DOI Artikel:
Getka-Kenig, Mikołaj: Traktat Sebastiana Sierakowskiego a problem popularyzacji wiedzy architektonicznej w Księstwie Warszawskim
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44918#0114
creation of the Duchy of Warsaw. For before these hopes found their specific refer-
ence point in the form of Napoleonie Poland, they were preceded by a vague convic-
tion that the recovery of their eternal, age-old statehood is simply the destiny of the
Poles. The most significant expression of this idea was the construction of the Sybilla
Tempie in Puławy94, completed in 1801, which was morę than a modern museum
but rather, primarily, a monument to the past, intended to dispose Poles positively
for the futurę, and even - like the ancient Sibyl predicting the arrival of the saviour
of humanity - to promote the perspective of national salvation. The latter assumed
not so much regaining the statehood as such, but First and foremost, a return to the
former glory, requiring, however, much self-improvement work and correcting those
errors that contributed to the tragedy of the partitions. Being inspired with Sibylline
ideology of the Czartoryski Court at Puławy, Jan Paweł Woronicz thus referred to
the then standing of Poles in the poem Sybilla written around 1801:
And when your own homes also burn down in this storm,
Will a new Phoenix emerge from the ashes?
You wake up to things new each morn.
Did He cease to be your Lord and Father,
He, who is now touched by your implorations,
Seeing in you the descendants of the chosen: your ancestors?
For him, it is an equal effort, to create the world anew,
As to raise from the dead those whom he had extinguished.
Then, if you should join in a new covenant with Him,
If you deserve the resurrection of your famę,
Your tribe shall not be buried in the grave,
Troy fell so that Romę could be born.95
Sierakowskis work on the treatise over the twelve years is poorly documented,
including the time spent on collecting materials, then writing subsequent chapters,
preparing and annotating the illustrations. Therefore, it is not known at what stage
of his progress Sierakowski was surprised by Prince Józef Poniatowskis taking of
Kraków in 1809. It is worth noting, however, that the text of the treatise is to a large
extent a translation of the book by Francesco Milizia entitled Principj di architettura
civile from 1781, which Sierakowski himself did not advertise, citing the multiplicity
of sources he had used96, and which his contemporaries also probably did not pay
attention to - at least in the published statements about the Polish book at the time
(with the characteristic exception of Enrico Marconi, who must have known the
content ofthe Italian original rather well.97) Writing of the Architecture treatise was -
to a large extent - a translation, albeit supplemented in many places, or abbreviated,
94 T.S. Jaroszewski, Chrystian Piotr Aigner: architekt warszawskiego klasycyzmu. Warszawa 1970,
p. 121.
95 [J.P. Woronicz], Sybilla: poema historyczne w czterech pieśniach, Lwów 1818, lines 541-552.
96 S. Sierakowski, Architektura, vol. 1, pp. v-vi.
97 H. Marconi, O porządkach architektonicznych. Warszawa 1828, p. 1 (footnote). The information
that “Sierakowskis Architecture treatise [...] in part is a translation of a work written in Italian
language by Milizia” was also to be found in “the course on architecture”, which Feliks Pancer
taught at the Application Military School in Warsaw at the turn of 1828-1829. F. Kucharzewski,
Inżynier polski Feliks Pancer i jego prace. Warszawa 1900, p. 11. Perhaps Pancer drew attention
to this fact under the influence of Marconi.
112
ARTICLES
Mikołaj Getka-Kenig
ence point in the form of Napoleonie Poland, they were preceded by a vague convic-
tion that the recovery of their eternal, age-old statehood is simply the destiny of the
Poles. The most significant expression of this idea was the construction of the Sybilla
Tempie in Puławy94, completed in 1801, which was morę than a modern museum
but rather, primarily, a monument to the past, intended to dispose Poles positively
for the futurę, and even - like the ancient Sibyl predicting the arrival of the saviour
of humanity - to promote the perspective of national salvation. The latter assumed
not so much regaining the statehood as such, but First and foremost, a return to the
former glory, requiring, however, much self-improvement work and correcting those
errors that contributed to the tragedy of the partitions. Being inspired with Sibylline
ideology of the Czartoryski Court at Puławy, Jan Paweł Woronicz thus referred to
the then standing of Poles in the poem Sybilla written around 1801:
And when your own homes also burn down in this storm,
Will a new Phoenix emerge from the ashes?
You wake up to things new each morn.
Did He cease to be your Lord and Father,
He, who is now touched by your implorations,
Seeing in you the descendants of the chosen: your ancestors?
For him, it is an equal effort, to create the world anew,
As to raise from the dead those whom he had extinguished.
Then, if you should join in a new covenant with Him,
If you deserve the resurrection of your famę,
Your tribe shall not be buried in the grave,
Troy fell so that Romę could be born.95
Sierakowskis work on the treatise over the twelve years is poorly documented,
including the time spent on collecting materials, then writing subsequent chapters,
preparing and annotating the illustrations. Therefore, it is not known at what stage
of his progress Sierakowski was surprised by Prince Józef Poniatowskis taking of
Kraków in 1809. It is worth noting, however, that the text of the treatise is to a large
extent a translation of the book by Francesco Milizia entitled Principj di architettura
civile from 1781, which Sierakowski himself did not advertise, citing the multiplicity
of sources he had used96, and which his contemporaries also probably did not pay
attention to - at least in the published statements about the Polish book at the time
(with the characteristic exception of Enrico Marconi, who must have known the
content ofthe Italian original rather well.97) Writing of the Architecture treatise was -
to a large extent - a translation, albeit supplemented in many places, or abbreviated,
94 T.S. Jaroszewski, Chrystian Piotr Aigner: architekt warszawskiego klasycyzmu. Warszawa 1970,
p. 121.
95 [J.P. Woronicz], Sybilla: poema historyczne w czterech pieśniach, Lwów 1818, lines 541-552.
96 S. Sierakowski, Architektura, vol. 1, pp. v-vi.
97 H. Marconi, O porządkach architektonicznych. Warszawa 1828, p. 1 (footnote). The information
that “Sierakowskis Architecture treatise [...] in part is a translation of a work written in Italian
language by Milizia” was also to be found in “the course on architecture”, which Feliks Pancer
taught at the Application Military School in Warsaw at the turn of 1828-1829. F. Kucharzewski,
Inżynier polski Feliks Pancer i jego prace. Warszawa 1900, p. 11. Perhaps Pancer drew attention
to this fact under the influence of Marconi.
112
ARTICLES
Mikołaj Getka-Kenig