar paintings - the signed and dated 1525 version from the collection of Hans Wendland in Paris (Sotheby's London, December 6, 2017, lot 33) and the painting now held at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (inv. SK-A-1306).

Several facts from an earlier period, the 15th century, also illustrate how peculiar medieval Polish morality was. As early as 1468, Sandivogius of Czechel (ca. 1410-1476), a humanist, astronomer, and cartographer, and later an Augustinian monk, was involved in a conflict with the Dominicans of Kraków, represented by provincial Jakub of Bydgoszcz (after "Sędziwój z Czechła ..." by Jacek Wiesiołowski, p. 101-102). Sandivogius, educated in Paris between 1441 and 1444, from where he brought back not only a painting of the Passion of the Lord, but also new concepts of art, considered one of the old sculptures of the Dominican church to be contrary to the aesthetic and dogmatic requirements of the time, in particular with the ruling of the Council of Basel on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The case concerned an altarpiece decorated with a sculpture of the Nativity of the Lord, which depicted the Blessed Virgin lying on a bed after the birth of Jesus. The realism with which this scene was presented seemed to offend his subtle Christian feelings, and with the help of letters, Sandivogius led a widespread campaign to have the sculpture removed from the church. The outcome of the conflict is unknown, however, the statue probably remained in its original location in the main altar until 1668, when it was burned in a fire (after "Studja nad kulturą i sztuką w kościele OO. Dominikanów w Krakowie" by Leonard Lepszy, p. 99-100). Stanisław Cieński, parish priest of Iwanowice, appointed notary public of the diocese of Poznań on October 8, 1438, included among the sample letters a letter from Stanisław Ciołek's Liber Cancellariae, written in the official language, allegedly from Queen Sophia of Halshany (ca. 1405-1461), Jogaila's fourth wife, who proposed an exchange of husbands to Barbara of Celje (1392-1451), wife of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368-1437). In another similar letter, Cieński himself draws comparisons between the Sorores Valisovienses, the Sisters of Chwaliszewo, ladies of loose morals from Poznań, and their Mazovian counterparts (after "Najkrótsza historia Wielkopolski" by Stefan Bratkowski, p. 179). 

The biblical story of Potiphar's wife, who began to lust after the handsome young slave Joseph, particularly fascinated many Europeans in the 16th and 17th centuries, as it was depicted in numerous paintings and applied arts - for example a stove tile from Klaipeda Castle from the first quarter of the 16th century or paintings by Palma il Giovane and the circle of Guercino (Wawel Royal Castle) and Pietro Liberi (National Museum in Warsaw) from the first half of the 17th century. To make it even more accessible to the general public, the German painter and engraver Sebald Beham in 1526 and 1544 and Rembrandt in 1634 created highly erotic engravings representing this scene from the Old Testament. In Poland-Lithuania, where there were many wealthy and influential women and where in some circles the tradition of "assistants of marriage" (matrimonii adiutores) probably survived, such scenes undoubtedly fired the imagination or served as a warning to husbands who neglected their wives.

Very interesting in this respect is also a magnificent painting from the collection of the Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków, painted by Benvenuto Tisi (1481-1559), also known as Garofalo (inv. ZKnW-PZS 10509). Tisi, attached to the Ferrarese court of the Dukes d'Este, relatives of Queen Bona Sforza, depicted the Virgin with the naked infant Christ kissing and embracing his cousin John the Baptist. This theme was supposedly conceived by Leonardo da Vinci, who was obviously homosexual, and who painted some preparatory drawings for it in the 1490s.​

Cases of organized iconoclasm or desecration in Poland-Lithuania are, however, confirmed during the Deluge (1655-1660). "The Swedes, while waiting for him [George II Rakoczi], sacked this miserable city [Kraków]. Until now, they had at least some respect for the altar of Saint Stanislaus; but now they stripped this one too and broke the reliquary of this saint to take it. It is said that the body was taken to hide it from them, for fear that they would take it away to sell it. They plundered all the graves of the kings and even broke the coffin of the late King Ladislaus [Ladislaus IV Vasa], to take silver nails with which it was nailed down", reported in a letter of March 12, 1657 from Częstochowa Pierre des Noyers, secretary of Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga (after "Lettres de Pierre Des Noyers secrétaire de la reine de Pologne ...", published in 1859, p. 305).
​
The Wawel Cathedral was so rich that it was pillaged eight times, and during the fifth pillage on March 2, 1657: "general [Paul Würtz (1612-1676)] himself took the silver statue of Saint Stanislaus from the altar and he hit it on the ground until the stone broke, which is next to the grave. He also hit Piotrowin's head with a hammer in the same place, then they broke the [silver] coffin itself and tore off the lid, not quickly because it was firmly nailed, they took out a small coffin made of pure gold with relics, [...] the large one, they broke into pieces and brought it to the general, and the golden one was then opened and the general himself gave pieces of relics, taking them with bare hands, and others took them themselves. [...] Followers of Luther, when they took pieces, they said these words: he cannot save himself now, but he has to save Poles, people are deceived by these priests. [...] Then they went to the treasury, where all the drawers were opened, the cabinets were opened, the altars and walls were broken, the floors were overturned, the chests were taken, everything that anyone could find and put in pockets, accessories, stones were taken, chairs, upholstery, drawers, boxes were looted and everything that was found and who liked it", reports the anonymous author. The coffins of the bishops were also desecrated and "the rings and chains with their emblems, in gold or silver, were removed from the corpses". All this was melted down and taken away on 80 carts on March 3, 1657 (after "Straty kulturalne i artystyczne Krakowa w okresie pierwszego najazdu szwedzkiego (1655-1657)", p. 143-144, 146-148, 150, 152). 

In order to protect the homeland against invaders, many valuable items, especially silver, were donated for war purposes. The Chapter of Wawel offered on several occasions the silverware spared from the looting - on February 20, 1656, objects weighing 2,922 ducats were given "not out of obligation or debt, but out of love for the country" (non ex aliqua obligatione aut debito, sed ex amore erga Patriam). 

Some people do not realize that not only Polish-Lithuanian heritage was destroyed, but also European heritage, especially Italian, as many Italians lived and worked in Poland-Lithuania and many valuable items were acquired or ordered in Italy. Among the many churches destroyed in Kraków during the invasion, sources mention that of Saint Agnes "recently restored by Father Dzianoti [Gianotti] in the Italian taste". In March 1656, Swedish soldiers destroyed the palaces of Montelupi and Morykoni [Moriconi], as well as the royal palace in Łobzów, where marble columns were broken into pieces. In June, "the Swedes overturned and pillaged coffins in the churches of St. Casimir, St. Nicholas and on Piasek", in addition, they stole two bells from St. Nicholas, indicated to them by the Jews. Paintings, goldwork, silverware and private libraries were confiscated from wealthy bourgeois houses. Many works of art were created in Flanders and the Netherlands and in Kraków, a large number of valuable objects were commissioned from Nuremberg and Augsburg or created by artists from these German cities.

"When the king [Charles X Gustav] returned to Kazimierz, he gave the keys to the church treasury to his elders so that they could take everything that was there. There they took all the city deposits and chests, they broke the church silver [...] The Swedish preacher also took the books of doctors from the library, which were of the greatest value [...]. They took paintings of Italian workmanship, that they liked", wrote the monastic chronicler Stefan Ranotowicz about looting of the monastery of canons regular in Kazimierz. 

The situation was similar in cities occupied by Russian forces. In Vilnius, all the funerary monuments were smashed. Very few paintings made before 1655 preserved there. It is worth noting here that in 1654 Patriarch Nikon (1605-1681) ordered that icons painted "on the Polish model" be collected, their eyes gouged out, and the faces of saints scratched out (possibly disguised portraits). During the Orthodox holiday of 1655, after the liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin in the presence of the patriarchs of the East, the tsar and boyars, Nikon smashed icons, explaining his actions by Western influences in icon painting and the need to return to the sources (after "Starowiercy w Polsce i ich księgi" by Zoja Jaroszewicz-Pieresławcew, p. 7). However, the beautiful portrait of Patriarch Nikon with the brethren of the Resurrection Monastery at the New Jerusalem Museum in Istra (inv. Жд 98), dating from the early 1660s, is obviously in the Dutch style and was probably painted by Daniel Wuchters or his relative Abraham Wuchters in Copenhagen.

Economy and political system

In 1565 Flavio Ruggieri from Bologna, who accompanied Giovanni Francesco Commendone, a legate of Pope Pius IV in Poland, described the country in the manuscript preserved in the Vatican Library (Ex codice Vatic. inter Ottobon. 3175, Nr. 36):

"Poland is quite well inhabited, especially Masovia, in other parts there are also dense towns and villages, but all wooden, counting up to 90,000 of them in total, one half of which belongs to the king, the other half to the nobility and clergy, the inhabitants apart from the nobility are a half and a quarter million, that is, two and a half million peasants and a million townspeople.

[...]

Even the craftsmen speak Latin, and it is not difficult to learn this language, because in every city, in almost every village there is a public school. They take over the customs and language of foreign nations with unspeakable ease, and of all transalpine countries, they learn the customs and the Italian language the most, which is very much used and liked by them as well as the Italian costume, namely at court. The national costume is almost the same as the Hungarian, but they like to dress up differently, they change robes often, they even change up several times a day. Since Queen Bona of the House of Sforza, the mother of the present king, introduced the language, clothes and many other Italian customs, some lords began to build in the cities of Lesser Poland and Masovia. The nobility is very rich.

[...]

Only townspeople, Jews, Armenians, and foreigners, Germans and Italians trade. The nobility only sells their own grain, which is the country's greatest wealth. Floated into the Vistula by the rivers flowing into it, it goes along the Vistula to Gdańsk, where it is deposited in intentionally built granaries in a separate part of the city, where the guard does not allow anyone to enter at night. Polish grain feeds almost all of King Philip's Netherlands, even Portuguese and other countries' ships come to Gdańsk for Polish grain, where you will sometimes see 400 and 500 of them, not without surprise. The Lithuanian grain goes along the Neman to the Baltic Sea. The Podolian grain, which, as has been said, perishes miserably, could be floated down the Dniester to the Black Sea, and from there to Constantinople and Venice, which is now being thought of according to the plan given by the Cardinal Kommendoni [Venetian Giovanni Francesco Commendone].

Apart from grain, Poland supplies other countries with flax, hemp, beef hides, honey, wax, tar, potash, amber, wood for shipbuilding, wool, cattle, horses, sheep, beer and some dyer's herb. From other countries they imports costly blue silks, cloth, linen, rugs, carpets, from the east precious stones and jewels, from Moscow, sables, lynxes, bears, ermines and other furs that are absent in Poland, or not as much as their inhabitants need to protect them from cold or for glamor.

[...]
​
The king deliberate on all important matters with the senate, although he has a firm voice, the nobility, as it has been said, has so tightened his power that he has little left over it" (after "Relacye nuncyuszow apostolskich ..." by Erazm Rykaczewski, pp. 125, 128, 131, 132, 136).

The Venetian priest Luigi Lippomano (1496/1500-1559), bishop of Verona, who was apostolic nuncio in Poland-Lithuania between 1555 and 1558, adds about the main port and Sigismund Augustus that "the first commercial city in Poland is Gdańsk on the Baltic Sea, to which grain is brought in countless quantities by the Vistula and other rivers, and from there it is distributed to Portugal, Biscay, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, etc., luxury goods come from Gdańsk. [...] His father was a Monarch famous in peace and war, his son is not a warrior, which is a great loss to this country, because the nobility, naturally inclined to arms and camps, lies in the field and gives themselves over to debauchery. The King, instead of watching over the entirety of the laws of the State, reads forbidden heretical books, so much so that he who should fight for the Sacred Catholic Faith, fights against it and against his own soul; he likes to talk with heretics, you will often find three or four religions around him, and if he finds a learned and honest man, he respects him, cum tamen sit unus Deus, una fides, et unum baptisma [since there is one God, one faith, and one baptism]" (after "Zbiór pamiętników historycznych o dawnej Polszcze ..." by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Volume 4, p. 66-67).

By the late 1550s, many Italians were considering Poland-Lithuania a land of "wild heretics" (ferax haereticorum), and in June 1559, Ludovico Monti, who was living in Rome as an agent of Sigismund Augustus, wrote to Cardinal Farnese expressing his irritation at the widely accredited representation of Polish reality: "Here we are made to pass for schismatics and Lutherans. There is someone so insolent that he wants to make the king a heretic" (Qui ci spacciano tutti per scismatici et luterani. Vi è alcuno così insolente che vole fare heretico il re a viva forza). Cardinal Hozjusz, a month earlier, had added in a letter from Rome to Marcin Kromer in Kraków that: "Here there is no doubt that our King is a heretic" (Hic nihil dubitatur Regem nostrum haereticum esses). Already at the beginning of 1526, Niccolò Fabri, sent to Poland by Pope Clement VII, wrote from Piotrków about Sigismund Augustus' father that "the King deals with great zeal with the Lutheran sect, which was beginning to infect Prussia [...] if it were not for the great goodness of this king, Poland would already be entirely Lutheran" (con grandissimo fervore la Maestà del re tracta circa la setta lutherana, quale incominciava a infettare la Prussia [...] se non fusse la tanta bontà de questo re, la Pollonia saria gia tutta lutherana, after "La trama Nascosta - Storie di mercanti e altro" by Rita Mazzei). Fabri was sent to ask for the hand of Hedwig Jagiellon for the Marquis of Mantua. He was most likely depicted in a portrait by Vincenzo Catena bearing the inscription: NICOLAVS FABRIS MCCCCLX (Columbia Museum of Art, inv. CMA 1962.13). ​

​The provincial synod of Piotrków in 1542 stated that the writings of Luther, Melanchthon and related authors were taught in parish schools. The spread of new ideas was aided by the many printing houses opened in Sarmatia at that time, as well as by a large importation of books and acquisitions during travels, thanks to which many people had their own libraries. Seweryn Boner (1486-1549), director of the Wieliczka salt works, was described as a "book devourer" (librorum helluon) by a contemporary humanist, Johannes Arbiter de Zittavia and Bishop Filip Padniewski (1510-1572) made his library accessible to all scholars. Mikołaj Rej (1505-1569) sued his relative Jan Koścień for the return of Cronica mundi before a land court, and the latter sued Jan Włodzisławski (after "Cnoty i wady narodu szlacheckiego ..." by Antoni Górski, p. 100-102).

The letter of Ludovico Monti, agent of Sigismund Augustus, who wrote on July 29, 1569 from his house in Modena to Duke Alfonso II d'Este, shows how well informed the Italians were about the affairs of distant Poland-Lithuania. In it, he described, as if he had been present in person, the thanksgiving ceremony that took place in Lublin, in the chapel of the castle, the day after the Union Diet that celebrated the merger between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland (signed on July 1, 1569, after "La trama Nascosta - Storie di mercanti e altro" by Rita Mazzei).​

Jean Choisnin de Chastelleraut, secretary to the French ambassador Jean de Monluc (1508-1579), Bishop of Valence, left a very favourable image of Poland-Lithuania at the end of the reign of the last male Jagellon in his "Speech in truth of all that happened for the entire negotiation of the election of the King of Poland", published in Paris in 1574. Choisnin, who called himself "Secretary to the King of Poland" (Secretaire du Roy de Polongne) Henry of Valois, dedicated his book to the king's mother Catherine de' Medici (1519-1589), called mother of Kings (Katherine de Medicis, par la grace de Dieu Royne de France, mere des Roys). He praises "the extent of the country, which is such that it contains at least twice as much as France" and "the great fertility and abundance of all things necessary for the life and pleasure of man".

"Wines from Hungary, Moravia, the Rhine and Gascony, and the Malvasias in great quantity, which are brought to them by the Armenians from the coast of Euxine [Black Sea]: so much so that the Nobleman who does not give his friend four or five kinds of wine, and all the other delicacies that there are, either in Italy, or in the countries of Levant, he does not think he has received him well. 

[...]

It is certain that there is no nation in the world that so quickly accommodates itself to all good morals and virtues of other nations, as the Polish nation does: They do it by nature as I have said above, more curious than any others to see foreign countries [...] After only four months in Italy, they speak perfect Italian. They dress, they live, they have the same demeanor as if they were born in Italy. They do the same in Spain and France. As for Germany, they quickly learn to speak German. But as for clothes and other ways of living, they always remember the difference in customs that exists between the two nations.

[...]
​
There is a great diversity of religion, introduced, as they say, by the connivence of the late King. But recognizing among themselves that division would bring their entire ruin, they have never wanted to attack each other. [...] Their state is governed in the form of a Republic [...] In short, those who speak of it thus acknowledge, if they please, that the late King Sigismund, father of the deceased, lived on this income that is made so small [i.e. restricted by Parliament], with as much splendor and majesty as any King that there was in his time in Christendom. Queen Bona [La Royne Bonne - literally The Queen Good], his wife, when she left Poland, took six hundred thousand écus [gold coins] in cash. This last King at the time of his death had five thousand horses in his stables. He left a Cabinet [treasury?] that is not found in all of Christendom as rich as this. I will say moreover that he left more rich clothing, arms, and artillery than all the Kings who are alive today could show" ("Discours au vray de tout ce qui s'est passé pour l'entière négociation de l'élection du roy de Pologne", p. 120-123, Lyon Public Library). 

