„Zwyczajem kawalerów ziemskich postępuje z nią Oblubieniec”. Pierwotna dedykacja „Pobożnych pragnień” A.T. Lackiego jako autorski projekt lektury...
“In earthly suitors’ customary manner Betrothed proceeds with her”. Initial Dedication of A. T. Lacki’s “Devout Desires” as Author’s Project...

Summary/Abstract: A popular collection of emblems “Pia desideria” (1624) by a Jesuit Herman Hugo appeared for the first time in Poland in 1673 in the well-known Polish translation. The Polish translator of the collection, Aleksander Teodor Lacki, Lithuanian court marshal, preceded it with a dedication to Konstancja Krystyna Wielopolska, his wife’s niece. However, in a transcript of the text an initial foreword dedication from two years earlier, to Gryzelda Konstancja Wiśniowiecka (King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki’s mother) survived. The new preface has both a different addressee and style: it is a gathering of concepts referring to the addressee’s coat of arms, typical of panegyrical prints devoted to magnates and nobility. Whereas the preface offered to Wiśniowiecka presents “Pia desideria” as a spiritual romance of Soul and its mystic Betrothed. Such reading respects first and foremost the needs of woman readers to whom Lacki’s translation was mainly directed, showing the extent to which the religious emblem became at that time a woman’s domain. The article terminates with the edition of the 1671 preface analysed here, being its first complete publication to date.

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