The subject of this article is the chancellery and archival analysis of the alderman’s and the magistrate’s book for the town of Kórnik from 1580–1607. At present the manuscript is kept at the headquarters of the State Archives in Poznań. Based on appropriately selected literature and information contained in the book, it was possible to carry out an external and internal critique of the source. It needs to be highlighted that the manuscript has only rarely been as a historiographical archival source.

The collections of the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences include a set of printed textes by Jan Seklucjan with a handwritten dedication to Albrecht Frederick, Duke of Prussia (†1618). Their binding is decorated with plaquettes with portraits of Albrecht von Brandenburg- Ansbach, Duke of Prussia (†1568) and his first wife Dorothea (†1547). The article analyses both compositions, providing the following conclusions: they were made in the Konigsberg circles of the so-called Formschneider between the end of the 1530s and the first half of the 1540s. Between the period in question and 1565, wooden plaquettes (blocks) with these portraits were kept by the Duke’s court bookbinder, Kaspar Angler. After his death they probably belonged to the workshop equipment of his pupil Wolff Artzt, although it is also possible that they were used by a local religious writer, bookseller and possibly also bookbinder – Jan Seklucjan. Both works are examples of adaptation in Konigsberg of a specific formula of Renaissance book binding decoration, being at the same time a bookplate, based on a rectangular portrait plaquette presented in the centre of the cover. Compositions of such works most often depended on the painted portraits – mainly from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder. Both Konigsberg portraits, however, are marked by prolonged proportions, a landscape background, and the display of coats of arms at the bottom. This fact should be explained by the painting models that were probably related to paintings in Albrecht’s Konigsberg residence. It is impossible to decide definitely whether they were made by a painter employed at his court (e.g. Crispin Herrant), or imported. Nevertheless, they are an indirect testimony to the existence of a gallery of portraits in the Konigsberg Castle, which was created on a long-term basis and with passion by the Duke of Prussia.

During the Russian-Polish negotiations at the end of 1671 – the beginning of 1672, several Russian memorandums were handed over to Polish-Lithuanian diplomats. All these original documents are preserved in the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kórnik, Poland, and are studied as some of the most important forms of diplomatic communications between the Muscovite State and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The memorandums clearly reveal the Muscovite diplomatic tactic against the Polish-Lithuanian side. They focus on the main problems of Russian- Polish relationships such as the transfer of Kiev from Russia to Poland (which had to be fulfilled in 1669 but which has never been executed), the policy towards the right-bank Ukraine hetman Piotr Doroshenko, who pledged his allegiance to the Ottoman sultan, the attack of the left-bank Ukrainian Cossacks (who were under the Thar’s rule) on the Lithuanian borderlands, and the implementing of the previous Russian-Polish anti-Ottoman treaty of 1667. It can be supposed also that the diplomatic form of the memorandum itself was borrowed by the Russian Foreign Office from the Polish-Lithuanian diplomatic tradition.

This article is devoted to a diplomatic (formal) analysis of 13 documents, including 12 originals issued by Russian tsars between 1576 and 1707, which are kept at the Kórnik Library. Among them, there are two original letters by Tsar Michael of Russia dating to 1634 and 1645 and four documents by Tsar Alexis of Russia from 1645 and 1668–1669. The collection also includes Peter the Great’s mandate of 1707 given to Russian negotiators for talks with representatives of the Sandomierz confederation, two extremely interesting documents (in the form of scrolls) of border-related negotiations dating to 1634 and 1645, as well as a notebook of 40 pages containing the Russian party’s proposals presented to Polish envoys during negotiations in Moscow at the turn of 1671 and 1672. The article is enriched with an analysis of the content of four well-preserved tsar’s seals applied to the documents in question.

Between about 1414 and 1592, the castle in Kórnik belonged to the Górka family – representatives of the Polish Crown’s power elite in the Early Modern era. In the third quarter of the 16th century, on the initiative of its then-owner, Count Stanisław Górka, the castle and its surroundings were modernised and extended. This article seeks to reconstruct and interpret the resulting residence complex, with particular focus on the castle, but also the private town, family church and hunting lodge. Some basic questions are asked concerning the new architectural solutions appearing at the time, the provenance of the formal-ideal models, and the author of the modernization design. In the adopted research method, assuming an interdisciplinary approach, the residence is seen as resultant of the investor’s needs and possibilities arising from his social, political and financial position.

The letter of Muscovy ruler Boris Godunov which is held in the Library of Kórnik, is the earliest historical document that testifies about the relations between the government of Muscovy and Ukrainian Cossacks since the end of the sixteenth century. In the article are reviewed the historical context of such contacts and their long term consequences. At that time, led by Krzysztof Kosynskyi, Cossacks entered into conflict with powers of Commonwealth. Godunov informed Cossacks that his government invites them for military service. It was the first time when Cossacks obtained the opportunity to make a choice between the service to the Polish King or Muscovy Tzar. During the next a half of the century, Ukrainian Cossacks transformed into a powerful military corporation, which influenced on the balance of powers in international relations of the region. Later on, when in the consequence of the war with Poland, Cossacks switched themselves to the side of Muscovy in 1654, this change provided a foundation for the hegemony of Muscovy in East Europe.