​The spirit of tolerance and equality of the Jagiellonian period is best expressed in the speech of hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski (1488-1561) to the Gdańsk city council in 1552. King Sigismund Augustus was then examining the possibility of making Gdańsk a naval base for planned expansion into the Baltic Sea and personally arrived in the city, while its inhabitants sought, among other things, religious privilege for the Lutherans. The patricians, who had not yet sworn allegiance to the king, were at first a little frightened, but hetman Tarnowski, in the name of the king, reassured the city superiors by saying: "This is not the time of the Teutonic Knights, the Poles, as they once recognized, still consider the Prussians their beloved brothers. Remember that within Germany you were subjects and that you live with us in sweet equality of rights and freedoms, love and citizenship", as quoted Felicja Boberska (1825-1889) in her writings published in Lviv in 1893 (after "Pisma Felicyi z Wasilewskich Boberskiej", p. 366). More than twenty years later, the Warsaw Confederation, one of the first European acts granting religious freedoms, was signed on January 28, 1573 by the National Assembly (Convocation Sejm) in Warsaw.

The strong republican regime in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia, as well as the presence of a large German-speaking community, meant that Emperor Charles V and Sigismund I's nephew Albert of Prussia, as well as their officials, sometimes forgot themselves and the king had to call them to order. "Most Serene Prince Brother and our relative. While everything is being done in Vilnius on our side to increase the friendship that exists between us and Y. I. H. [Your Imperial Highness], we cannot help but be surprised that things that are very unpleasant to us come out of the Court Chamber and Chancellery of Y. I. H. For when we do not claim any rights over the subjects of Y. I. H., they, having forgotten our agreements with Y. I. H. towards the inhabitants of Gdańsk, who do not recognize any other lord than us, dare to send rescripts and orders. We send such documents to Y. I. H., asking them not to dare to claim any right over those who have no other lord and should have no other than us. This will be in accordance with the justice of Y. I. H. and will strengthen the friendship that so constantly exists between us. Given at Brest-Litovsk on July 27, 1544", wrote the irritated King Sigismund I to Charles V. "We admonish once more H. P. M. [His Princely Majesty] the Duke of Prussia: never to let it slip from his mind that he is both subject and son of the King of Poland, and that he must not behave otherwise than as befits a subject towards his lord, a son towards his father," the king replied in a similar tone to the duke's envoy, Franciscus Tege, around 1546 (after "Zbiór pamiętników historycznych o dawnej Polszcze ..." by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, Volume 4, p. 38, 41-42). ​

VBI CHARITAS ET AMOR / IBI DEVS EST ("Where there is charity and love, there is God"), this Latin phrase placed on the Mannerist portal of the court chamber of the Kraków Town Hall, demolished in 1820, provides information on important aspect of the coexistence in a multicultural and multireligious country during the lifetime of the elected queen Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596). Although this sentence is associated with the Western Church, as it is the beginning of an 8th-century hymn based on the First Epistle of John and was long used as one of the antiphons for the washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday, it could be of interest to anyone visiting the capital of the Kingdom of Poland who knows Latin. The magnificent portal, now preserved in the Jagiellonian University Museum, is generally attributed to Jan Frankstijn (Hans Ulrich Frankenstein), royal sculptor and aedificiorum castrensium praefectus, and is based on Netherlandish models. The original door, made in 1593 by the carpenter Piotr Kalina, is also magnificently decorated with intarsia on which one can see in the middle an allegory of justice, and above it, the city's coat of arms. An engraving after a drawing by Józef Brodowski the Elder, published in 1845 with description ("O magistratach miast polskich ..." by Karol Mecherzyński), shows the original interior of the court chamber with well painted al fresco effigies of Polish kings, a wooden ceiling with gilded rosettes, the south window in Gothic form, three large windows on the east side and a green-painted iron cage with gilded eagles, the place where decrees and official documents were kept.

Marcin Kromer (1512-1589), Prince-Bishop of Warmia, in his "Poland or About the Geography, Population, Customs, Offices, and Public Matters of the Polish Kingdom in Two Volumes" (Polonia sive de situ, populis, moribus, magistratibus et Republica regni Polonici libri duo), first published in Cologne in 1577, emphasized that "In almost our time, Italian merchants and craftsmen also reached the more important cities; moreover, the Italian language is heard from time to time from the mouths of more educated Poles, because they like to travel to Italy". He also stated that that "even in the very center of Italy it would be difficult to find such a multitude of people of all kinds with whom one could communicate in Latin" and as for the political system, he added that "the Republic of Poland is not much different […] from the contemporary Republic of Venice" (after "W podróży po Europie" by Wojciech Tygielski, Anna Kalinowska, p. 470). Mikołaj Chwałowic (d. 1400), called the Devil of Venice, a nobleman of Nałęcz coat of arms, mentioned as Nicolaus heres de Wenacia in 1390, is said to have named his estate near Żnin and Biskupin where he built a magnificent castle - Wenecja (Wenacia, Veneciae, Wanaczia, Weneczya, Venecia), after returning from his studies in the "Queen of the Adriatic".

In many Western European countries, Sarmatia was considered the antemurale Christianitatis (bulwark of Christendom, the protective wall of Christianity) that protected the West from invasions from the East, as expressed by Johannes Agricola (1494-1566) in his "True Depictions of Several Most Honorable Princes and Lords ..." (Warhaffte Bildnis etlicher Hochlöblicher Fürsten vnd Herren ...) published in Wittenberg in 1562. On the page dedicated to King Sigismund Augustus accompanied by a splendid woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Younger or workshop with the portrait of the king, Agricola describes him as a just ruler who increased the wealth of his kingdom, but also adds that "He protected Germany from the great tyranny of the Turks. For this he is to be thanked greatly" (Deudschland hat er beschützet frey / Vor der Türcken gros Tyranney. Des im sehr gros zu dancken sey). 

Italian influences and languages

The popular novel "The Story of the Most Serene Queen of Poland, Who Was Twice Unjustly Sent ..." (La historia della serenissima regina di Polonia, la quale due uolte iniquamente fu mandata ...) from the first half of the 16th century, as well as a story about an Italian merchant, who found himself on the Polish-Muscovite border in Baldassare Castiglione's "The Courtier" (Il Cortegiano), published in 1528, reflect the connections between Poland-Lithuania and Italy during the Renaissance. Stanisław Reszka (1544-1600), noted in his diary that Torquato Tasso had read him his work Le sette giornate del mondo creato, while the British Library has preserved a copy of Gerusalemme conquistata with a verse dedication by Tasso to Reszka (Al Sig. Stanislao Rescio Nunzio illustrissimo).

Paolo Giovio (Paulus Jovius, 1483-1552), bishop of Nocera de' Pagani, art collector and historian, who probably never visited Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia, praised in his writings published in the 1550s "this kingdom of wealth, fertility of the land and ingenuity of men" (Questo regno di ricchezza, di fertilità di paese, et d'ingegni de gli huomini), as well as the city of Kraków, where "the studies of the mathematical sciences flourish greatly" (fioriscon molto gli studi delle scienze matematiche). This owner of the museum (Museo Gioviano in Como near Milan), who owned portraits of famous people by Titian, Bronzino, Dosso Dossi and Bernardino Campi among others, also praised the virtue of King Sigismund I, the Italian charm of his daughter Isabella, diplomatic skills of Hieronim Łaski (1496-1541) and the military expertise of Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski (comapre "L'immagine della Polonia in Italia ..." by Andrea Ceccherelli, p. 329, 331). The bishop probably relied on the accounts of Italian visitors, although the form of his statements makes his visit likely.

In the 16th century, it was not only popular to travel and study in Italy, to employ Italians willing to settle in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia, but also to conduct correspondence consultations with renowned doctors in Italy. In 1549, Giovanni Battista da Monte of Verona (Johannes Baptista Montanus, d. 1551), professor of practical medicine at the University of Padua, provided his recommendations to Queen Bona Sforza, which were published in Venice in 1556 in Consultationum medicinalium centuria prima, collected by Walenty Sierpiński of Lublin (Valentinus Lublinus, died before 1600) and dedicated to Nicolaus "the Black" Radziwill (1515-1565). The queen, aged fifty-five, suffered from headaches and failing eyesight and probably a series of ailments that appear during menopause. Sierpiński, who published several of Montanus' works, was also the intermediary in contacts with patients from his native country. Many of them consulted him for the treatment of syphilis, which was apparently common at the royal court at that time, facial burns, nasal ulcers, urinary retention, toe pain, numbness of the foot, impotence and other medical problems (De morbo Gallico [...] pro generoso Polono, De intemperie frigida splenis [...] pro nobili Polono quadragenario). 

In a letter to the Bishop of Kraków Piotr Tomicki (1464-1535), the Ferrarese physician Giovanni Manardo (Iohannes Manardu, 1462-1536) attributed the poor health of the Polish priest to syphilis. Francesco Frigimelica (1490-1558), professor of practical medicine in Padua, best known for his pioneering research in the field of thermal treatments, also provided such consultations to Sarmatian patients. Likewise, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606), professor at the University of Padua, who also treated many Sarmatians, including Paweł Uchański (died 1590), nephew of Archbishop Jakub Uchański (1502-1581). Uchański's correspondence tells us that the letters were forwarded by Uchański's servant, and that the doctor received gifts in exchange for his advice, which the patient distributed generously. The Paduan doctor's fame was so great that Chancellor Jan Zamoyski entrusted him with the task of selecting professors for the chair of medicine at the Collegium Regium he was establishing in Kraków, which was not ultimately created. In a letter dated September 8, 1577, Mercuriale politely suggested that it would be difficult to find people willing to live in the distant country (after "Praktyka leczenia korespondencyjnego ..." by Anna Odrzywolska, p. 18-19, 21-24, 26-27). 

In addition to educational trips, another reason why the Sarmatians went to the peninsula was to "recover their health in the baths" (ricuperar [la] sanità alli bagni). This was the intention of John Radziwill, who planned to go to the baths of Padua in 1542, and with a view to a stopover in Ferrara he took care to have himself recommended by Bona Sforza to Duke Ercole II. At the end of October 1561, the nuncio Berardo Bongiovanni complained about the arrival in Padua of a French goldsmith named Pietro (Pierre), who is a great heretic and who has infected a third of Lithuania (compare "La trama Nascosta - Storie di mercanti e altro" by Rita Mazzei). 

"Decyusz [Justus Ludwik Decjusz (ca. 1485-1545)] says about the contemporary nobility that they began to crave learning and that it was rare for anyone who did not know Latin, and that most of them spoke three or four languages ​​well, namely German, Italian, or Hungarian" (after "Z dworu Zygmunta Starego" by Kazimierz Morawski, Przegląd polski, Volume 21, p. 210). The great diversity of languages ​​in the Commonwealth is reflected in the surviving correspondence. Upon learning of the death of Sigismund Augustus, Emperor Maximilian II wrote to the Infanta Anna Jagiellon in Spanish (letter of July 26, 1572), and her sister Catherine Jagiellon, Queen of Sweden, wrote to her in French (October 1572). Hieronim Rozdrażewski (d. 1600) asked to write to him in French and reproached his brother Stanisław (1540-1619) for having forgotten Latin (letter of December 28, 1579 from Warsaw). The young Radziwills from the Nesvizh line were particularly fond of correspondence in Spanish, as confirmed by the letters of Stanislaus "the Pious" Radziwill (1559-1599) to his brother George Radziwill (1556-1600) from 1581 to 1584. In 1581 the nuncio Giovanni Andrea Caligari sometimes asked King Stephen Bathory to indicate someone who could translate a letter from German into Italian and Stanisław Karnkowski (1520-1603) urgently sought to have in his service the Jesuit priest Basilio Cervino, an Italian who knew Polish (according to letters from Vilnius and Warsaw addressed in 1581 to Cardinal di Como). On May 6, 1583, Alberto Bolognetti reported from Kraków to Cardinal di Como that Paweł Zajączkowski had argued in Italian with Chancellor Jan Sariusz Zamoyski.

In the 16th century, Italian was considered an international language in diplomatic relations. Sigismund Augustus sent his emissary, Piotr Dunin-Wolski (1531-1590), two letters to the King of Spain regarding Bona's inheritance, one written in Italian, the other in Latin, with instructions to Wolski to determine His Majesty's preferred language and deliver only this letter to him. In order to eliminate conflict with Sweden after the victories over Ivan the Terrible, Stephen Bathory sent the court chef Domenico Allamani to Sweden as an ambassador in 1582. The Swedish king was offended by the dispatch of an "Italian cook", whom he treated with contempt (after "Cnoty i wady narodu szlacheckiego ..." by Antoni Górski, p. 58, 132). Poland was a very egalitarian country at that time (the king was first among equals), so no one probably took into consideration that the private status of the official Polish ambassador might offend the Swedish monarch.​

The canon of Gniezno, Jan Piotrowski, who had studied in Padua and was fluent in several languages, wrote on July 29, 1581 to the Grand Marshal of the Crown Andrzej Opaliński (1540-1593) that "the answer to the letter of the Lord of Moscow, which Gizius [royal secretary Tiedemann Giese (1543-1582)] wrote in Latin, was read before the Lords. The Chancellor himself will translate it into Polish, because we, the sribes, are not up to the task, and Lithuania [Chancellery of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania] will translate it from Polish into Ruthenian" (compare "Listowne polaków rozmowy ..." by Jerzy Axer, ‎Jerzy Mańkowski, p. 96, 98). In 1501, Erazm Ciołek (1474-1522), provost of Vilnius, who was for several years secretary to the Grand Duke of Lithuania Alexander Jagiellon and was sent by him to Pope Alexander VI Borgia in Rome, gave a speech before the Pope telling him that the Lithuanians "speak their own language. However, since the Ruthenians inhabit almost half of the duchy, their language, while it is graceful and easy, is used more often" (Linguam propriam observant. Verum quia Rutheni medium fere ducatum incolunt, illorum loquela, dum gracilis et facilior sit, utuntur communius; Oratio Erasmi Vitellii praepositi Vilnensis, Illmi principis dñi Alexandri magni ducis Lithuaniae secretarii, et oratoris ad Alexandrum VI, after "Vetera monumenta Poloniae et Lithuaniae ..." by Augustin Theiner, Volume II, p. 277-278). 

During the Jagiellonian era, the queen often had a separate Ruthenian secretary. This was a kind of court tradition for queens of Ruthenian or Lithuanian origin. Queen Sophia of Halshany (ca. 1405-1461), Jogaila's fourth and last wife, had such a secretary at her disposal, as did Queen Barbara Radziwill (1520/23-1551), at whose court Yan Nikolayevich Hayka (Jan Mikołajewicz Hajko, ca. 1510-1579), a Ruthenian scribe (notarius Ruthenicus), was responsible for matters related to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and wrote documents and letters in Ruthenian. The Ruthenian Miklasz (Nyklasz), who had probably previously served Queen Elizabeth of Austria (1436-1505), was secretary to Queen Helena of Moscow (1476-1513). At the court of Queen Bona, who was suo jure Duchess of Bari, several Italians were secretaries, such as Ludovico Masati de Alifio (Aliphia or Aliphius), a member of an old Neapolitan noble family, Marco de la Torre from a Venetian noble family, Carlo Antonio Marchesini de Monte Cinere from Bologna, Scipio Scolare (Scholaris) from Bari, Francesco Lismanini from Corfu (who considered himself Greek), Ludovico de Montibus from Modena and Vito Pascale from Bari. The Italian Giovanni Marsupino, the envoy of the queen's father, served as secretary to Elizabeth of Austria (1526-1545) and in 1544 her uncle Emperor Charles V sent a special envoy Alfonso of Aragon, probably Alfonso de Aragón y Portugal (1489-1563), Duke of Segorbe, who was also to act as secretary to the queen. In mid-1558, Erhard von Kunheim, originally from Prussia, became secretary to Catherine of Austria (1533-1572), third wife of Sigismund Augustus (compare "Sekretarze na dworach polskich królowych w epoce jagiellońskiej" by Agnieszka Januszek-Sieradzka, p. 121, 124-125, 128-130, 132, 133).

