This book addresses the teaching and cultural activities of the Akademia Zamojska in the Early Modern Age. The main subject is the development of politics as a university discipline in this school and its relations with philosophical teaching.
When I approached this research project, I had already been studying for some years the influence of Aristotelianism on the emergence of politics as a university discipline between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. As known, in this period, within the academic debate on the organisation of the various forms of knowledge Aristotelianism also provided a contribution of a methodological nature to the study of statecraft. Historically, the epistemological reflection on practical philosophy, including politics, stemmed from a broader discussion on methodus that preceded Galileoâs hypothetico-deductive method. Studies in this specific context by Merio Scattola have illustrated how the leading Italian and German universities of the time were engaged in the organisation of politics as a discipline and the need to define its perimeter in relation to other knowledge. Significant reflections on this issue were made by Paduan Aristotelians such as Giacomo Zabarella and Francesco Piccolomini, which were then taken up and developed in different ways in the early decades of the seventeenth century by Johannes Althusius, Hermann Conring, Bartholomaeus Keckermann and other thinkers. There were heated disputes in the philosophy faculties, and these also involved the law faculties, which claimed the prerogative for the teaching of statecraft.
Within this scenario, interest in the Akademia Zamojska is triggered by the fact that this institute â which went to join the universities already operating in the PolishâLithuanian Commonwealth, namely the ancient Jagiellonian University and the recently-founded Academia et Universitas Vilnensis â was of a somewhat peculiar character. The university established in ZamoÅÄ did not merely educate the scions of the affluent classes in the arts, medicine and law, since it had been conceived and constructed with a precise identity and mission: a schola civilis that would train young men for political life. This ambitious mandate is not surprising, considering that late sixteenth-century Poland was the largest country in the continent to have a mixed form of government in which nobles and sovereign collaborated on the decisions regarding the state. The Akademia Zamojska was hence an establishment targeted at this ruling class, and as such was an educational experiment unique in Europe. The entire teaching body was aware of the need to elaborate a valid method for teaching politics, and this objective guided the definition of the study programme and the contributions of every master in the school.
Obviously, this fascinating scientific and cultural experience, a shining example of the intellectual dynamism of Poland in the Early Modern Age, has already been the subject of important studies. A considerable number of these have focused on the influence exerted in the academy by its prestigious founder, Jan Zamoyski, an illustrious political and military leader who succeeded in creating a formidable network of contacts with intellectuals and scientists in every corner of Europe. The classic studies by Jan Karol Kochanowski, StanisÅaw Åempicki and Jerzy Kowalczyk continue to be essential preliminaries to any investigation of the cultural policy of Zamoyski and his academy. Consequently their names appear frequently in this book, alongside those of the great historians of the Polish Renaissance such as StanisÅaw Kot, Henryk Barycz and Lech Szczucki. This rich and multiform legacy has been taken up by a younger generation of scholars focusing on specific aspects of the academy. For instance, studies on the library by Tomasz Makowski, by SÅawomir Myk on the publishing house (also already superbly developed by Alodia Kawecka-Gryczowa) and on academic life by Henryk Gmiterek and Marian Chachaj. Finally, I would mention the recent work by Danilo Facca exploring the teaching of philosophy at ZamoÅÄ in the Early Modern Age: a meticulous investigation that has been most valuable in my own research. The analysis I carried out on certain manuscript sources and a series of prestigious books published in the academy was thus able to rely on a solid bibliography, leaving me free to concentrate on the working practice adopted by the teachers both in defining the curriculum and in educating the students in statecraft.
The distinctive trait of this activity, which concerns the teaching but also precedes it, is knowledge transfer. This expression is used purposely in the title of the book, since my intention is precisely to underscore its importance. Clearly, in the political training performed in the academy, knowledge transfer is not restricted to the passage of knowledge from teachers to students through lessons and the assignment of targeted readings. Even more importantly, it concerns the masters themselves and is manifested in two different ways, theoretically along two different paths: one leading beyond the walls of the school and national boundaries, and the other within the academy, leading to the printing works.
The first form of knowledge transfer is based on the dense network of cultural relations between the academy and the rest of Europe, illustrated by the correspondence between the staff and illustrious humanists of the time such as Justus Lipsius, Johannes Caselius and Carolus Sigonius. However, one of the strengths of the school was also that it had travelling teachers, who were financed from the academyâs funds to study abroad for professional updating and academic qualifications. The degrees and doctorates obtained were in different subjects from those they taught in the academy, so that the jurist
The mastersâ teaching benefited from multiple inputs and heterogeneous inspirations, although the knowledge transfer of which they were vehicles, and that they used to mould education in statecraft, was not merely the direct result of external influences. It was never a passive transfer of knowledge from one place to another. On the contrary, all the doctrines and currents of thought were re-elaborated to adapt to the new context and new demands. It was, in other words, a fruitful and powerful stimulus for seeking an educational offer worthy of the ambitions of the academy.
