OLD POLISH ON-LINE
MIDDLE AGES
RENAISSANCE
BAROQUE
GUESTBOOK
SPECIAL THANKS
WHAT'S NEW
UNDER
E Y E
T H E
Michael Mikoś
MARCIN KROMER - BIOGRAPHY
MARCIN KROMER
(1512–1589)
Marcin Kromer came from an affluent burgher family in Biecz. In 1528 he enrolled in the Cracow Academy, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1530. He remained in Cracow, devoting himself to writing and translating. From 1533 to 1536 he worked in the royal chancellery in Wilno. In 1537 Kromer went to Padua, where he studied Latin and Greek, then to Bologna, where he received the doctorate in law and became acquainted with new trends in historiography. In 1540 he visited Rome and returned to Cracow. Kromer worked in the chancellery of Archbishop Piotr Gamrat and from 1545 to 1558 as royal secretary, became the bishop of Warmia, and accumulated benefices. He was engaged in many diplomatic missions, staunchly defended Catholicism, and wrote extensively on religion and history.
Kromer's
Conversation Between a Courtier and a Monk
(1551-1554), was the first example of humanist prose written in Polish. His other major works were
De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum
, a history of Poland published in Basel in 1555, which had five Latin editions and was translated into German and Polish, and its supplement
Polonia
(1575), which described the geography and structure of the state, its people, and their ways of life.