​The letters and biography of Andrzej Zebrzydowski (1496-1560), Bishop of Kraków from 1551, provide important information about the lifestyle, patronage and Italian connections of a wealthy Renaissance nobleman. Zebrzydowski, educated in Basel, Paris and Padua, was secretary to King Sigismund I and chaplain to Queen Bona. In a letter dated October 1546 from Sobków to the royal burgrave of Gdańsk Johann von Werden (1495-1554), he reports that he had looked for an Italian to practice his Italian again, which he had almost forgotten (ut linguae Italicae usum, quem pene amisi, recuperarem). In a letter of March 1548 addressed from his palace in Wolbórz to Piotr Myszkowski (d. 1591), canon of Kraków, he asks to send him a skilled painter "who could spend a few months here with us" (Rogo autem, ut eximium mihi quempiam ejus artis hominem quaerat, qui hic nobiscum possit aliquot menses transigere) and that he be young and unmarried man. In several letters, such as that of April 20, 1551 addressed to Francesco Lismanini (Franciszek Lismanin, 1504-1566), he mentions his gardener Julianus Italus or Giuliano the Italian (olitore nostro Juliano Italo, compare "Andreas de Venciborco Zebrzydowski episcopi ...", ed. Władysław Wisłocki, p. 43, 171, 301, 436). He also maintained a correspondence with his friends in Italy and, according to a letter dated August 2, 1553 from Kraków, he sent as a gift 40 ermine skins (pelles quadraginta zebellinas) to Cardinal Giacomo Puteo (1495-1563), Archbishop of Bari. In 1559, a Venetian printer and humanist, Paolo Manuzio (Paulus Manutius, 1512-1574), sent him a letter of praise, through Andrzej Patrycy Nidecki (1522-1587), who was returning from Padua, to which was attached a portrait of Paolo's father, Aldo Pio Manuzio (Aldus Pius Manutius, died 1515), whom the bishop had known and highly esteemed (after "Andrzej Patrycy Nidecki ..." by Kazimierz Morawski, p. 77, 95). 

The highly prized furs of Poland-Lithuania are often mentioned in the surviving letters. The Ferrarese agent Antonio Maria Negrisoli (Antonio Mario Nigrisoli), writing to the Duke of Ferrara from Warsaw on 27 January 1552, confirms that he had been instructed to inquire about the price of beaver furs (feltro di castoreo) for the Duke. One of the first and last known letters from Negrisoli from Poland also concerns furs. According to the letter to Ercole II of November 22, 1550, he wanted to send a beautiful fur coat from Poland to Ginevra Malatesta and on March 18, 1554 he informed Ercole II of the difficulty of finding the precious black fox furs, so sought after in Ferrara (after "Alle origini dell'immagine di Cracovia come città di esilio" by Rita Mazzei, p. 469, 504). In a letter to Cardinal Farnese in early November 1563, Ludovico Monti informs him of two nephews of the Polish ambassador in Naples Paweł Stempowski "one of whom must be handed over to Your Excellency" and "the other will go to the Cardinal of Augsburg [Otto Truchsess von Waldburg] who will hand him over to the princes of Austria so that he can learn good manners in Spain" and adds about the Polish ambassador that "it was he who sent the skins to Your Excellency last year" (l'uno ch'io lo consegni a Vostra Eccellenza [...] l'altro o va a diritto al cardinale d'Augusta che lo consignarà ai principi d'Austria perché impari creanza in Spagna [...] È quello che l'anno passato mandò le pelli a Vostra Eccellenza, after "La trama Nascosta - Storie di mercanti e altro" by Rita Mazzei).​ ​In 1557, the royal court acquired a large quantity of luxurious furs due to the need to send gifts to the Turkish Sultan (after "Dostawcy dworów królewskich w Polsce i na Litwie ..." by Maurycy Horn, Part II, p. 6).

Already in the time of Sigismund I, secular plays in Latin were given at Wawel Castle under the patronage of the court. Among them was "Ulysses' Foresight in the Face of Adversity" (Ulyssis Prudentia In Adversis), performed at the castle in 1516 in the presence of the King and Queen Barbara Zapolya. In February 1522, in the presence of Queen Bona (the king left for Lithuania), Jacobus Locher's "The Judgment of Paris about the golden apple between the three goddesses, Pallas, Juno, and Venus, about the threefold way of human life: contemplative, active and lustful" (Ivdicivm Paridis de pomo aureo inter tres deas Palladem, Iuuonem, Venerem, de triplici hominu vita, cotemplatiua, actiua ac voluptaria) was performed in the Senator's Hall. As was customary at the time, all the roles were played by men, students of the Kraków Academy, a fully accepted form of public cross-dressing (by today's standards). The plays were directed by Stanisław of Łowicz, the superior of dormitories.

In The Judgement of Paris, the role of Paris was played by Mikołaj Kobyleński, Pallas by Jerzy Latalski, Juno by Szymon of Łowicz, Venus by Paweł Głogowski, and the beautiful Helen of Troy by Stanisław Maik. The mythological plot was punctuated by a fencing scene and vulgar songs of "women and shepherds" (after "Intermedium polskie ..." by Jan Okoń, p. 117). The Wawel performance was intended to be an extraordinary event, and by January of that year, the full Latin text of the play had been published. The title page was adorned with a fitting woodcut depicting the judgement, inspired by the 1508 engraving by Lucas Cranach the Elder, in which all the goddesses were depicted naked. At an unknown time, probably after the Deluge, a vandal-reader of the copy of Locher's work in the National Library in Warsaw (SD XVI.Qu.6459) made a truly barbaric attempt to hide the nudity of the most shameful parts of the bodies of the three goddesses with pencil strokes. It was translated into Polish and frequently performed for the general public, however, the translation was not published until 1542 (Sąd Parysa Królewicza Trojańskiego). The oldest known depiction of the Judgement of Paris scene in Polish art is a stove tile dating from the second half of the 15th century, found in 1994 during excavations near the so-called Lech Hill in Gniezno, now in the Museum of the Origins of the Polish State in Gniezno (inv. 1994:3/21), in which all the goddesses were also depicted naked (after "Inspiracje śródziemnomorskie" by Jerzy Miziołek, p. 10-11, 17-19, 322). Since in the 1522 play all the roles were given to men, it is unlikely that they performed naked or half-naked in front of the queen and the court, but since the details of the performance are not known, who knows.

Poetry, society and the role of women

The poets and writers Andrzej Krzycki (Andreas Cricius, 1482-1537), secretary to Queen Bona Sforza, Klemens Janicki (Clemens Ianicius, 1516-1543), Stanisław Orzechowski (Stanislaus Orichovius, 1513-1566) and Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (Mathias Casimirus Sarbievius, 1595-1640), were among the most notable Latinists of the Renaissance and early Baroque. The first Polish author to write exclusively in Polish, Mikołaj Rej (1505-1569), rightly stated: "Among other nations let it always be known / That the Poles are not geese, have a tongue of their own" (translated by Michał Jacek Mikoś), because in a multi-ethnic nation, Latin dominated in all spheres of life. It was also during the Renaissance that the first important publications in local languages ​​appeared.

​Among the notable foreign poets and writers brought to Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia at the beginning of the Renaissance, one should mention the French poet Aignan Bourgoin (Anian Burgonius) from Orléans, invited by Jan Łaski (1499-1560) in 1527. Łaski sent him to continue his studies in Italy, then to Wittenberg with Melanchthon, but this "apostle of Poland", as Melanchthon called him, died suddenly in 1534 (after "Poezja polsko-łacińska w dobie odrodzenia" by Bronisław Nadolski, p. 189). Bishop Erazm Ciołek invited in 1505 the Spanish lawyer and writer Garsias Quadros from Seville, who died in Kraków in 1518, and Bishop Piotr Gamrat invited another Spanish lawyer and writer Pedro Ruiz de Moros, who arrived from Italy around 1540. Chancellor Krzysztof Szydłowiecki patronized an English humanist, Leonard Cox (or Coxe), author of the first book in English on rhetoric, who arrived in Poland around 1518.

​The popularity of epigrams on portraits painted by splendid painters is another proof that Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia ranked among the most cultured countries of Renaissance Europe in terms of artistic patronage. Several of such epigrams were created by the poet Jan Kochanowski, who was educated in Italy. Pedro Ruiz de Moros, a friend of Kochanowski, also wrote such poems - the epigram on the portrait of Olbracht Łaski (1536-1604), voivode of Sieradz, one on the portrait of King Sigismund Augustus, and another on the portrait of the Spanish King Philip II (after "Royzyusz : jego żywot i pisma" by Bronisław Kruczkiewicz, Rozprawy Wydziału Filologicznego, p. 149). The poet Andrzej Trzecieski (d. 1584) is the author of epigrams - on the portrait of King Stephen Bathory, on the portrait of Justus Ludwik Decjusz, claiming that the painter imagined the face of Decjusz as if he were alive (To oblicze Decjusza wyobraził malarz jak żywe), on the portrait of Jakub Przyłuski (1512-1554), an outstanding poet, philosopher and lawyer and the portrait of Jan Krzysztoporski (1518-1585) at the age of 20 (Cztery pięciolecia pierwszej młodości liczył sobie Jan Krzysztoporski, kiedy tak wyglądał), thus most likely painted by Cranach's workshop during his studies in Wittenberg in 1537-1539, as well as on the portrait of Marcin Białobrzeski (1522-1586), Abbot of Mogiła (compare "Carmina: wiersze łacińskie" by Jerzy Krókowski, p. 145, 167, 379, 451, 546). Trzecieski most probably commissioned the portrait of Ruiz de Moros, which the Spanish poet praised in his poem In effigiem suam. Ruiz de Moros, for his part, wrote a poem about Trzecieski's portrait (In Andreae Tricesii imaginem) in which he compares him to Adonis, Venus' lover - "Forgive me, Venus, Trzecieski does not know your fires, your Adonis was not like that" (Parce Venus, vestros nescit Tricesius ignes, Non tuus ergo, Venus, talis Adonis erat). Venus is also the heroine of epigrams on portraits of Sigismund Augustus (Hanc Venus atque Thetis pictam ut videre tabellam) and Olbracht Łaski. In 1519 Jan Dantyszek wrote an epigram on his own portrait in Spain - In effigiem suam (after "Twórczość poetycka Jana Dantyszka" by Stanisław Skimina, p. 75). Despite the praise given to the talent of the painters, often compared to that of Apelles, no names are mentioned, indicating that the painters were probably not well known to the poets, and that the portraits were therefore probably commissioned from abroad.

The country was formed by two major states - the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but it was a multiethnic and multicultural country with a large Italian community in many cities. The locals most often called it in Latin simply Res Publicae (Republic, Commonwealth) or Sarmatia (as the Greeks, Romans and Byzantines of Late Antiquity called the great territories of Central Europe), more literary and by nobility. Nationality was not considered in today's terms and was rather fluid, as in the case of Stanisław Orzechowski, who calls himself either Ruthenian (Ruthenus / Rutheni), Roxolanian (Roxolanus / Roxolani) or of Ruthenian origin, Polish nation (gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus / gente Roxolani, natione vero Poloni), published in his In Warszaviensi Synodo provinciae Poloniae Pro dignitate sacerdotali oratio (Kraków, 1561) and Fidei catholicae confessio (Cologne, 1563), most likely to emphasize his origin and his attachment to the Republic. Spanish poet educated in Padua and Bologna Pedro Ruiz de Moros (d. 1571), courtier of King Sigismund Augustus, in his De apparatu nuptiarum ..., published in Kraków in 1543 on the occasion of the king's marriage, calls him "Sigismund King Augustus, another of the Sarmatian race, the Sarmatian and the new glory of the nation" (SISMVNdus tunc Augustus Rex, altera gentis Sarmatice spes, Sarmatice & noua gloria gentis). In 1541, Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), a German Lutheran reformer, in a letter to the mathematician Burkhard Mithoff (Burchardus Mithobius, 1501-1564), criticizing the "absurd claims" of Nicolaus Copernicus, called him "the Sarmatian astronomer who moves the earth and stops the sun" and added that "wise rulers should curb the insolence of minds [or spirit]!" (Es gibt da Leute, die glauben, es sei ein hervorragender Fortschritt, eine so absurde Behauptung zu verfechten wie dieser sarmatische Astronom, der die Erde bewegt und die Sonne anheftet. Wahrlich, kluge Herrscher sollten die Frechheit der Geister zügeln!, after "Das neue Weltbild: Drei Texte ...", ed. Hans Günter Zekl, p. LXIII).

In his translation of the work of Maciej Miechowita (1457-1523), dedicated to Severino Ciceri, published in Venice in 1561 under the title "History of the two Sarmatias" (Historia delle due Sarmatie), Annibal Maggi explains what the two Sarmatias were: "The ancient placed two Sarmatias, one in Europe, the other in Asia, one close to the other" (I più antichi hanno posto due Sarmatie, una in Europa, l'altra nell' Asia, una vicina all'altra, p. 5). 

​Although some anti-Jewish sentiment can be found in religious art, as in one of the oldest depictions of a Polish Jew whipping the statue of St. Nicholas of Bari after the theft of the riches that he had entrusted to the statue's care (in a wing of the Rzepiennik Biskupi altar from the first half of the 16th century, Czartoryski Museum, inv. MNK XII-242, based on the Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine), the Renaissance is one of the most prosperous periods in the history of Polish Jews. Jewish merchants were valued suppliers to the royal-grand-ducal court and the magnates. In 1514, Ezofowicz Rabinkowicz Michael (died before 1533), a Jewish merchant and banker who had not abandoned the Judaism, was admitted to the coat of arms and knighted by King Sigismund I on the Kraków Market Square during the Prussian homage (April 10, 1525) (compare "Encyklopedia PWN").

Among the prominent members of the Jewish community close to the royal court were members of the Fiszel family. Rachela (Raśka, Raszka) Mojżeszowa, wife of the banker Mojżesz Fiszel, provided credit to King Casimir IV and his sons John I Albert and Alexander. By virtue of an act issued on November 1, 1504, King Alexander, at the request of his mother, Queen Elizabeth of Austria, allowed Reszka and her offspring, in gratitude for her services, to purchase a house in Kraków. In 1515, Rachela's son Franczek (Efraim) Fiszel was part of the retinue of the king's sister, Elizabeth Jagiellon (1482-1517), travelling to Legnica. Almost a decade later, in 1524, King Sigismund I, at the request of his wife, appointed Franczek and his wife Chwałka (Falka) as servants of two royal courts, namely his own and that of Queen Bona (after "Udział Żydów w kontaktach dyplomatycznych i handlowych ..." by Maurycy Horn, p. 6). Franczek's son, Mojżesz (Moses) Fiszel (1480-after 1543), was a medical doctor, he was trained in Padua before 1520 and in 1523, at the request of the Archbishop of Poznań, King Sigismund granted him a privilege exempting him from all taxes that Jews paid (after "Historyja Żydów ..." by Hilary Nussbaum, Volume 5, p. 122). His wife, Estera, came from the court of Queen Bona and was a renowned seamstress, also making liturgical vestments for the Catholic clergy. According to a letter from Piotr Tomicki, Bishop of Kraków to his friend doctor Stanisław Borek, the cantor of Kraków, dated March 25, 1535, he ordered two surplices, "which can be cut by Estera, the wife of doctor Mojżesz". In 1528, when the doctor decided to travel to Germany and Italy, he received from Tomicki a letter of recommendation, dated October 23, 1528 in Kraków, addressed to Bernardo Clesio (1484-1539), Bishop of Trent, in which he asked him to help doctor Mojżesz obtain a letter of safe conduct from King Ferdinand I, who was to ensure the safety of the Jewish doctor during his journey through the countries subject to him to Germany and Italy and during his return to Poland. In a letter to the Bishop of Trent, Tomicki notes that the Jew for whom he interceded gained the favor of the King of Poland and also rendered him many services (after "Medycy nadworni władców polsko-litewskich ..." by Maurycy Horn, p. 9-10).​ In 1547, the first Jewish printing house of Chaim Szwarc was opened in Lublin.

​Among the court favourites was the courtier Jan Zambocki, who was captured by the Tatars and sold into slavery to the Turks. He escaped after a long stay and in 1510 he was already found at the court of Sigismund the Old, where he remained until his death in 1529. He dressed in Turkish style and was known to have converted to Islam. As a friend of the king and Vice-Chancellor Piotr Tomicki, he sometimes worked in the chancellery and was responsible for drafting official documents (after "Z dworu Zygmunta Starego. (Dokończenie)" by Kazimierz Morawski, p. 538). He knew Latin, German and eastern languages ​​and probably also Arabic.

