Renesansowe epitafia biskupów
Renaissance Bishops Epitaphs

Summary/Abstract: Sepulchral pieces of writing dedicated to bishops are numerous both in the achievements of Renaissance poets known by name and in epigraphic monuments. Research in funeral literature of this type lead to capture its main literary tendencies, allow for learning about some of the influential figures of their time, and last but not least they induce into a deeper reflection on today’s priestly matters. Authors of the texts utilised mainly the fixed methods of praise, comploration and consolation; they also used typical patterns of composition. Presenting the figures, they paid much attention to the bishop’s intimacy with the ruler, and stressed that the bishop’s exceptional abilities were first and foremost source of the ruler’s respect. In addition, they highlighted the bishops’ good points and efforts for the common good. The pieces analysed here reveal a strong tendency – compatible with so-called Greek method of characterizing a person – to describe personal and individual virtues. Even if the epitaphs contain different pieces of information, they are usually confronted with the descriptions of the bishops’ attitudes and behaviour. The bishops’ grandeur is seen in particular as personhood maturity. It is strogly emphasised that the bishops were figures of multiple virtues: hard-rorking persons devoted to the nation and their followers, exercised about the poor, strict with themselves, incorruptible and candid. Resorting to various methods, however quite noticeably, the authors tend to construct the epitaphs in the way that put the person before his attainments and deeds. The approach sketched above might have various reasons; yet it cannot be precluded that the tendency was deliberate and fixed in clergy epitaphs.

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