Knowledge transfer within the walls of the academy was, if possible, an even more intriguing phenomenon than the study sojourns abroad, although it is also more difficult to observe and grasp all its aspects. It materialised in a modus operandi employed by the masters that was characterised by intense and constant cooperation, even of an interdisciplinary nature. Their collaboration was evident in the creation of the lesson plan, sometimes in the sharing of lectures and courses and, most of all, in the publishing activities. Unlike other centres of learning in central-eastern Europe, the academy had its own printing works to meet the various educational demands. Here the most influential professors shared in the preparation of the volumes, working variously as editors, translators or preface-writers depending on the circumstances and the editorial project. Several manuscripts and a number of books that emerged from the press indicate a dynamic workshop that was a felicitous extension of the university classrooms. This workshop populated by teachers produced the texts indicated in the syllabus â described in the deeds of foundation â while also developing the guidelines of syllabus and experimenting the combination of different doctrines.
For instance, the art of eloquence and the autoritas of Cicero, which were both fairly widespread in the schools of the time, especially those of Sturm influence, encountered a rhetoric of Byzantine origin represented by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. His precepts, which promoted an alternative point of view to post-Aristotelian and Theophrastic rhetoric, were a fundamental component of the curriculum studiorum. This is not to say that the attention devoted to the work of Dionysius excluded from the programme the study of the rhetorical doctrines of Aristotle and his successors. Similarly, in what was the first case of its kind in Renaissance Europe, the teachers also decided to propose the
This extraordinary philosophical and cultural syncretism could easily be dismissed as eclecticism, as indeed it has been in the past. In actual fact it was the political training, the ultimate objective of the teaching body, that called for such a programme. At the beginning of his Dialectica Ciceronis, which was produced at ZamoÅÄ as one of the school textbooks, the professor of philosophy Adam Burski explains this point clearly:
âThere is a single truth, but different ways of constructing and defending it. And just as the commander is better armed and the soldier better prepared when he adapts his weapons to the place and to the enemy, in the same way the intellectual is more thoroughly scholarly who analyses a doctrine in accordance with the way it has been expounded.â1
The action of the statesman is contextualised in space and time, subject to changing circumstances and struggling constantly with the vicissitude of the kairos. The teachers equipped their students with all the appropriate rhetorical, philosophical, legal and historical baggage that would allow them to address the quirks of fate and to be prepared for every eventuality.
If the chief objective of modern political philosophers is to identify a method for politics that is as close as possible to a precise science, the masters of the academy felt that they had achieved this end by bringing different doctrines together and comparing alternative points of view. Their efforts also indicate the need to render politics a precise discipline, but their teaching combined different models of thought: ancient and modern, traditional and pioneering. On the one hand they illustrated the qualities and knowledge required by the ideal statesman in line with an ancient vision of politics; on the other, they sought to make politics scientific, and hence infallible, in line with modern thinkers.
The book contains both descriptive and analytical sections. The former develop the already existing bibliography on the argument, to date available only in Polish. The analytic sections are instead aimed at revealing for the first time the value of certain documentary sources connected with the activity of the
The Akademia Zamojska played its own part in the debate on the methodology of politics as a discipline, also offering an original contribution to the development of the concept of âpolitical prudenceâ which was to become so popular in the universities of Central Europe in this period. This institution was anything but an irrelevant episode in the intellectual life of the time. On the contrary, it embodied a largely successful attempt to knit up closer connections between the world of intellectual culture and that of political praxis.
Chapter 1 deals with the background to the inception of the Akademia, its development and its internal organisation. The aim is to delineate the principal characteristics of this school in comparison to those of other coeval universities and to explore any direct or indirect reciprocity.
Chapter 2 is broken down into Parts I and II. Part I addresses the teachers and the most influential members of the Akademia. In parallel, the teaching instruments utilised are examined, exploring the specific contents and resources of the library. Part II deals with the professorsâ educational experiences abroad. This topic is introduced by a general overview of the philosophical treatises produced at the time examining academic migration. The cultural models of other universities exerted a constant influence on the curricular orientations of the school. This is particularly true of the University of Padua, as a result of visits and contacts made by the teachers and by the founder of the Akademia himself.
Chapter 3 is again broken down into Parts I and II. Part I homes in on analysis of some of the publications edited by the teaching staff. What emerges is that considerable attention was devoted to the study of rhetoric at ZamoÅÄ, especially that of Byzantine derivation, with the support of tools of argument that were unusual for the time, such as Stoic logic. Part II focuses on a series of works on philosophy, style and rhetoric published in the Akademia. This part also includes the analysis of a number of manuscripts. Indeed, the manuscript archive comprises a series of writings of the greatest interest for the development of modern political thought, such as the Ricordi of Francesco Guicciardini and the anonymous Thesoro politico. Crosschecking the manuscripts and various published works casts light on the fact that contemporary history played a key role in the training of the politician, with particular focus on the diplomatic and ethno-geographical literature produced in Italy.
The book is completed by an Annex containing the deeds of foundation of the Akademia Zamojska, presenting the teaching programme of the academy as it was established in 1600.
âUnica est veritas, a variis tamen variae rationes traditae sunt et eruendae et defendendae illius. Ut igitur instructior est ille imperator et manu arteque promptior miles, qui cuique loco et hosti convenientioribus potest uti et armis, [p. VI 4b] et copiis, ita perfectior hic doctor, qui iisdem modulis ad quos constructa est, doctrinam quamque et scriptionem metitur et examinat, faciliusque eam auditoribus tradit.â Adam Burski (ed.), Dialectica Ciceronis (Samoscii: Lenscius, 1604): V 4aâVI 4b.