"The foreigner Bona gives an imprint and character to this entire era", asserts Kazimierz Morawski (1852-1925) in his article on the court of Sigismund I published in 1887 ("Z dworu Zygmunta Starego", Przegląd polski, Volume 21, p. 203). The style of her reign, as well as her education, are probably best characterized in the letter of Antonio Galateo de Ferraris (Galateus, ca. 1444-1517), an Italian scholar of Greek origin, sent to the young Bona in 1507, when she was with her mother in Bari. The court physician of the Aragonese dynasty wrote to a 13-year-old princess: "Your sweet letters, noble lady, have given me great pleasure and have awakened in me a great desire to see you. I am accustomed not only to praise your mind, but to admire it, for your soul is enriched every day with new goods. You, if you find the teachings agreeable, you will become the greatest and most intelligent woman of our time. [...] If princes by nature, and not only by law and custom, as many believe, are superior to other people, the greatest difference should be between you and other girls. You were born to rule, they were born to serve; let them use the sieve and the spindle, you the laws, science and good customs; let them occupy themselves with the worship of the body, you must educate the mind". He also advised the future Queen of Poland, Grand Duchess of Lithuania and Lady of Ruthenia: "Begin to acquire knowledge about men little by little, for you were born to rule men" and while her peers were busy with amusement or feminine work, let her study Virgil and Cicero, leaf through the old and new books of St. Jerome, Augustine and Chrysostom, the Greek and Latin poets, "for without teachings no one can live well or have any importance" (after "Królowa Bona ..." by Władysław Pociecha, p. 160). Probably around 1540, more than 20 years after his death, a medal with a bust of Galateo was made (inscription: ANTONIVS GALATEVS). The wax model for this medal is attributed to Leone Leoni (Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 1975.1.1277), while the reverse of this medal shows Venus reigning embracing Mars and accompanied by their son Cupid (British Museum, inv. G3,IP.442).

It should be noted, however, that apart from her education, determination and talent, Bona encountered very favourable conditions in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia in the 16th century, particularly tolerance and respect for women, which is best expressed by a poem by a certain Złota, from the village near Sandomierz, written at the beginning of the 15th century: "But a knight or a lord / Honours the face of a woman: it is good for you! [...] The lady is a queen, / Whoever criticizes her would perish. / They have this power from the Mother of God, / That princes rise up before them / And give them great glory. / I praise you, ladies, / For there is nothing better than you". "In accordance with the principle that a woman resembles the image of the Mother of God [which also explain the existence of disguised portraits], a medieval man, especially one who knew the etiquette, knelt before her on one knee or even on both knees, as can be concluded from a love poem written by a student from the end of the 15th century", adds Wacław Kosiński (1882-1953) in his publication on the social customs of old Poland ("Zwyczaje towarzyskie w dawnej Polsce", p. 37). Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503-1572) in his famous treatise "On the Improvement of the Commonwealth" (De Republica emendanda), published in Kraków in 1551, complains about Sarmatian women: "especially those who are rich and have many friends, tend to behave more insolently than is appropriate towards their husbands" (after "O poprawie Rzeczypospolitej", ed. Kazimierz Józef Turowski, p. 78). 

From 1531 to 1535 Frycz studied in Wittenberg, lived with Philip Melanchthon, and travelled to Nuremberg, where the approach seems to be very different from that in Sarmatia. It is illustrated by a masterfully executed satirical print on fools and the "power" of women accompanied by verses by Hans Sachs (1494-1576), now in the British Museum (inv. 1933,0614.29). This beautiful woodcut was formerly attributed to Erhard Schön and is thought to have been made between 1530 and 1532. It depicts "The Fool Eater" and the full title in German at the top reads: "Real news about the eater of fools, his servant, and about the hungry man who devours all men who do not fear their wives" (Aigentliche newe zeitung von dem narren fresser, seinem knecht, vnd von dem hungerigen man / der alle men der fryst die sick nicht vor yren weybern furchten). 

While Bona has gained great notoriety and was able to influence many areas, her stepdaughter Hedwig Jagellon and her daughters Sophia and Catherine Jagellon, although they followed the same models, are sometimes forgotten in the countries they ruled. Her eldest daughter, Isabella, who ruled post-Jagiellonian Hungary and Transylvania, played a more important role and became the object of a certain notoriety. Bona's daughter Anna, who was unmarried and present in the country after the death of her brother Sigismund Augustus, was elected monarch of the Commonwealth in the second free royal election of 1575.

The role of women in Polish-Lithuanian society during the Renaissance is reflected in distinct women's literature, which has its beginning in anonymous "Senatulus, or the council of women" (Senatulus to jest sjem niewieści) from 1543 and especially Marcin Bielski's "Women's Parliament" (Syem Niewiesci), written in 1566-1567. The idea derives from the satirical Senatus sive Gynajkosynedrion by Erasmus of Rotterdam, published in 1528, which caused a wave of imitations in Europe. Bielski's work, however, brings a whole bunch of articles proposed by married women, widows and unmarried women to be passed at the Sejm, which have no equivalent in Erasmus's work. There is almost no satirical content, which is the core of Erasmus's work willing to point out the faults of women. The main element in Bielski's work is criticism of men (after "Aemulatores Erasmi? ..." by Justyna A. Kowalik, p. 259). The women point to the inefficiency of men's power over the country and their lack of concern for the common good of the Republic. Their arguments about the role of women in the world are based on the ancient tradition, when women not only advised men, but also ruled and fought for their own. This work provoked a whole series of brochures devoted to female matters, in which, however, the emphasis has been shifted more to discussion of women's clothing - "Reprimand of Women's Extravagant Attire" (Przygana wymyślnym strojom białogłowskim) from 1600 or "Maiden's Parliament" (Sejm panieński) by Jan Oleski (pseudonym), published before 1617. 

​​As in Italy, women also took up painting, mainly in Kraków, where in 1495 there is a painter Małgorzata, called Łukaszowa (Lucaschowa pictrix), widow of the painter Łukasz Molner, who came from Wrocław, perhaps identical with the sister of Veit Stoss of that name, known for buying paints for the sum of 6 florins, for which her brother vouched to the seller Katarzyna Jedwatowa. The painters Katarzyna Gałuszyna in 1477, Magdalena Skorka in 1494 and Katarzyna Siostrzankowa ze Stradomia, between 1497-1504 are mentioned in the municipal registers (compare "Na tropach pierwszych kobiet malarek w dawnej Polsce" by Karolina Targosz, p. 46). Dorota Baczkowska (Dorothea Baczkowskij) is mentioned under the year 1538 and Helena malarka in 1540. In 1575, the city authorities paid a pension to the painter Agnieszka, whose husband was murdered by students in 1570. 

​Dorota Koberowa or Dorothea Köberin (1549-1622), born in Kraków, who married the painter Martin Kober in 1586, ran a workshop during her husband's absence and after his death. In her receipt from July 31, 1599 for ten Polish złotys "for work on the coat of arms", she called herself "painter to His Majesty the King" (Malarzowa Króla Jego Mości), i.e. court painter to Sigismund III Vasa.

The regulations of the Lviv painters' guild of 1597 provided for relief in obtaining the title of master for those who would marry the daughter of another painter "who knew how to paint". Barbara, a painter, worked in Lviv in 1611 and Agnieszka Piotrkowczyk, who married the Venetian painter Tommaso Dolabella, was also a painter, as were their daughters, mentioned as authors of paintings in the Dominican monastery in Kraków (Item in dormitario allongavo supra fores cellarum pulchrum prebent in frontibus adspectum imagines ex Schola Cordis efiigiatae, quos praenominati Dolabellae filiae inefformaverunt, ut sponsi et sponsae cordis in omnibus non absimiles habeatur representacio, after "Tomasz Dolabella" by Mieczysław Skrudlik, p. 56, 71). The painting depicting the Mass with the appearance of the Virgin Mary kept in the National Museum in Kraków formerly bore the inscription: Agnes Piotrkowczyk pinxit Dolabella Thomas Cracoviensis direxit. 

One of the peculiarities of former Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia are the Renaissance funerary monuments inspired by Roman tombs, many of which fortunately survived significant destruction during numerous wars and invasions thanks to their placement in temples. Although some of them were made by Italian sculptors and are based on Italian models, including the so-called "Sansovino pose" of a sleeping person, concering female sepulchre they are typical mainly for Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia and the women, similar to effigies of the Roman goddess of love, frequenly hold their hands on their genitals in the gesture typical for ancient statues of Venus Pudica (the modest Venus) - Venus sleeping in the church. Among the best are the monument to Barbara Tarnowska née Tęczyńska (ca. 1490-1521) by Giovanni Maria Mosca, called Padovano (ca. 1536, Tarnów Cathedral), the monument to Elżbieta Zebrzydowska née Krzycka (d. 1553) by Padovano or workshop (ca. 1553, Kielce Cathedral), the monument to Anna Dzierzgowska née Szreńska by Santi Gucci Fiorentino (1560s, church in Pawłowo Kościelne), the monument to Urszula Leżeńska by Jan Michałowicz (1563-1568, church in Brzeziny), the monument to Zofia Ostrogska née Tarnowska (1534-1570) by Wojciech Kuszczyc (1570s, Tarnów Cathedral), monument to Barbara Kurozwęcka (d. 1545) by Girolamo Canavesi (1574, Poznań Cathedral), monument to Anna Śleszyńska née Dzierzgowska by the workshop of Jan Michałowicz (ca. 1578, Łowicz Cathedral), monument to Elżbieta Modliszowska née Dembińska by the workshop of Santi Gucci (1589, Łomża Cathedral), monument to Jadwiga Opalińska née Lubrańska (d. 1558) by Santi Gucci (ca. 1590, church in Kościan), monument to Barbara Firlejowa née Szreńska (d. 1588) by Santi Gucci (ca. 1597, church in Janowiec) and monument to Anna Uchańska née Herburt by the workshop of Tomasz Nikiel (1590-1614, church in Uchanie). The funerary monument of the elected queen Anna Jagiellon in the Sigismund Chapel, created by Santi Gucci between 1583 and 1584, also refers to this model. Many such monuments in Lithuania and Ruthenia were damaged or destroyed during the Deluge or during later invasions (for example monument to wives of Lew Sapieha in the Church of St. Michael in Vilnius or monument to Anna Sieniawska in Berezhany).

Women's education and activities

​In 1390, through the personal efforts of Queen Jadwiga (Hedwig) at the papal court, the Kraków Academy was reactivated. In her will, the queen bequeathed her personal fortune to the academy, which enabled the university to be restored to its full form in 1400. After its restoration, female surnames took an important place among the supporters and benefactors of the reborn school. These included Alexandra of Lithuania (ca. 1370-1434), Duchess of Mazovia, Jogaila's favorite sister, and her daughter Anna, as well as Jogaila's two other wives, Elizabeth Granowska and Sophia of Halshany. There were also wives of dignitaries and nobles in the 15th century: Elżbieta Melsztyńska, Katarzyna Mężykowa, Joanna Gniewoszowa, Konstancja Koniecpolska, Catherine of Dąbrowa, and Margaret of Pokrzywnica. Wealthy townswomen, such as Katarzyna and Urszula Homan, contributed to this donation for scientific purposes.

In the following century, the academy's great supporter was Queen Anna Jagiellon. The tradition of Kraków townswomen who were generous towards the university was continued by Barbara Opatowczykowa, Małgorzata Danielewiczowa, Anna Zwierzowa and Zofia Golowa. The latter, a widow of an innkeeper, achieved the rare honour for a woman of her condition of being entered into the university's winter register of 1580/1, with the addition of de universitate benemerita ("well-deserved for the university"). Outside Kraków, we know that Barbara Zamoyska (ca. 1566-1610), née Tarnowska, was interested in the Zamość Academy, and in cities with Jesuit colleges, women such as Katarzyna Wapowska (1530-1596), a caring guardian of the home for poor students at the Jesuit college in Jarosław, showed great effort and help to students.

Although "public" education was not available to girls, the abbot of the Benedictine "Scottish" abbey in Vienna, Martin of Spis (d. 1464), recalls the story of a female student at the Kraków Academy during the reign of Ladislaus Jagiello. In his work Senatorium sive dialogus historicus Martini abbatis Scotorum Viennae Austriae, written towards the end of his life, the chronicler writes that, during his studies in Kraków, around 1416, he learned that a woman, probably from Greater Poland, had been attending classes with students for two years, dressed in men's clothes, and was about to obtain her bachelor's degree. When her secret was revealed, the woman went, in accordance with her will, to a convent where she became abbess. Martin also adds that at the time he was writing these memoirs, the woman was still alive, as he had recently heard about her from a certain person who was in Kraków. This first female student of what is now the Jagiellonian University is known in Poland as Nawojka, because of the prayer book that bears that name and was previously thought to belong to her (after "Nawojka – pierwsza studentka Uniwersytetu Krakowskiego" by Stanisław A. Sroka, p. 130, 135-137). 

Since the Middle Ages, women have frequently been involved in medicine. In 1278, there lived in Poznań a woman whom the records call Joanna medica, a physician. Also during the reign of Casimir the Great, in the 14th century, a certain Katarzyna practiced medicine. In the 16th century, in Volhynia, the unknown Maria Holszańska carried religious books with her. "Noble and bourgeois girls learn to read and write in their mother tongue and even in Latin either at home or in convents," states priest Marcin Kromer (1512-1589) in his description of Poland published in Cologne in 1578 (Polonia sive de situ, populis, moribus ..., p. 61).

Few formal oratorical speeches by women were commemorated. Queens usually used chancellors and secretaries for this purpose. Anna Jagiellon was an exception, as she personally raised toasts at the feasts she hosted. 

In the 16th and 17th centuries, many books were written or dedicated to women. Andrzej Glaber (c. 1500-1555) from Kobylin dedicated his Problemata Aristotelis. Gadki z pisma wielkiego philozopha Aristotela ..., the first Polish textbook of medicine and human anatomy, to Jadwiga Kościelecka, second wife of Seweryn Boner (1486-1549), court banker to King Sigismund I (published in Kraków in 1535). This dedication contains a very significant and insightful analysis of the reasons for the reluctance of Glaber's contemporary men to educate women: "[they] do it more out of jealousy [...] fearing to lose their fame, lest women surpass them in intelligence, they forbid them to read profound writings, except for prayers and rosaries". The author, however, believed that all knowledge should be accessible to women and wrote this book: "so that women who know letters may, as it were, try the writings in which wisdom is enclosed". In this work, Glaber also warned women against gluttony and, above all, against the consumption of raw fruit and wine, especially during pregnancy (after "Aristotle for women" by Marta Wojtkowska-Maksymik, p. 350). It contain a description of body parts, while the tondo woodcuts could be seen as portraits of Glaber's patients or Kraków inhabitants in general. The author also included an anatomical image of the main internal organs (section of a human body - naked man). On the back of the title page and on the last page bearing the date "1535", one can see the coat of arms of Kościelecka - Ogończyk. Jadwiga was the daughter of Mikołaj Kościelecki, voivode of Inowrocław, and Anna Łaska. As a member of the powerful Kościelecki family, she was a "relative" of Beata Kościeleca (1515-1576). Glaber also dedicated to her the adaptation of the Davidic Psalter (Żołtarz Dawidow ...), published in Kraków in 1539 by Helena Unglerowa, which quickly reached seven editions. The original translation was made before 1528 by Walenty Wróbel (ca. 1475-1537) for Katarzyna Górkowa née Szamotulska.

There are many literary tributes to Queen Bona, including the Latin poem about the bison Carmen Nicolai Hussoviani de statura, feritate ac venatione Bisontis by Mikołaj Hussowski, published in Kraków in 1523. Polish books were created for Princess Hedwig Jagiellon (1513-1573), which she took with her to Brandenburg after her marriage. Later, she also received books dedicated to her, such as Apologia pro sexu foemineo, printed in Frankfurt in 1544 or Kxięgi probowane przez doctory y ludzie nauczone Kościoła rzymskiego, printed in Kraków in 1545. Several books were dedicated to Anna Jagiellon, such as Postille Catholiczney część trzecia ... by Jakub Wujek (1541-1597), published in Kraków in 1575, or Deliberatio de principe Svetiae Regno Poloniae praeficiendo by Łukasz Chwałkowski, published in Poznań in 1587. In the last quarter of the 16th century, books were also dedicated to Krystyna Opalińska, Dorota Barzyna and Anna Złotkowska née Sierpska.

Reyna (Regina) Filipowska's "Pious Song" (Pieśń nabożna), published in Kraków in 1557, is one of the oldest Polish literary works written by a woman. In 1594, the "Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ ..." (Rozmyślania Męki Pana naszego Jezusa Krystusa ...), published anonymously in Kraków, were undoubtedly written by a woman and dedicated to Queen Anna Jagiellon. Anna Siebeneicherowa (d. 1610), who signed the 1608 edition of this work, dedicated to Constance of Austria, wife of Sigismund III, is considered the author.

"In addition to the quiet and gentle housewives, there were in old Poland many women full of temperament and energy, resolute matrons who equaled men in deeds, courage and ambition", said Łucja Charewiczowa (1897-1943) in her book "Woman in old Poland" (Kobieta w dawnej Polsce, p. 36-37, 40-41, 69-71, 80, 82-83, 88), published in 1938. The author died in the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz. 

Women often took up arms, especially in the borderlands, exposed to enemy raids, where palaces and manor houses were constantly transformed into defensive fortresses resisting the enemy. In 1577 in Dubno, Beata Dolska, during her wedding festivities, interrupted by a sudden Tatar raid, personally shot at the khan's tent and caused him to withdraw from the siege of the castle.

