Księga fundacyj klasztorów karmelitanek bosych prowincyjej polskiej Ducha Świętego – projekt historiograficzny, artystyczny, literacki i niezwykła książka rękopiśmienna krakowskich zakonnic z początku XVIII wieku
Księga fundacyj klasztorów karmelitanek bosych prowincyjej polskiej Ducha Świętego: A Historiographical, Artistic and Literary Project and an Unusua l Handwritten Book by Cracow Nuns from the Early 18th Century

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses issues such as the authorship, structure, purpose, artistic binding, and overall idea of the 17th-century historiographic manuscript Księga fundacyj klasztorów karmelitanek bosych prowincyjej polskiej Ducha Świętego, kept in the Library of the Discalced Carmelites in Cracow, file No. 255. The monastic historiography of the Discalced Carmelites is a unique phenomenon in the writing of the Old Polish era. The chronicles were written in simple, colloquial language, far from sophisticated erudition, and their authors passionately reported on the most important events in the life of the convent. Their relations are an example of domestic diarism featuring a collective protagonist. The initial parts of the chronicle, the so-called “little chronicles” or “brief descriptions of foundations,” had an elevated and solemn character. The manuscript discussed in the article is a collection of all the “short descriptions,” i.e. the introductory parts of the conventual chronicles of Carmelite foundations in Poland and Lithuania, written up to 1725. Manuscript No. 255 is one of the most beautiful manuscripts preserved in the collection of the Discalced Carmelite nuns in Cracow. All the elements of the manuscript prove that it was designed as a comprehensive, unique manuscript book, combining diverse graphic and printmaking techniques with foundational texts crucial to monastic identity. The analysis of the manuscript reveals the manuscript’s relations with other manuscripts from the Library of the Discalced Carmelites and European Teresian texts (Vita Effigiata Della Serafica Vergine S[aint] Teresa di Gesù, 1670). When designing the book, the author of the manuscript used poetic texts on the title page and frontispiece.

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