Ut pictura poesis and Orbis Polonus: Ekphraseis in Old Polish Literary Works Glorifying Rulers

Abstract

The paper focuses on the connections between literary descriptions and the fine arts exemplified by selected Polish texts from the 16th and 17th centuries. The author analyses them in the context of rhetoric tradition (ekphrasis, evidentia, ars memoriae). The discussed descriptions of imaginary works of art and architecture come from texts (by Mikołaj Rej, Jan Kochanowski, Samuel Twardowski, Andrzej Maksymilian Fredro) referring to the symbolism and hierarchy of power in the 16th- and 17th-century Commonwealth.