Barbara Rusinowska, a female robber from the early 16th century, ended her horse-thieving profession on the noose. Captured in her own castle in 1505, she was hanged, according to Bielski and Kromer, in her ordinary clothes, that is, in trousers, spurs, and sword at her side, during the session of the Diet in Radom, on the orders of King Alexander Jagiellon (1461-1506). A Polish medieval robber was a noblewoman, Katarzyna Włodkowa (or Skrzyńska) from Skrzynno, who used to raid on the roads in the 1450s. Around 1570, Hanna Borzobohata Krasieńska née Sokolska, was famous in Volhynia. She knew how to plunder in the Tatar manner and followed the path of quarrels and robberies, driven by the desire to earn money and her passion for horses. Łukasz Górnicki (1527-1603), in turn, mentions the custom of raiding the estates of wealthy widows.

Many women gone to court for every inch of land, every lamb, but most often, they are sued for family, land, or neighborhood disputes. An example of such women is a Ruthenian lady, Mrs. Litavorova, born Princess Olshanskaya, related to the Jagiellons, widow of John Litavor Bohdanovitsh Khreptovitsh, who lived at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Sometimes, the royal letter was even necessary to urge the wife to submit to her husband's will. For example, in 1540, Sigismund I, establishing a joint mortgage on several villages of the poet Mikołaj Rej (1505-1569), included a passage in this privilege: "By this means, king instructs Zofia Rejowa [née Kościeniówna] that she should respect her husband [literally "to be filled with love towards her spouse"]". In some cases, however, even royal pressure proved ineffective. After the death of her husband Albertas Gostautas (ca. 1480-1539), voivode of Vilnius, his wife Princess Sophia Vasilievna Vereyska (ca. 1490-1549) refused to cede the starostships held by the deceased to the king and sent her servants to occupy them. "That the lady voivodess of Vilnius, as you wrote to us, wants to rule after her husband's death, and with the impudence she displayed before, and now does not want to restrain this crazy and indecent stubbornness", King Sigismund Augustus informed Marshal Radziwill in a letter dated May 14, 1540 from Kraków. In February 1559, in Warsaw, Beata Kościelecka (1515-1576), to escape the persuasions of king Sigismund Augustus, who wanted her daughter Halszka to marry Lutheran Łukasz Górka, hid in the bathhouse (after "Cnoty i wady narodu szlacheckiego ..." by Antoni Górski, p. 38, 57, 64, 72, 78, 88).

Some 16th-century women, such as Zofia Działyńska, wife of the Pomeranian voivode (as expressed in her letter of 1554), opposed the cult of beauty on the part of men.

The figure of Giovanna Bianchetti (1314-1354), a learned woman from Bologna, is very interesting from the point of view of Polish-Italian contacts. Giovanna was the daughter of Matteo Bianchetti of Bologna and the wife of Bonsignore de' Bonsignori, a jurist. Francesco Agostino della Chiesa (1593-1662), later Bishop of Saluzzo (1642), in his book "Theater of Learned Women" published in 1620 in Mondovì, states that Giovanna "wrote and spoke Greek, Latin, German, Bohemian [Czech] and Polish correctly, and was very erudite in matters of philosophy" (scriueua, e parlaua correttamente Greco, Latino, Alamano, Boemio, e Polacco, e fù dottissima nelle cose di Filosofia). What is also very interesting is that among many notable women, the author also mentions Anna Jagiellon, "wife of Steffano Battori [Stephen Bathory], Prince of Transylvania, who, through her, was elected king of that state in 1576. She was a queen endowed with virtues so rare that few ladies equal her, and the kingdom has not had greater ones. For, having been trained by her mother Bona Sforza, who was extremely virtuous in all the exercises of the virtues due to queens, and principally in the Catholic religion, and in the study of letters, especially Latin, she made herself so illustrious and appreciated by her people, that she was deemed worthy of the succession of her ancestors, [...] by her prudence and authority, she brought the affairs of that State back to true tranquility, [...] in the affairs of the State, she wrote with her own hand to the Supreme Pontiff, to the kings of France and Spain, and to the other princes of Christendom, with such a beautiful style and such eloquence, that she was praised and exalted by all, one of the wisest Queens that Christianity had in those times" (Theatro delle donne letterate ..., p. 71-72, 165).

Costumes and works of art

The 15th-century preacher Michał of Janowiec, complaining that the wealthier classes do not like to go to church, also gives an image of an elegant woman: "Mothers know how to dress their daughters for dancing or for a walk, but they cannot dress them for church or buy suitable shoes; they teach them to talk frivolously to men, but they do not know how to pray or confess. [...] a silk dress cut out at the back, chains around the neck; a tight dress [...] a gold ring on each finger; cut-out shoes, barely covering the heel and toes" (after "Zwyczaje towarzyskie w dawnej Polsce" by Wacław Kosiński, p. 50). 

Precious fabrics were not only imported from abroad on special order, but also purchased on the local market, in Gdańsk and other large cities. For example, before the planned departure of Sigismund Augustus to Wrocław for a meeting with Emperor Maximilian II, which did not take place, a large quantity of velvet, silk, satin and cloth was purchased in Lublin on May 16, 1569 for the clothes of the courtiers who were to accompany the king (after "Czarno-białe tkaniny Zygmunta Augusta" by Maria Hennel-Bernasikowa,  p. 40). These were exclusively black and white fabrics and probably made in Italy or Turkey.​

From the late 1530s, a specialization began to develop among the royal suppliers of fabrics. The supplies of expensive fabrics: brocade, cloth of gold, damask, satin, velvet and taffeta interwoven with gold and silver threads were taken over by Kraków merchants of Italian origin, Gaspare Gucci and Simone Lippi, both from Florence, and Foltyn Szwab of German origin. For goods sold in the years 1538-1547, they received sums of almost 1,800 złoty at a time. In the years 1549-1550, Jewish merchants delivered fabrics to the court of Sigismund Augustus for a total value of 2,243 zlotys and 16 groszy, which constituted approximately 28% of the total amount (8,064 zlotys and 266 groszy) spent by the royal treasury during those years for the purchase of various types of fabrics and textile products. Among the Christian royal suppliers of fabrics in the years 1548-1559, the main role was played by the already mentioned Foltyn Szwab from Kraków (until 1559) and Simone Lippi (until 1552), and from 1552 by Bernardo Soderini from Kraków. The share of other Kraków merchants, as well as traders and merchants from Lviv, Poznań, Warsaw and Vilnius and the Italian merchants Fabiano Baldi, Giovanni Evangelista and Galleazzo, a citizen of Kraków, in the deliveries of fabrics to the royal court was less significant (after "Dostawcy dworów królewskich w Polsce i na Litwie ..." by Maurycy Horn, Part II, p. 10, 12).

​Authors like Klemens Janicki (1516-1543), Mikołaj Rej (1505-1569), Krzysztof Opaliński (1609-1655) and Wacław Potocki (1621-1696), condemned the variability of costumes as a national vice (after "Aemulatores Erasmi? ...", p. 253) and index of forbidden books of Bishop Marcin Szyszkowski of 1617 banned a large group of humorous, entertaining, often obscene texts, imbued with ambiguous eroticism, and for these reasons condemned by the counter-reformation and the new model of culture. Later, in 1625, in his "Votum on the improvement of the Commonwealth" (Votvm o naprawie Rzeczypospolitey) Szymon Starowolski railed against the Italian or Italianized women spoiling the youth, effeminacy of men and their reluctance to defend the eastern lands against invasions: "He, whom the caressed Italian courtesans have raised in pillows, being entangled with their gentle words and delicacies, he can't stand the hardships with us". "Well, many bad things are brought to Poland from Italy," comments Łukasz Górnicki (1527-1603) in a conversation between a Pole and an Italian about the judicial system in Sarmatia, without citing specific examples, so it must be related to the overall situation at that time.​

The great diversity of costume dates at least to the time of Sigismund I. Janicki in his poem "On the Variety and Inconstancy of Polish Dress" (In poloni vestibus varietatem et inconstanciam) describes King Ladislaus Jagiello rising from the grave and unable to recognize Poles. Pedro Ruiz de Moros, in his De apparatu nuptiarum ..., states about Sigismund Augustus's first wife, Elizabeth of Austria (1526-1545), that she was dressed in the German style (Teutonicum morem) and that her dress was richly adorned with jewels. He adds, about her entry into Kraków in 1543, that "if she had not known that they were Sarmatians, she would have thought she saw people of all nations. One wears a Spanish costume, another Italian, one pierces the air with his tall head draped in long shawls", so, many of them wore turbans (after "Jagiellonki polskie w XVI. wieku: Obrazy rodziny i dworu Zygmunta ..." by Aleksander Przezdziecki, Volume 1, p. 114). The anonymous author of the German description of the ceremony that accompanied the reception of Archduchess Elizabeth in Kraków and the wedding of the couple that took place there on May 4, written by an eyewitness and probably printed in Nuremberg (Kurtze beschreibung dess einzugs der Jungen Künigin zu Cracaw ...) also adds that "The next day, the fourth of May, the young king left Kraków about an hour before noon with all his lords, knights and nobles, four thousand in number, dressed in every manner, such as: German, Polish, Italian, French, Hungarian, Turkish, Tatar, Spanish, Muscovite, Cossack and Venetian style [stratyotka, stradiòtto - light cavalry of the Republic of Venice, notably Albanian, Greek and Dalmatian], His Royal Majesty in silver-white German robe, on a bay steed that was covered with a magnificent tack with pearls on his back and front, and magnificently dressed, arrived a quarter of a mile from the town, where there were three red tents pitched on a meadow" (after "Biblioteka Warszawska ...", Volume 3 [XXXI, 1848], p. 634). The scene of the "Ennoblement of the progenitor of the Odrowąż family by the emperor", a miniature from the Liber geneseos illustris familiae Schidloviciae, created by Stanisław Samostrzelnik before 1532 (Kórnik Library, MK 3641) and evidently inspired by the court of Sigismund I the Old, confirms this diversity of costumes, including the popularity of turbans.

Mikołaj Rej in his "Life of the Honest Man" (Żywot człowieka poczciwego), published in 1568, writes about "elaborate Italian and Spanish inventions, those strange coats [...] he will order the tailor to make him what they wear today. And I also hear in other countries, when you happen to paint [describe] every nation, then they paint a Pole naked and put the cloth in front of him with scissors, cut yourself as you deign". Venetian-born Polish writer Alessandro Guagnini dei Rizzoni (Aleksander Gwagnin), attributes this to the habit of Poles of visiting the most distant and diverse countries, from which foreign costumes and customs were brought to their homeland - "One can see in Poland, costumes of various nations, especially Italian, Spanish, and Hungarian, which is more common than others" (after "Obraz wieku panowania Zygmunta III ..." by Franciszek Siarczyński, p. 71). 

​Queen Bona is credited with introducing the Italian-style tight-fitting bodices with wide square necklines and outfits complemented with numerous jewels. She gifted Polish women with Italian fabrics, allowing some of them to use the services of royal tailors. The queen employed many Italian tailors, embroiderers and goldsmiths. From 1518, Stefano and his assistant Alessandro worked for Bona and later Pietro Patriarcha (Patriarca) from Bari and Francesco Nardozzi (Nardocci, Nardazzi) from Naples. Ladies, especially those close to the court, imitating the way Italian women dressed, began to replace unattractive dresses with much more colourful dresses more abundantly decorated with various applications and embroideries (after "Bona Sforza d'Aragona i rola mody w kształtowaniu jej wizerunku" by Agnieszka Bender, p. 48). Patriarcha, who remained in the service of the queen from about 1524 until her departure from Poland, joined the court of Sigismund Augustus in 1556 and adopted the law of the city of Kraków in the same year. He married the townswoman Jadwiga Irzykowa. He sewed for Queen Bona, Princess Hedwig, Princess Isabella and Sigismund Augustus, as well as for the ladies-in-waiting. In 1533 he had a lawsuit with the Kraków townswoman Anna Zapalina Brunowska, from whom he demanded the restitution of 32 florins. In the late 1530s, Nardozzi, who in 1529 received the citizenship of Kraków, had a years-long legal dispute with Jadwiga Kaletniczka and her son Erazm Ber, which reached the king (after "Działalność Włochów w Polsce ..." by Danuta Quirini-Popławska, p. 58-59).

Since her betrothal, many Italian poets have praised the Polish queen. Their appreciation of her virtues seems to have increased in the 1540s, when in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia the queen's opponents increasingly criticized her actions. A 1542 poem dedicated to Bona by Giovan Battista Nenna, a fellow countryman from Bari, praises her as the embodiment of princely qualities, endowed with "infinite providence, the highest justice, ... wise counsel, clemency, mercy, devoutness, faith, liberality, greatness of soul, humanity, doctrine, and learning". The writer and editor Lodovico Domenichi dedicated the first part of his "Poems" (Rime) of 1544 to her, presenting her as both maternal and noble, a unifying figure meant to alleviate "the bitterness of [Italy's] present woes" and the sharp-tongued Pietro Aretino sought Bona's patronage by presenting her as a national icon, as "the light of Italian women" and "the hope" of Italy itself (after "Twenty-Five Women Who Shaped the Italian Renaissance" by Meredith K. Ray, p. 71).

With Sarmatians visiting Italy so frequently, Italian settlement, customs and clothing, also the fashion for hair dyeing, particularly the "art of bleaching" (l'arte biondeggiante), became widespread in Poland-Lithuania. Szymon Starowolski (1588-1656) is said to have asserted that women "adopt all the habits of European matrons and adapt them to their own country, as it pleases them, no matter rich or poor" (omnes Europaearum matronarum habitus sibi usurpant, et ad suum patrium accommodant, prout cuique tam diviti, quam pauperi libet). Already in 1456 Barbara of Brandenburg (1422-1481), Marchioness of Mantua sent to Bianca Maria Visconti (1425-1468), Duchess of Milan, three bottles of water from Florence (d'acqua di Fiorenza) which had the property of making her hair blonde and this fashion was so widespread in Renaissance Italy that contemporaries were often heard exclaiming: "in the entire peninsula, there is not one brunette to be found" (compare "A History of Women in the West ..." by Georges Duby, ‎Michelle Perrot, ‎Pauline Schmitt Pantel, p. 62). The light blonde hair of a half-naked lady depicted as the Roman heroine Lucretia in a painting by Venetian painter Vincenzo Catena, or his studio, from the first quarter of the 16th century (Sotheby's London, April 24, 2007, lot 207), could be considered a good example of this practice. Hair dyeing was also popular among men in the second half of the 15th century, as confirmed by the Croatian-Hungarian Latinist Janus Pannonius (1434-1472), in his poem Ad Galeottum Narniensem.

According to Flavio Ruggieri, women outside the court were "not very beautiful, but kind and charming, rather thin than fat, it is a great shame for them to add charms by artificial means or to dye their hair; they are busy with housework, they go on errands in town just like German women", while Łukasz Górnicki (1527-1603) complained that "our Polish women are not as educated as Italian women" and that they do not tolerate more daring conversations (bo ani nasze Polki są tak uczone jako Włoszki, ani drugich rzeczy, które owdzie są, cirpiećby ich uszy nie mogły). 

Works of art were commissioned from the best masters in Europe - silverware and jewelry in Nuremberg and Augsburg, paintings and fabrics in Venice and Flanders, armours in Nuremberg and Milan and other centers. For the tapestries representing the Deluge (about 5 pieces) commissioned in Flanders by Sigismund II Augustus in the early 1550s, considered one of the finest in Europe, the king paid the staggering sum of 60,000 (or 72,000) ducats. More than a century later, in 1665, their value was estimated at 1 million florins, while the Żywiec land at 600,000 thalers and the richly equipped Casimir Palace in Warsaw at 400,000 florins (after "Kolekcja tapiserii ..." by Ryszard Szmydki, p. 105). It was only a small part of the rich collection of fabrics of the Jagiellons, some of which were also acquired in Persia (like the carpets purchased in 1533 and 1553). Made of precious silk and woven with gold, they were much more valued than paintings. "The average price of a smaller rug on the 16th-century Venetian market was around 60 to 80 ducats, which was equal to the price for an altarpiece commissioned from a famous painter or even for an entire polyptych by a less-known master" (after "Jews and Muslims Made Visible ...", p. 213). In 1586, second-hand rug in Venice cost 85 ducats and 5 soldi and wall hangings bought from Flemish merchants 116 ducats, 5 lire and 8 soldi (after "Marriage in Italy, 1300-1650", p. 37). Around that time, in 1584, Tintoretto was only paid 20 ducats for a large painting of Adoration of the Cross (275 x 175 cm) with 6 figures for the church of San Marcuola and 49 ducats in 1588 for an altarpiece showing Saint Leonard with more then 5 figures for the Saint Mark's Basilica in Venice. In 1564 Titian informed King Philip II of Spain that he would have to pay 200 ducats for an autograph replica of the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, but that he could have one by the workshop for just 50 ducats (after "Tintoretto ..." by Tom Nichols, p. 89, 243). The lesser value of the paintings meant that they were not so prominently displayed in inventories and correspondence.

