The Kórnik Library owns the richest collection of papers related to the mathematician and philosopher Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński (1776-1853), the founder of Polish Messianism. Among them there is a copy of a letter written to him in 1853 by Alphonse-Louis Constant (1810-1875), better known under his later literary pseudonym “Éliphas Lévi”. He became an admirer of Wroński (the letter is signed “your devoted disciple”) and one of the few people present at his funeral. He also helped Leonard Niedźwiecki with cataloguing Wroński’s manuscripts. The paper discusses his life and relations with the Polish aristocratic emigration in France. Of special note is his friendship with Flora Tristan, the feminist activist, through whom he met Balzac and probably Adam Mickiewicz, quoted with great admiration in his later books on magic and occultism. It is even possible that those interests of Lévi were partly inspired by Mickiewicz’s readings of Swedenborg, Jakob Böhme and Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. The key discovery is that the phrase “Poland is the Christ of nations”, known to every Polish pupil, was not formulated by Mickiewicz (as is widely believed) but by Constant in a political pamphlet Le Deuil de la Pologne (1846). After his metamorphosis into a modern magus, Éliphas Lévi became a close friend of Madame de Balzac (to whom he dedicated an occult novel), brothers Aleksander and Konstanty Branicki, as well as Jerzy Mniszech, who became the sole heir of his magical manuscripts and a curious instrument called “prognometer”. It is not known what happened to the manuscripts, but the “prognometer” is now in the collections of the National Library as a deposit of the Branicki Library in Wilanów.

When John Dee, an influential English mathematician, natural philosopher, and scientist, in the later part of his life decided that the only way of gaining even greater knowledge was through magic, he started a series of meticulously documented séances of communicating with angels through his medium Edward Kelley, later an alchemist in his own right. He soon made an acquaintance of a Polish magnate Olbracht Łaski and at his request travelled to Poland, and then to Bohemia, together with Kelley, their wives, children, and servants. There is vast literature on their stay in Central Europe and its consequences, both real and imaginary, but little attention was paid to the actual journey as recorded by Dee. From the scanty notes devoted to the company’s passage through Great Poland in the winter of 1583/1584 the harsh reality of early modern journeys can be discerned. Some of his very short but precise observations shed new light on such topics as the monument of Boleslaus the Brave in the Poznań Cathedral (this important source was not known to any of the numerous participants in the discussion going on since the early 19th c.) or its library. The description of the bridge in Konin is also of interest, as are Dee’s notes on the use of the newly introduced Gregorian calendar in Poland.

The collection of the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences holds a number of rare and interesting books on freemasonry, including the first edition of Anderson’s Constitutions. Most of them were, however, purchased during the second half of the twentieth century. The only two items which are known to have belonged to Count Tytus Działyński (1796–1861) are a French manual of the Rite of Adoption of 1787 and a Polish anti-masonic pamphlet entitled Eerie virtue, undated but probably published in 1786 or the following year. It is the only known copy of it, which is one of the reasons for preparing a new edition of its text. The Castle Museum holdings also have rare objects of freemasonic interest, namely four loge badges of early nineteenth century. The present paper is the first attempt at identifying those lodges and ascribe the badges to members of the Działyński family, the heirs of Kórnik. The masonic activities of Ignacy Działyński (1754–1797), the uncle of Tytus, are well known, but his brother Ksawery’s (1756–1819) membership in the fraternity has only now been confirmed. It is argued that three of the badges belonged to him, because their respective lodges did not exist during Ignacy’s lifetime. The fourth badge most probably belonged to Tytus Działyński, who may have been introduced to freemasonry in his youth by his father. The research on these items evolved into a broader re-examination of the early history of freemasonry in Poland, which disproved a number of statements made in the monumental work of Ludwik Hass. Most importantly, it is showed that the Red Fraternity (Confrérie Rouge) of 1721 was not a freemasonic body (as claimed by Hass and now widespread in historical literature), and that the earliest documented Polish lodge was established in Poznań around 1735 (there may have been one operated by foreigners in Warsaw in 1729, but the information comes from much later and questionable tradition). Two appendices contain an edition of Eerie virtue and genealogical tables showing close family relationships of the Działyńskis of Kórnik with eminent Polish freemasons, including all except one Grand Masters of the Grand Orient of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Sir Philip Sidney was one of the most important figures in Elizabethan England. An outstanding poet, courtier, diplomat and knight, he has been a subject of research for many generations of scholars. Some authors state that Sidney received a proposal to become a candidate for the Polish elective throne but refused because the Queen did not agree. This story can be traced back to a short biography of him written by Robert Naunton in ca. 1630, but the ultimate source was the elegy on the death of Sidney written by Robert Dowe. Addressed to an anonymous “Polish friend”, it proposed Sidney could have become a great king, had he not been killed in battle. It was clearly a poetic metaphor rather than a statement of fact. Nevertheless, a number of scholars still believe that Sidney was approached with the proposal by Olbracht Łaski when he visited London and was received with unprecedented splendour by Elizabeth I. Even though the reasons for Łaski’s visit are still unclear, there are many arguments against such a hypothesis. Nevertheless, Sidney was greatly interested in the Polish political system (as can be gleaned from his correspondence) and eventually visited Cracow in 1574, at the invitation of Marcin Leśniowolski. The last part of the paper is an attempt at identifying the house in which Sidney stayed and it is argued that it must have been the same house in which John Dee later intended to stay (probably on Sidney’s advice), but changed his mind. The house belonged to one Pernus, whose first name was not recorded by Dee. A detailed analysis of several members of that patrician family shows that it must have been Paweł Pernus, who studied at Heidelberg and later held high civic offices in Cracow. He owned several houses, but it seems that the most probable identification of the one in which Sidney stayed is the house at Floriańska 11, which was also occasionally visited by Edward Kelley during his and John Dee’s later stay in Cracow.