17 Facts About Ignacy Krasicki

Ignacy Krasicki was born in Dubiecko, on southern Poland's San River, into the noble Krasicki family, which bore the title of Imperial Count.

Ignacy Krasicki attended a Jesuit school in Lwow, then studied at a Warsaw Catholic seminary.

When Poniatowski was elected king, Ignacy Krasicki became his chaplain.

Ignacy Krasicki participated in the King's famous "Thursday dinners" and co-founded the Monitor, the preeminent Polish Enlightenment periodical, sponsored by the King.

In 1772, as a result of the First Partition, instigated by Prussia's King Frederick II, Ignacy Krasicki became a Prussian subject.

Ignacy Krasicki did not pay homage to Warmia's new master.

Ignacy Krasicki now made frequent visits to Berlin, Potsdam and Sanssouci at the bidding of Frederick, with whom he cultivated an acquaintance.

In 1786 Ignacy Krasicki was called to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

In 1795, six years before his death, Ignacy Krasicki was elevated to Archbishop of Gniezno.

Ignacy Krasicki was a man of the golden mean, a smiling, skeptical sage [who] prais[ed] moderation and despis[ed] extremes.

Ignacy Krasicki's was a mentality which returned to Horatian ideals of the Renaissance, to a life of contemplative retirement.

In "O Sacred Love of the Beloved Country," Ignacy Krasicki formulated a universal idea of patriotism, expressed in high style and elevated tone.

Ignacy Krasicki wrote Listy o ogrodach and articles in the Monitor, which he had co-founded, and in his own newspaper, Co Tydzien.

Ignacy Krasicki translated, into Polish, Plutarch, Ossian, fragments of Dante's Divine Comedy, and works by Anacreon, Boileau, Hesiod and Theocritus.

Ignacy Krasicki wrote a 1772 essay "On the Translation of Books" and another, published posthumously in 1803, "On Translating Books".

Ignacy Krasicki has been the hero of prose works by Wincenty Pol, Adolf Nowaczynski and Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Ignacy Krasicki held that Poles, and humanity generally, were governed by greed, folly, and vice.