​The royal collections in Spain were largely unaffected by major military conflicts, so many paintings as well as related letters were retained. Perhaps we will never know how many letters Titian sent to the monarchs of Poland-Lithuania, if any. When Poland regained independence in 1918 and quickly began to rebuild the devastated interiors of Wawel Royal Castle, there was no effigy of any monarch inside (possibly except for a portrait of a ruling Emperor of Austria, as the building served the military). In 1919, the systematic collection of museum collections for Wawel began (after "Rekonstrukcja i kreacja w odnowie Zamku na Wawelu" by Piotr M. Stępień, p. 39).

Antonio Niccolo Carmignano (Colantonio Carmignano, Parthenopeus Suavius), treasurer of Queen Bona Sforza from 1518, described the richness of the furnishings of Wawel Castle before 1525 (Viaggio de la Serenissima S. Donna Bona Regina ...) - the entrance to the first floor was via a wide staircase, to the left were the rooms decorated with many beautiful tapestries and fabrics. The second corridor led to the royal apartment, decorated with gold cloth. On the second floor there was a huge hall richly paneled with wood, full of sculptures, often gilded. The adjacent room was hung with tapestries, the next one was covered with brocade (probably a throne room), its beautiful floor was covered with red cloth. Against the background of a wall covered with a thick gold-woven fabric, there was a throne under a canopy. In another corridor there were four more rooms decorated with tapestries and brocades, two of them also having gilded fireplaces and carved wooden doors, framed by stone portals. In the rooms reserved for the coronation feast there were magnificent sideboards with impressive gold and silver tableware (after "Jan Zambocki: dworzanin i sekretarz JKM" by Kazimierz Hartleb, p. 22). Justus Ludwik Decjusz added about the royal bed that it was "very delicately constructed" and "covered with red gold on top, decorated on all sides with the art of painting" (delicatissime extructum [...] aureisque rossis desuper tectum, pictorum artifìcio undique decoratum).

Historical collections

The preserved inventories of the Lubomirski collection in Wiśnicz and the Radziwill collection of the Birzai branch, which survived the Deluge, confirm the great diversity and high class of the Polish-Lithuanian painting collections. The Venetian school and Cranach's workshop are particularly well represented.

​Inventories drawn up in 1671 in Königsberg list the huge fortune inherited by the princess Louise Charlotte Radziwill (1667-1695) from her father Boguslaus Radziwill (1620-1669), whose estates were compared by contemporaries to "Mantua, Modena and other smaller states in Italy". Among over 900 paintings in the inventory, there were portraits, mythological and biblical scenes by Lucas Cranach (24 items) along "The Face of Jesus by Albert Duer", i.e. Albrecht Dürer, and a "painting of Pawel Caliaro", that is Paolo Caliari known as Veronese, about 25 Italian paintings, several portraits of unknown Italian, German, and French ladies and gentlemen, paintings with "naked" and "half-naked" women, Ruthenian and Russian icons, a Greek altar and one "Spanish Fantasy". Portraits of members of the Radziwill family, Polish kings from John I Albert (1459-1501), more than 20 effigies of the Vasas and their families, German emperors, kings of Sweden, France, England and Spain and various foreign personalities, collected over several generations, constituted the dominant part of over 300 pieces in the inventory (after "Galerie obrazów i "Gabinety Sztuki" Radziwiłłów w XVII w." by Teresa Sulerzyska, p. 90).

The inventory also lists many paintings that may be by Cranach the Elder and his son or 16th-century Venetian or Netherlandish painters: A lady in a white robe, with jewels, a crown on her head (71), A lady in a lynx coat in black, a dog by her side (72), A lady in a czamara, a diamond crown on her head with pearls, holding gloves (73), A beautiful lady in a pearl dress and a robe embroidered with pearls (80), A woman who stabbed herself with a knife (292), A woman, semi-circular picture at the top (293), A man of this shape, perhaps the husband of this woman (294), Dido who stabbed herself with a knife (417), A large image of Venice (472), Lucretia who stabbed herself, golden frames (690), A naked lady who stabbed herself, golden frames (691), A well-dressed lady with a child, on panel (692), A lady in a red robe who stabbed herself (693), Small picture: a German with a naked woman (embracing, naked boys serve) (737), A person with a long beard, in black, inscription An° 1553 etatis 47 (753), A lady under the tent showed her breast (840), Venus with Cupid bitten by bees (763), two portraits of Barbara Radziwill, Queen of Poland (79 and 115) and a portrait of King Sigismund Augustus of Poland, on panel (595) (after "Inwentarz galerii obrazów Radziwiłłów z XVII w." by Teresa Sulerzyska). The inventory also includes several nude and erotic paintings and this is only a part of splendid collections of the Radziwills that survived the Deluge (1655-1660).

Perhaps the paintings owned by a citizen of Kraków Melchior Czyżewski (d. 1542): Tabula Judith et Herodiadis ex utraque parte depicta and by Kraków councilor Jan Pavioli in 1655: "bathing Bathsheba", "Judith", "portrait of Christian, king of Denmark", "the duke of Saxony", had something in common with the Wittenberg workshop. In the collection of King John II Casimir Vasa, Bona Sforza's grandson, sold at an auction in Paris in 1672, there was Cranach's Madonna and Child (Une Vierge avec un petit Christ, peint sur bois. Original de Lucas Cronus), possibly bearing features of his famous grandmother. King Stanislaus Augustus (1732-1798), had 6 paintings by Cranach and his workshop, one of St. Jerome, the other five on mythological subjects: Venus et l'Amour sur bois (no. 941), Pyrame et Thisbe (no. 912), Venus Couchee (no. 913), Venus surprise avec Mars (no. 914), Venus et Mars (no. 915).

Before the First World War, in the collection of the splendid Baroque Pidhirtsi Castle near Lviv in Ukraine, which belonged to the Koniecpolski, Sobieski, Rzewuski and Sanguszko families, there were five paintings considered to be originals or copies of Titian's works - The Creation of Eve, Galatea, The Doge of Venice, Venus and Cupid and Venus and Adonis (after "Dzieje rezydencji na dawnych kresach Rzeczypospolitej" by Roman Aftanazy, Volume 7, p. 464, 479). In 1842, in the Tyzenhauz (Tiesenhausen) Palace in Pastavy, Belarus, there were "Adam and Eve under the forbidden tree in paradise, a barbaric hand sawed off the lower half of this painting on wood by Albrecht Dürer", Judith by Andrea del Sarto and "Portrait of a man, half-figure, life-size. Magnificent Spanish costume, ruff, background of red drapery - Tintoretto", as well as two paintings considered to be works by Paolo Veronese - The Illness of Antiochus and The Continence of Scipio (after "Galeria obrazów Postawska" by Aleksander Przezdziecki, p. 196-197, 200, items 4, 5, 6, 9, 32).​ Before World War II, in the Rzewuski Palace in Pohrebyshche, Ukraine, there was a painting by Titian depicting the "half-reclining woman with a jug of water beside her" and two magnificent paintings by the Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (after "Materiały do ​​​​dziejów rezydencji ..." by Roman Aftanazy, Volume 1, p. 279). In the Lubomirski Palace in Przeworsk, filled with national memorabilia, there was a painting by Titian depicting the "Madonna" (after "Zbiory polskie ..." by Edward Chwalewik, Volume 2, p. 131). Unfortunately, this palace was plundered during World War II.​

​Many Venetian, Italian and German paintings were exhibited in Warsaw in the Bruhl Palace in 1880, some of these may have originally been in the royal collection: Lucas Cranach - Old man with a young girl (35, Museum), Jacopo Bassano - Vulcan forging the arrows (43, Museum), Moretto da Brescia - Madonna with Saint Roch and Saint Anne (51, Museum), Gentile Bellini - Christ after being taken down from the cross, surrounded by saints (66, Museum), Tintoretto - Baptism of Christ (71, 81, Museum), School of Paolo Veronese - Temptation of Saint Anthony (84, Museum), Jacopo Bassano - Adoration of the Shepherds, property of Countess Kossakowska (4, room D), School of Titian - Baptism of Christ, property of Countess Maria Łubieńska (6, room D), Giovanni Bellini - Madonna, property of Count Stanisław Plater-Zyberk (75, room D), Bernardo Luini - Christ and Saint John, property of Mrs. Chrapowicka (76, room D), Bassano - Bible scene, property of Mrs. Rusiecka (19, room E), Venetian school - Historical Item: Feast of the Kings, property of Jan Sulatycki (2, room F), Lucas Cranach - Reclining Nymph, property of Jan Sulatycki (35, room F) (after "Katalog obrazów starożytnych …" by Józef Unger).

Other important paintings by Cranach and his workshop related to Poland and most likely the royal court include Stigmatisation of Saint Francis, created in about 1502-1503, today in the Belvedere in Vienna (inventory number 1273), in Poland, probably already in the 16th century and in the 19th century in the collection of the Szembek family in Zawada near Myślenice, comparable to paintings by Italian masters Gentile da Fabriano (Magnani-Rocca Foundation) or Lorenzo di Credi (Musée Fesch), the Massacre of the Innocents in the National Museum in Warsaw (M.Ob.587), which was in about 1850 in the Regulski collection in Warsaw, portrait of Princess Sibylle of Cleves (1512-1554) as a bride from the Skórzewski collection, signed with artist's insignia and dated "1526" (National Museum in Poznań, lost), portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony, husband of Barbara Jagiellon (Polish Academy of Learning in Kraków, deposit at Wawel Castle​), alleged portrait of Henry IV the Pious, Duke of Saxony (Frąckiewicz collection, lost) and miniature portrait of Katharina von Bora "the Lutheress" (collection of Leandro Marconi in Warsaw, destroyed in 1944) (paritally after "Polskie Cranachiana" by Wanda Drecka). In 1900, Seweryn Tymieniecki (1847-1916) had in his collection in Kalisz a portrait of Elector Frederick III of Saxony (1463-1525) with the imperial crown, painted on panel by a follower of Cranach (Exhibition held at the Kalisz Town Hall in May and June 1900, National Library of Poland, F.84013/IV).​ Ukrainian magnate Volodyslav Valentyn Fedorovich (1845-1917) owned in his palace in Vikno near Ternopil many paintings by Polish painters of the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as about 300 paintings by good Italian and Flemish schools of the 16th and 17th centuries, while the painting "The Old Man and the Girl" (The Ill-Matched Couple) was considered an original by Cranach the Elder (after "Materiały do dziejów rezydencji ..." by Roman Aftanazy, Volume 8a, p. 145). Christ blessing the children by Lucas Cranach the Elder at Wawel Castle (ZKnW-PZS 1716), was acquired in 1922 by the director of the State Art Collections in Warsaw from Ignacy Dubowski (1874-1953), bishop of Lutsk, who probably acquired it in former territories of Poland-Lithuania or in St. Petersburg. Before 1924, Count Zygmunt Włodzimierz Skórzewski (1894-1974) donated to the Greater Poland Museum (now the National Museum) in Poznań, in addition to the aforementioned portrait of Sibylle of Cleves, also the portrait of Emperor Charles V by Cranach the Elder (inv. Mo 473) and a fragment of a hunting scene, attributed to Cranach the Younger (after "Muzeum Wielkopolskie w Poznaniu" by Marian Gumowski, ‎Feliks Kopera, p. 14-15), which was lost during the Second World War. The Nativity from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder in the National Museum in Poznań (inv. Mo 108) comes from the Zaborowski collection in Mchówek near Konin and Włocławek.

The epitaph of Jan Sakran (Sacranus, 1443-1527) from Oświęcim, court theologian and confessor of the Jagiellonian kings: John Albert, Alexander and Sigismund I, is a good example of how quickly Cranach's art reached Poland-Lithuania. The painting, now in the Museum of the Missionary Fathers in Kraków, was probably painted shortly before or after Jan's death, i.e. around 1527 (tempera on panel, 144.5 x 133 cm). Originally it was located in the Holy Trinity Chapel of Wawel Cathedral, founded by Queen Sophia of Halshany (died 1461), Jogaila's fourth wife, and hung above the deceased's unpreserved bronze tombstone. In the first half of the 18th century the epitaph was transferred to the Missionary Monastery in Stradom (after "Wawel 1000-2000: wystawa jubileuszowa" by Magdalena Piwocka, p. 83). The style of the painting indicates the local Kraków workshop, but the painter used the composition of Cranach's painting, dated around 1525 - The Man of Sorrows with the Virgin and Saint John. The painting by the German master is now in the Stadtmuseum Baden-Baden (on permanent loan by Baden-Baden Collegiate Church) and must have been created in several copies, one of which also arrived in Silesia, because it was borrowed by an unknown painter in a scene with a donor, now in the Archdiocesan Museum in Wrocław. The Kraków master was also inspired by Cranach's style and colours, especially in the way he painted the trees in the background, the sky and the landscape, which means that he must have seen Cranach's original painting, but his individual style prevails in the epitaph. If we assume that the approximate dating of the Baden-Baden painting is correct, then Cranach's painting became well known in Kraków within just two years.

In 1592, Jan Ponętowski (ca. 1540-1598) bequeathed to the Kraków Academy (Jagiellonian University) a rich and valuable collection of books, prints, paintings, liturgical vestments, tapestries and abbot's insignia. Born in the village of Ponętów near Łęczyca, he received in 1577 from Emperor Rudolf II the dignity of abbot of the Hradisko Monastery near Olomouc. In 1588 or 1589, he returned to Poland and settled permanently in Kraków. The list of items donated to the Kraków Academy, drawn up by Ponętowski himself, dated May 11, 1592, opens with the most valuable works of art, which have not survived, including Flemish tapestries described as tapecie […] virides Flandricae, 14 of them (of different sizes) and 26 Flemish paintings on canvas, as well as 7 less defined paintings on panel. The Flemish paintings and tapestries were probably acquired by Ponętowski while he was abbot in Moravia or after his return to Poland. Since the tapestries were usually decorated with coats of arms, they were probably commissioned by Ponętowski in Flanders. The majority of the books are bound in valuable artistic bindings, most of them dating from the 1580s with supralibros of Ponętowski. Since the University collection contains objects bearing Ponętowski's ownership marks that are not included in the 1592 list, this donation was not the only one (after "The Collection of Jan Ponętowski" by Piotr Hordyński, p. 138-139, 143). His donation also contains two albums of woodcuts by Cranach, which illustrate the priceless contents of two treasures: the collegiate church of All Saints in Wittenberg Castle from 1509 (Dye zaigung des hochlobwirdigen hailigthums der Stifft kirchen aller hailigen zu Wittenburg) and the churches of St. Maurice and Mary Magdalene in Halle from 1520 (Vortzeichnus und Zceigung des hochlobwirdigen heiligthumbs der Stifftkirchen der Heiligen Sanct Moritz und Marien Magdalenen zu Halle, Jagiellonian Library, Cim. 5746-5747).

Notable imports from Saxony to Gdańsk, the main port of Sarmatia, before the mid-16th century include the Altar of the Coronation of Mary founded by the Butchers' Guild for the Church of St. Catherine in the Old Town, created around 1515, whose main carved scene is based on a woodcut by Lucas Cranach from 1509, while the painted figures of Saints Christopher, Roch, Peter and Paul on the altar wings, as well as female saints in the lower part are believed to be products of Cranach's workshop. Before World War II, in the Church of Corpus Christi in Gdańsk there were portraits of Luther and Melanchthon from 1534, of which only the portrait of Melanchthon has survived (National Museum, inv. MNG/SD/4/MED). The epitaph of the family of Johann III Connert in the form of a triptych in St. Mary's Church in Gdańsk, painted in 1556, is considered to have technical similarities with the works of Cranach's workshop (after "Commemoration and Family Identity in Sixteenth-Century Gdańsk ..." by Aleksandra Jaśniewicz-Downes, p. 214).

Cranach, his collaborators and followers also depicted Sarmatians in their traditional costumes, albeit often in a pejorative manner, as unbelievers in religious scenes, such as the Crucifixion in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv. 6905) in which the costume of one of the horsemen is clearly Sarmatian or generally eastern (compare "Studien zur Frühzeit Lukas Cranachs d.Ä." by Fedja Anzelewsky, p. 125). The costumes of two horsemen in the Crucifixion of 1549 by Antonius Heusler (ca. 1500-1561), a follower of Cranach, now in the Salzburg Museum (inv. 123-29), signed with the monogram AH and dated lower right, are also Sarmatian. A painting by Heusler depicting the Allegory of Salvation with a naked man (Adam) standing before the crucified Christ, probably connected with the spread of Protestantism in Poland-Lithuania-Ruthenia, is in the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. M.Ob.2151). Typically Sarmatian are also the fur hats of the men on the left of the scene of Christ and the Adulteress by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop, painted around 1520, today kept in the Franconian Gallery in Kronach (inv. 692) and in the Cathedral Museum in Fulda. The painting in the Franconian Gallery comes from the collection of Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria (1573-1651), and when Aleksander Lesser (1814-1884), a Polish painter of Jewish origin, saw this painting in the Pinakothek in Munich, most likely during his studies there between 1835 and 1846, he also noticed the eastern character of the man's hat and left a drawing of him, now in the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. DI 31735 MNW). The same can be said of the epitaph of Franz von Nostitz (d. 1576) in the village church of Klix in Wulka Dubrawa (Grossdubrau) in East Saxony, painted by the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1576 with portraits of the deceased, his wife and children as donors and several figures in eastern costumes.

Venetian links

The 2020 temporary exhibition at the Royal Castle in Warsaw - "Dolabella. Venetian Painter of the House of Vasa" (September 11 - December 6) was dedicated not only to the life and work of Tommaso Dolabella (1570-1650), but also to the economic and artistic relations between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Republic of Venice.
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This exhibition and its catalogue recall the Polish students at the University of Padua, including Copernicus, Jan Kochanowski and Jan Zamoyski, who created a separate Natio regni Poloniae et magni ducatus Lithuaniae at the end of the 16th century, as well as the supply of grain and the export of Polish cochineal. In 1591, Marco Ottoboni, secretary of the Venetian Senate, stayed in Gdańsk and in the autumn of 1591 concluded a major transaction for the purchase of Polish grain and the organization of a complicated maritime transport to Venice. Although Ottoboni conducted the transaction with the help of Nuremberg bankers, the first phase of the negotiations involved the Montelupi trading house from Kraków, which granted the Venetian Republic a large loan, which was placed at Ottoboni's disposal in Gdańsk.

Important imports included books, glassware and luxury goods. The publishing house of the Manutius family, active between 1494 and 1585, maintained intensive contacts with Poland throughout most of the 16th century. Missale secundum ritum insignis ecclesie cathedralis Cracouiensis with coat of arms of Piotr Tomicki (1464-1535), Archbishop of Kraków and Vice-Chancellor of the Crown, Saint Stanislaus and Saint Florian, published by Peter Liechtenstein in Venice in 1532 (National Library of Poland, SD XVI.F.31) and Partitura pro organo by Mikołaj Zieleński, published at the publishing house of Giacomo Vincenti in Venice in 1611 (Czartoryski Library in Kraków, 40102 III/1 Saf.), are the best examples of books published in the Serenissima. Many individual books were purchased in Venice by Polish bibliophiles travelling in Italy, as evidenced by the provenance notes preserved in many copies, which provide information, sometimes very precise, on the date and place of purchase, such as the register of the buyer, probably Paweł Henik, in Italian, from 1614, who purchased in Venice the Etymologicum Magnum, printed there in 1499. Venetian "health passport", issued on September 9, 1578 to "Mr. Nikodem, a Polish nobleman from [...] numbering 2, with goods", found in one of these books, is further confirmation (Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, BJ Cam. M. IX. 46 (a)).

Luxurious Venetian bindings also enjoyed considerable popularity in Poland and the binding of a copy of Missale secundum ritum ... with a super ex-libris of Bishop Tomicki (Cathedral Chapter Library in Łowicz), executed by Andrea di Lorenzo, dubbed the "Mendoza Binder", who was active in Venice between 1518 and 1555, is the best example. 

The 1544 inventory of the Kraków pharmacy at Main Square 8, owned by Franciszek Scheinborn, whose father was referred to by profession as a vitreator (stained glass artisan), mention large quantities of Venetian glass (vitra venetiana) – in this particular case over 250 vessels, probably imported from Venice by the owner of the pharmacy, who may also have been an intermediary in this field. Scheinborn also placed four Venetian majolica bowls (scutellae de terra Veneziana quatuor pictae in fenestra) in the window of his pharmacy – undoubtedly for decoration, but also perhaps for advertising purposes. A few examples of expensive Venetian silk fabrics, such as velvets and brocades used to sew liturgical vestments, have been preserved, among others, in the treasury of the Wawel Cathedral and the National Museum in Gdańsk (objects from the St. Mary's Basilica in Gdańsk).

It is possible that the altar with scenes of the Annunciation, the Crucifixion and Noli me tangere and figures of saints, made of bone at the beginning of the 15th century in the Embriachi workshop in Venice (Diocesan Museum in Sandomierz, inv. MDS-3/Dep.), was imported to Poland already in the 15th century.

As Venice was at that time an important centre of pictorial production, many paintings were commissioned and acquired there, but unfortunately the sources on this subject are very modest. According to Władysław Tomkiewicz (1899-1982), paintings by Titian, Paris Bordone and Paolo Veronese were undoubtedly in the collection of Sigismund II Augustus, and he cites one specific work, which could have been in the royal collections in the 16th century, the now lost painting "Christ at the Feast of Simon the Pharisee", attributed to the workshop of Veronese, which was in a private collection near Vilnius before the Second World War.

The exhibition catalog also refers, although not directly, to an important and largely forgotten phenomenon of cryptoportraiture citing the portrait of the Byzantine cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472), Catholic theologian and humanist, depicted as Saint Augustine in his study by the Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio in 1502 (Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni in Venice, compare "Dolabella. Wenecki malarz Wazów. Katalog wystawy", ed. Magdalena Białonowska, p. 28, 29, 42, 44-49, 158, 174). Given that the portrait was made two decades after the cardinal's death and shows him as a relatively young man, it is also a perfect example of creating an effigy from other portraits (paintings, miniatures, drawings, sculptures or reliefs).

​Among the paintings evacuated to New York around September 1939 and exhibited in 1940 by the European Art Galleries, Inc. "to help to maintain the exhibit of Poland at the World's Fair", the Venetian School of painting is particularly well represented. Most come from the Łańcut collection, as well as Potocki collection in Tulchyn (after "Tajemnicza kolekcja Starych Mistrzów" by Przemysław Jan Bloch, p. 9). Although some of them are now considered incorrectly attributed, they were, by and large, created by painters active mainly in the territories belonging to the Republic of Venice or trained in Venice. The catalog of this exhibition includes paintings by Giovanni Bellini (Madonna and Child with Four Saints and a Donor, item 40), Vincenzo Catena (Madonna and Child, item 35), Paris Bordone (Portrait of a Lady [Laura Effrem], item 20), Lorenzo Lotto, now attributed to Giovanni Cariani (Portrait of a Man [Stanisław Lubomirski (d. 1585)], item 23), Titian (Portrait of Aretino, item 19), Moretto da Brescia (Portrait of a Gentleman [Marco Antonio Savelli], item 24), Tintoretto (A Venetian Doge [Pietro Gradenigo (1251-1311)], item 15), Sebastiano del Piombo (The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, item 44), Jacopo Bassano (The Agony in the Garden, item 39), Paolo Veronese (The betrothal of Mary and Joseph, item 30), Palma il Giovane (The Last Supper, item 26), Tintoretto, now attributed to Palma il Giovane (The Woman Taken in Adultery [Susanna and the Elders], item 13), Domenico Tintoretto (Portrait of a Nobleman [Tomasz Zamoyski (1594-1638)], item 37) and Carlo Ceresa (Portrait of a Lady, item 22, National Library of Poland, DŻS XIXA 3a).

Portraits from abroad and based on other effigies

From the perspective of the Renaissance artist's travels and drawing inspiration from the works of other painters, three watercolors by Albrecht Dürer depicting Livonian women, preserved in the Louvre in Paris (inv. 19 DR/ Recto; 20 DR/ Recto; 21 DR/ Recto), are interesting. In 1521, according to the date on two of them, the painter depicted six wealthy women from the present-day territories of Estonia and Latvia, dressed in their characteristic traditional dresses, lined with precious furs (reichen frawen in Eiffland / Eyflant, according to Dürer's annotations). It is not known exactly how and where the painter met these women, as he probably never visited Livonia. In 1520, he went to Cologne, and then to Antwerp, where he lived on a street frequented by English merchants. As in the case of a similar drawing depicting a group of five Irish soldiers and two barefoot "peasants" (Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, inv. KdZ 37), he either had occasion to see the women in Antwerp or elsewhere during his journey, or he copied these models from a collection of costumes circulating at the time. 

The bill from 1531 confirms that the drawing made by Sigismund I's court painter Hans Dürer in Kraków and sent to Nuremberg was sufficient to create the silver altar in Sigismund's Chapel (Exposita extraordinaria in aedificia Capellae Regiae et castri Cracoviensis 1531: Item dedi pro tele ulnis 21, super qua deliniamentum alias visirungk tabulae Nurembergae argenteae fabricandae depictum est ... Item dedi Johanni Durer pictori Regis a labore et pictura dicti deliniamenti ..., after "Peter Flötner: ein Bahnbrecher der deutschen Renaissance ..." by Konrad Lange, p. 86).

In Modena in 1570, Ludovico Monti, agent of Sigismund Augustus, mediated in ordering a medal with a bust of the king from a renowned sculptor, most probably Leone Leoni (d. 1590), "but the poor fellow despairs because he has never seen Your Majesty and cannot find any portrait of Your Majesty in profile as is needed, since mine and Soderini's are frontal representations and were made sixteen years ago, and it will be difficult to be satisfied with these" (ma il poverino si dispera perché non ha mai veduto Vostra Maestà et non trova alcuno ritratto di Vostra Maestà in profilo come bisognaria, che il mio et quello del Soderini sono in faccia et sono fatti già XVI anni sono, et male potrà sodisfare con questi, after "Lodovicus Montius Mutinensis ..." by Rita Mazzei, p. 37), Monti complained to the king. ​

​The practice of creating portraits for clients from the territories of present-day Poland from study drawings can be attested from at least the early 16th century. The oldest known is the so-called "Book of effigies" (Visierungsbuch), which was lost during World War II. This was a collection of preparatory drawings depicting the Pomeranian dukes, who were related to the Jagiellons, mainly by Cranach's workshop. Among the oldest were portraits of Boguslaus X (1454-1523), Duke of Pomerania and his daughter-in-law Amalia of the Palatinate (1490-1524) by circle of Albrecht Dürer, created after 1513. All were probably made by members of the workshop sent to Pomerania or less likely by local artists and returned to patrons with ready effigies.

On the occasion of the division of Pomerania in 1541 with his uncle Duke Barnim XI (IX), Duke Philip I commissioned a portrait from Lucas Cranach the Younger. This portrait, dated in upper left corner, is now in the National Museum in Szczecin, while the preparatory drawing, previously attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger or Albrecht Dürer, is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims. A monogramist I.S. from Cranach's workshop used the same set of study drawings to create another similar portrait of the duke, now in the Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg.

Studies for the portraits of Princess Margaret of Pomerania (1518-1569) and Anne of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1502-1568), wife of Barnim XI (IX), both dating from around 1545, were meticulously described by a member of the workshop sent to Pomerania to create them indicating colors, fabrics, shapes to facilitate work in the artist's studio. Undoubtedly, based on similar drawings, Cranach's workshop created miniatures of the Jagiellons in the Czartoryski Museum. In the 1620s a court painter of Sigismund III Vasa created drawings or miniatures after which Peter Paul Rubens painted the portrait of the king (Heinz Kisters collection in Kreuzlingen), most likely as one of a series. The same court painter painted the full-length portrait of Sigismund at Wilanów Palace. Between 1644-1650 Jonas Suyderhoef, a Dutch engraver, active in Haarlem, created a print with effigy of Ladislaus IV Vasa after a painting by Pieter Claesz. Soutman (P. Soutman Pinxit Effigiavit et excud / I. Suÿderhoef Sculpsit) and around that time Soutman, also active in Haarlem, created a similar drawing with king's effigy (Albertina in Vienna).

After the destructive Deluge (1655-1660), the country slowly recovered and the most important foreign orders were mainly silverware, including a large silver Polish eagle, the heraldic base for the royal crown, created by Abraham I Drentwett and Heinrich Mannlich in Augsburg, most likely for the coronation of Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki in 1669, now in the Moscow Kremlin.

Foreign commissions for portraits revived more significantly during the reign of John III Sobieski. French painters such as Pierre Mignard, Henri Gascar and Alexandre-François Desportes (a brief stay in Poland, between 1695 and 1696), active mainly in Paris, are frequently credited as authors of portraits of members of the Sobieski family. Dutch painter Adriaen van der Werff, must have painted the 1696 portrait of Hedwig Elisabeth of Neuburg, wife of James Louis Sobieski, in Rotterdam or Düsseldorf, where he was active. The same Jan Frans van Douven, active in Düsseldorf from 1682, who made several effigies of James Louis and his wife.

In the Library of the University of Warsaw preserved a preparatory drawing by Prosper Henricus Lankrink or a member of his workshop from about 1676 for a series of portraits of John III (Coninck in Polen conterfeyt wie hy in woonon ...), described in Dutch with the colors and names of the fabrics (violet, wit satin). Lankrink and his studio probably created them all in Antwerp as his stay in Poland is not confirmed.

A few years later, around 1693, Henri Gascar, who after 1680 moved from Paris to Rome, painted a realistic apotheosis of John III Sobieski surrounded by his family, depicting the king, his wife, their daughter and their three sons. A French engraver Benoît Farjat, active in Rome, made a print from this original painting which has probably not survived, dated '1693' (Romae Superiorum licentia anno 1693) lower left and signed in Latin upper right: "H. Gascar painted, Benoît Farjat engraved" (H. GASCAR PINX. / BENEDICTVS FARIAT SCVLP.). Two workshop copies of this painting are known - one in Wawel Castle in Kraków, and the other, most likely from a dowry of Teresa Kunegunda Sobieska, is in the Munich Residence. Such a realistic depiction of the family must have been based on study drawings created in Poland, as Gascar's stay in Poland is not confirmed in the sources.

The French painter Nicolas de Largillière, probably worked in Paris on the portrait of Franciszek Zygmunt Gałecki (1645-1711), today in the State Museum in Schwerin.

Also one of the most famous portraits in Polish collections - Equestrian portrait of Count Stanisław Kostka Potocki by Jacques Louis David from 1781 was created "remotely". A collection catalogue of the Wilanów Palace, published in 1834 mentioned that the portrait was completed in Paris "after a sketch made from life in the Naples Riding School". One of such modello or ricordo drawings is in the National Library of Poland (R.532/III).

It was the same for the statues and reliefs with portraits. Some of the most beautiful examples preserved in Poland were ordered from the best foreign workshops. Among the oldest and most beautiful are the bronze epitaphs made in Nuremberg by the workshop of Hermann Vischer the Younger, Peter Vischer the Elder and Hans Vischer in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, such as the epitaph of Filippo Buonaccorsi, called Callimachus, in Kraków, epitaph of Andrzej Szamotulski (d. 1511), voivode of Poznań, in Szamotuły, tomb of Piotr Kmita of Wiśnicz and of Cardinal Frederick Jagiellon (d. 1503), both at the Wawel Cathedral, and tomb of King Sigismund I's banker, Seweryn Boner and his wife Zofia Bonerowa née Bethman at St. Mary's Basilica in Kraków. Particularly splendid were the unpreserved Flemish funerary monument of Archbishop Janusz Suchywilk (ca. 1310-1382) in Gniezno Cathedral (sub lapide in Flandria per ipsum ad pompam preciose comparato), and that of Archbishop Wojciech Jastrzębiec (ca. 1362-1436) in Beszowa, commissioned in Bruges for the sum of 400 grivnas "in Prussian coin" (lapis iam paratus in Brugis). This was a very high sum, as the tombstone of Archbishop Jan Sprowski (ca. 1411-1464), made in Wrocław by the famous sculptor Jodok Tauchen, although partly cast with a silver mixture, was four times less expensive. For its production, transportation from Wrocław and installation in Gniezno Tauchen was to receive 172 florins (after "Polskie nagrobki gotyckie" by Przemysław Mrozowski, p. 59). Around 1687, "Victorious King" John III Sobieski ordered large quantities of sculptures in Antwerp from the workshop of Artus Quellinus II, his son Thomas II and Lodewijk Willemsens and in Amsterdam from the workshop of Bartholomeus Eggers for the decoration of the Wilanów Palace in Warsaw, including busts of the royal couple, today in Saint Petersburg. All of these statues and reliefs were based on drawings or portraits, possibly similar to the triple portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, made as a study for a bust to be made by the Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome.

For the equestrian statue of Prince Józef Poniatowski (1763-1813), made between 1826 and 1832 and inspired by the statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, the Danish-Icelandic sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), although he arrived from Rome to Warsaw in 1820, had to use other effigies of the prince. The initiator of the construction of the monument was Anna Potocka née Tyszkiewicz (1779-1867). The monument was confiscated by the Russian authorities after the November Uprising (1830-1831) and was returned to Warsaw in March 1922. After the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, the Nazi German invaders ordered the statue to be blown up on December 16, 1944. A new cast of the sculpture, made in the years 1948-1951, was donated to Warsaw by the Kingdom of Denmark.

Some sources also confirm this practice. During his second stay in Rome, Stanisław Reszka (1544-1600), who admired the paintings by Federico Barocci in Senigallia or the work of Giulio Romano in Mantua, again buys paintings, silver and gold plates. He sends many works of this kind as gifts to Poland. To Bernard Gołyński (1546-1599) he sends paintings, including a portrait of the king and his own effigy and for King Stephen Bathory a portrait of his nephew. These portraits of the monarch and his nephew were therefore made in Rome or Venice from study drawings or miniatures that Reszka brought.

On another occasion, he sends eight porcelain "vessels" in a decorative casket to the king, purchased in Rome and to Wojciech Baranowski (1548-1615), Bishop of Przemyśl, a relief of St. Albert, carved in ebony. Through Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini (later Pope Clement VIII), papal nuncio in Poland between 1588-1589, he sends paintings purchased for the king, one of the Savior, embroidered "of the most excellent work" and St. Augustine, made of bird feathers, "the most beautiful" (pulcherrimum), as he says. To the royal secretary Rogulski, who came to Rome, he gives a silver inkwell, and the chamberlain of the chancellor Jan Zamoyski entrusts him with a precious stone to be repaired in Italy, but before that, Reszka consulted the Kraków goldsmiths. All of these objects, including the paintings, must have been the work of the best Italian artists, but names rarely appear in the sources.

In 1584, King Stephen's nephew, Andrew Bathory, with his companions, purchased and commissioned many exquisite items from Venice, including gold cloth with coats of arms, gold-embossed Cordovan (cuir de Cordoue) leather wallpapers, made by the goldsmith Bartolomeo del Calice. Another time he bought "12 bowls, 16 silver orbs" (12 scudellas, orbes 16 argenteos) from Mazziola and supervised the artist working on the execution of "glass vessels" (vasorum vitreorum). In Rome, they visit a certain Giacomo the Spaniard to see the "marvels of art" (mirabilia artis), where Bathory probably bought the trinkets and fine paintings, later shown to the delegates of the Jędrzejów Abbey.

Visitors from Poland-Lithuania gave and received many valuable gifts. In 1587, the Venetian Senate, through two important citizens, offered Cardinal Andrew Bathory, who came as an envoy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the announcement of the election of Sigismund III, two silver basins and jugs, four trays and six candelabra "of beautiful work" (pulchri operis). The Pope gives two medals with his image to Rogulski, and a gold chain to Cardinal Aldobrandini. After returning to Poland, Cardinal Bathory gives Queen Anna Jagiellon a coral cross, received from Cardinal Borromeo, and a box of nacre (ex madre perla), receiving a beautiful, expensive ring in return.

Many artists were also engaged in Italy for the Commonwealth. King Stephen entrusts his nephew with the mission of bringing to the royal court architects who master the art of building fortresses and castles. Urged by the king, Reszka makes efforts through Count Taso, however, only a few months after his arrival he manages to get into the royal service Leopard Rapini, a Roman architect for an annual salary of 600 florins. On his way back to Poland, Simone Genga, architect and military engineer from Urbino, was admitted as a courtier in the presence of the Archbishop of Senigallia.

​We learn from Giorgio Vasari that Wawrzyniec Spytek Jordan (1518-1568), an art lover who frequented the thermal baths near Verona, was offered a small painting depicting the Deposition from the Cross, painted by Giovanni Francesco Caroto. Stanisław Tomkowicz (1850-1933) speculated that the Lamentation of Christ, inspired by Michelangelo's "Florentine Pieta" in the Biecz Collegiate Church, could be this painting. However, it is very likely that it was brought to Poland by a member of the Sułkowski family and its attribution to Caroto is rejected. Wawrzyniec, "a man of great authority with the King of Poland", according to Vasari, also brought to Poland-Lithuania the Italian sculptor Bartolomeo Ridolfi and his son Ottaviano, where they created numerous works in stucco, large figures and medallions and prepared designs for palaces and other buildings. Ridolfi was employed by King Sigismund Augustus "with honorable salaries" (Spitech Giordan grandissimo Signore in Polonia appresso al Re, condotto con onorati stipendi al detto Re di Polonia), but all his works were most likely destroyed during the Deluge. Bartolomeo Orfalla, a townsman from Verona, carried out exploratory drilling in the Spytek's estates to find salt similar to that mined in Bochnia and Wieliczka and Wawrzyniec's magnificent tombstone in the Church of St. Catherine and St. Margaret in Kraków was sculpted by Santi Gucci in 1603.

The funerary monuments preserved in churches that survived wars and accidental fires testify to the excellent artistic taste and wealth of the 16th century Sarmatians. They are also another example of effigies based on other liknesses, since most of them were executed after the death of the persons depicted in the statues. The best example is probably one of the oldest Renaissance funerary monuments in Poland - the so-called monument of the Three Johns in Tarnów Cathedral. This masterpiece of sepulchral statuary is attributed to the workshop of Bartolomeo Berrecci (ca. 1480-1537), an Italian architect and sculptor from Tuscany, who was active in Poland and died in Kraków. It was probably made around 1536, so several years after the death of the persons to whom it was dedicated. The monument was founded by Jan Amor Tarnowski (Joannes Tarnovius, 1488-1561) to commemorate his closest relatives, i.e. his father - Jan Amor Iunior (d. 1500), voivode and later castellan of Kraków, his half-brother - Jan (d. 1514/15), voivode of Sandomierz, and the founder's son, Jan Aleksander (d. 1515), who died in infancy. The sculptor had to receive the effigies of the deceased, painted or sculpted, to create the statues. To meet the high demand for such sculptures, like painters, sculptors and their workshops produced semi-finished products in the "shape" of figures, ready to be refined and given individual characteristics. A document dated January 15, 1545 mentions that a wax model of an "armed man" (sculpturam ceream effigiem viri armati habentem), on the basis of which stone funerary figures were probably sculpted, was destroyed in the workshop of Padovano (Giovanni Maria Mosca) in Kraków. The sculptor also later used wax models as mentioned in another document dated March 22, 1546 (statuas cereas alias ffizirinki). The wax models made it easier to make workshop replicas. In 1562, another Italian sculptor, Girolamo Canavesi, active in Kraków, appeared before the court sued by Katarzyna Orlikowa. He was accused of not having honored the contract, because the funerary statue of Stanisław Orlik in armor that he had made did not correspond to the agreements concluded with the deceased's wife (after "Nagrobek „trzech Janów” Tarnowskich ..." by Rafał Nawrocki, p. 496). The trial ended only in 1574, when the family accepted Canavesi's already satisfactory work. When the statue did not resemble the person who commissioned it or a deceased person, the sculptor often had to make a new one, which was connected with the need to use a new material, such as expensive imported marble or alabaster. In the case of paintings, they could be easily repainted by the author in place or by another painter in the case of imported images.

To attract clients and secure important commissions, painters from the major centers of European painting also traveled abroad. Coronations and royal weddings were events that generated a demand for new effigies: portraits commemorating the event, as well as those presented to dignitaries at home and sent abroad to friendly or allied courts. Based on the similarity with the print reproducing the portrait of the last elected monarch of the Commonwealth Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (1732-1798) and other works, the portrait of the king in a beautiful frame with his coat of arms in the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków (inv. MNK XII-363), is attributed to the Bolognese painter Ubaldo Buonvicini (1732-1799), or Bonvicini, perhaps a relative of Alessandro Bonvicino, known as Moretto da Brescia (d. 1554). The mentioned print by Johann Esaias Nilson (1721-1788) was made in Augsburg after a painting by Buonvicini, who made it in Warsaw (Bonvicini Warsov: pinx:), most likely on the occasion of the king's coronation in 1764. Buonvicini's stay in Warsaw was probably very short, as his presence in Bologna is confirmed in 1765 and 1766.

Oblivion

The Italians had many effigies of Polish-Lithuanian monarchs, many of which were forgotten when the Commonwealth ceased to be a leading European power after the Deluge (1655-1660). According to Maciej Rywocki's peregrination books from 1584-1587, written by the mentor and steward of the Kryski brothers from Masovia, during their three-year journey to Italy for study and education, in the Villa Medici in Rome, owned by Cardinal Ferdinando, later Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the gallery of portrait paintings, he saw "with all Polish kings and King Stephen and the queen [Anna Jagiellon] very resembling". This effigy of the elected queen of the Commonwealth, possibly by a Venetian painter, undoubtedly resembled the portraits of her dear friend Bianca Cappello, a noble Venetian lady and Grand Duchess of Tuscany. According to Stanisław Reszka, who was Ferdinando's guest in Florence in 1588, the Grand Duke owned a ritrat (portrait, from the Italian ritratto) of King Sigismund III Vasa and his father John III of Sweden. Reszka sent him a map of the Commonwealth made on satin on which there was also a portrait of Sigismund III (Posłałem też księciu Jegomości aquilam na hatłasie pięknie drukowaną Regnorum Polonorum, który był barzo wdzięczen. Tam też jest wyrażona twarz Króla Jmci, acz też ma ritrat i Króla Jmci szwedzkiego, a także i Pana naszego) (after "Włoskie przygody Polaków ..." by Alojzy Sajkowski, p. 104). A few decades earlier, Jan Ocieski (1501-1563), secretary of King Sigismund I, wrote in his travel diary to Rome (1540-1541) the information about a portrait of King Sigismund, which was in the possession of the cardinal S. Quatuor with an extremely flattering note: "this is a king like never before" (hic est rex, cui similis non est inventus), and "who is the wisest king, and the most experienced in dealing with things" (qui est prudentissimus rex et usu tractandarum rerum probatissimus), according to this cardinal (after "Polskie dzienniki podróży ..." by Kazimierz Hartleb, pp. 52, 55-57, 67-68).

The inventory of the Gonzaga collections of 1540-1542 mentions two clay figures, perhaps busts, of Sigismund I, "King of Sarmatia", and one of his wife Bona Sforza (items 6638-6640, una figura de Sigismondo re de Salmatia de terra cotta, in una scatola tornita; una figura de Sigismondo re di Pollonia, de terra, in una scatola tornita; una figura de Bona Sforcia regina de Pollonia, de terra, in una scatola, after "Le collezioni Gonzaga ..." by Daniela Ferrari, p. 313). It is also possible that these were busts of Sigismund I and his son Sigismund Augustus, who became king during his father's lifetime.

Bernardo Soderini (Italus Florentinus), who was a merchant in Kraków between 1552 and 1583, had in his villa in Montughi near Florence "three paintings of kings and queens of Poland" (tre quadri di re et regine di Pollonia, after "Lodovicus Montius Mutinensis ..." by Rita Mazzei, p. 37-38). Soderini made a great fortune in Poland and returned to Florence, where, besides a residence in Montughi, he owned a palace in Florence, the furnishing of which cost him 60,000 scudi, and his villa Castiglioncello had a circumference of about 27 miles.

The inventory of the Ducal Garden Palace (Palazzo Ducale del Giardino) in Parma dating from around 1680 lists a "Portrait of Stephen the First [Stephen Bathory], King of Poland" in the dressing room next to the second bedroom (Un quadro alto br. 1. on. 8., largo br. 1. on. 2. e 1/2. Ritratto di Stefano Primo Re di Polonia, di ...) and the 1662 catalogue of paintings belonging to Cristoforo and Francesco Muselli of Verona mentions the portrait of the court jeweller of King Sigismund II Augustus - Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio (d. 1565) with a white eagle, now in Wawel Castle (inv. ZKnW-PZS 5882), without mentioning his name. Interestingly, this painting is now attributed to Paris Bordone, while in the Muselli collection it was considered "one of the most refined and beautiful by Titian" (de' più fiuiti e belli di Titiano, after "Raccolta di cataloghi ed inventarii inediti di quadri, statue, disegni ...", ed. Giuseppe Campori, p. 190, 297).

The situation was similar in other European countries. After the death of Ladislaus IV Vasa in 1648, Francesco Magni (1598-1652), lord of Strážnice in Moravia, ordered the portrait of the Polish-Lithuanian monarch to be moved from the representative piano nobile, a gallery with portraits of the Habsburgs, his ancestors, relatives, and benefactors, to his private room on the second floor of the castle (after "Portrait of Władysław IV from the Oval Gallery ..." by Monika Kuhnke, Jacek Żukowski, p. 75). The original portraits of King Ladislaus IV and Queen Marie Casimire, after which copies were made in the 18th century for the Ancestral Gallery (Ahnengalerie) of the Munich Residence, were considered to represent Charles X Gustavus of Sweden (CAROLUS X GUSTAVUS) and his granddaughter Ulrika Eleonora (1688-1741), Queen of Sweden (UDALRICA ELEONORA). In Hungary, a research by Szabolcs Serfőző published in 2021 reveals that the iconic painting depicting Ilona Zrínyi (Jelena Zrinska, 1649-1703), the heroine who defended Mukachevo Castle against the imperial army during the Thököly Uprising, does not depict Ilona, ​​but Queen Marie Casimire (Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, inv. 48). This portrait was probably acquired by Countess Elisabeth Rakoczi (1654-1707) in Kraków after 1684 (Egy képmás metamorfózisa ...). The style of the painting, although less elaborate, indicating the involvement of the painter's students, recalls the works of the most important portraitist active in the city at that time, Jan Tricius (1620-1692), comparable to the portrait of the queen in Wilanów Palace (inv. Wil.1584).

The massive destruction of the Commonwealth's heritage and post-war chaos also contributed to such mistakes in Poland. Thus, in the gallery of 22 portraits of the kings of Poland, painted between 1768 and 1771 by Marcello Bacciarelli to embellish the so-called Marble Room of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, King Sigismund II Augustus is Jogaila (VLADISLAUS JAGIELLO, inventory number ZKW/2713/ab) and son of Anna Jagellonica (1503-1547), Archduke Charles II of Austria (1540-1590) was presented as Sigismund II Augustus (SIGISMUNDUS AUGUSTUS, ZKW/2719/ab), according to the descriptions under the images. These portraits are copies of paintings by Peter Danckerts de Rij dating from around 1643 (Nieborów Palace, NB 472 MNW, NB 473 MNW, deposited at the Royal Castle in Warsaw), based on lost originals.

​During the Deluge (1655-1660), when the situation was desperate and many people expected the barbarian invaders to totally destroy the Realm of Venus - they plundered and burned the majority of the Commonwealth's cities and fortresses and planned the first partition of the country (Treaty of Radnot), King John Casimir Vasa, a descendant of the Jagiellons, turned to a woman - the Virgin Mary for protection. At the initiative of his wife Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga in the fortified city of Lviv in Ruthenia on April 1, 1656, he proclaimed the Virgin his Patroness and Queen of his countries (Ciebie za Patronkę moją i za Królowę państw moich dzisiaj obieram). Soon, when the invaders were repelled, the medieval Byzantine icon of the Black Madonna (Hodegetria) of Częstochowa with scars on her face, revered by both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, and already surrounded by a cult, became the holiest of all Poland. The fortified sanctuary of the Black Madonna at Bright Mountain (Jasna Góra) was defended from pillage and destruction by the armies of the "Brigand of Europe" in late 1655, a Ruthenian-style riza (robe) was made for the Virgin and adorned with the most beautiful examples of Baroque and Renaissance jewelry offered by pilgrims, a perfect illustration of the country's culture and its diversity.

​The main statue of the beautiful residence of the "Victorious King" John III Sobieski, who saved Vienna from plunder and destruction in 1683 - Wilanów Palace, except for the planned equestrian monument of the king, was not the statue of Mars, god of war, nor of Apollo, god of the arts, nor even of Jupiter, king of the gods, but of Minerva - Pallas, goddess of wisdom. It was most likely created by the workshop of Artus Quellinus II in Antwerp or by Bartholomeus Eggers in Amsterdam and placed in the upper pavilion crowning the entire structure. Unfortunately, this large marble statue, as well as many others, including busts of the king and queen, were looted by the Russian army in 1707. In "The Register of Carrara marble statues and other objects taken from Willanów in August 1707" (Connotacya Statui Marmuru Karrarskiego y innych rzeczy w Willanowie pobranych An. August 1707), it was described as a "Satue of Pallas [...] in the window of the room above the entrance to the palace, resting her right hand on a gilded marble shield with the inscription Vigilando Quiesco [In watching I rest]" (Statua Pallas [...] w oknie salnym nad weysciem do Pałacu podpierayacey ręką prawą o tarczę z Marmuru wyrobioną pozłocistą, na ktorey Napis Vigilando Quiesco). Later, it most likely decorated the Kamenny Theater in Saint Petersburg (demolished after 1886), which Johann Gottlieb Georgi described in his "Description of the Russian Imperial Capital ...", published in 1794: "Above the main entrance is the image of a seated Minerva made of Carrara marble, with her symbols, and on the shield: Vigilando quiesco".

​The fact that nothing (or almost) preserved does not mean that nothing existed, so perhaps even the stay of some or several great European artists in Poland-Lithuania is still to be discovered.

Portrait of Royal jeweller Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio aged 47 receiving a medallion from the Polish Royal Eagle with monogram of King Sigismund Augustus (SA) on his chest by Paris Bordone, 1547-1553, Wawel Royal Castle.