The paper explores Wrocław Civic Budget in the context of procedures and impact. It reviews various data to present different aspects of this process: number of projects submitted and implemented, citizens’ participation in the selection process, geographical distribution of the implemented projects and their contents, showing the significant fall in the citizens’ interest in the process after two years of its implementation. The paper aims to analyze whether the project in its current form actually succeeds in activating the citizens’ and involving them in the local decision-making on one hand, and changing the city on the other. The effectiveness of participatory budgeting in Wrocław is explored, considering such criteria as reliability, impact, activation and innovativeness. The data reveal both the successes and drawbacks of Wrocław Civic Budget, allowing for presentation of recommendations.

CHE COSA UNA GUIDA TURISTICA DI BRESLAVIA DICE AGLI ITALIANI A PROPOSITO DEI LORO CONNAZIONALI?

WHAT DOES A WROCŁAW CITY GUIDE TELL ITALIAN TOURISTS ABOUT THEIR FELLOW COUNTRYMEN?

The author describes the standard tourist itinerary across the city of Wrocław, especially the sites that concern the Italian presence in Wrocław or the merits of the Italian people regarding the region and its capital (artists, architects, exponents of the Church, soldiers, immigrants, etc.). He expresses the opinion that knowledge about elements of history associated with those of the same origins as the tourist group may help guides to interest and involve the group more and to improve the quality of their work. He briefly describes the preparation of the guides for their work and their sources of information, and presents the necessity of choice and selection of the material, depending on the current target audience.

NOTES ON THE NAME WROCŁAW IN ITS HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY AS WELL AS POLISH AND INTERNATIONAL ASPECT

The paper discusses some data about the name of one of the biggest cities in Poland, the capital of the region of Lower Silesia, Wrocław. The toponym has a long history which includes different periods of foreign domination: Czech, Austro-Hungarian, and mostly German. The origin of the name is perfectly Slavonic: it derives from the archaic personal masculine name Wrocisław. The name is characteristic for its double construction: the verb wrócić ‘return’ and noun sława ‘fame’ or verb sławić ‘praise’, that indicating somebody honoured for returning. The original form has been the subject of many international variations, e.g. the Germanic Presla, Presslau, and Breslau. The Latin adaptation of the toponym Vratislavia in combination with the Germanic Breslau is the most popular as the basis for the internationalization of the name, such as Breslavia in Italian and Spanish. Nowadays, the city has reason to promote its original Polish name. The social challenge of the city is to teach how its name is pronounced, using for example the linguistic hybrid Wroc-Love [vrotzlav]. The creation of some fantastic legends around the city and its name is also significant, increasing popular etymologies of this toponym. The onomastic discourse concerning Wrocław is a natural process of contemporary social communication on local, national and international levels including some antonomastic uses of this toponym: the city is called Venice of the North, and the Polish Prague. Even the Hitlerian catchword of Festung Breslau counts in this discourse of changing is historical meaning.

ART FOUNDATION OF JOHANN JAKOB KANON BRUNETTI FOR THE WROCŁAW CATHEDRAL

The text concerns the creation of the first Baroque chapel erected at the southern aisle of the Wrocław cathedral in 1672, and its interior. The founder of the chapel was Wrocław Canon Johann Jakob Brunetti (1629–1692), who came from Massa di Carrara, Tuscany and was laid to rest in the chapel’s crypt along with his brother Johann (1646–1703), the assistant bishop. Despite its modest size the work deserves attention for its preserved decor – the altar and two epitaphs made of Dębnik marble and rich acanthus frieze, contrasting with the dome’s vault, decorated with coffers and rosettes. The applied forms indicate good knowledge of both Italian Renaissance and early Baroque traditions displayed by the designer of the work, Carlo Rossi, who came from the vicinity of Como, Lombardy. It makes the chapel an interesting work of art of dual stylistic character, which along with the chapel of St. Cross at the Church of BVM on Piasek Island, initiated the erection of further works of this type at the cathedral and at the Dominican and Premonstratensian churches in Wrocław.

THE JOURNEY OF CARDINAL VON HESSEN-DARMSTADT FROM ROME TO WROCŁAW AND ITS ARTISTIC MILIEU

The aim of this paper is to present the report on the journey of Cardinal Friedrich of Hessen-Darmstadt from Rome to Wrocław, undertaken in 1676 to assume governorship of Silesia and real power over the diocese of Wrocław. The report, published in this city soon after the completion of his journey, is now preserved in the Old Prints Department of the Wrocław University Library. This source contributes new facts from the biography of the cardinal - the founder of the famous St. Elisabeth Chapel alongside the Cathedral of Wrocław, decorated with statues sculpted in Rome. During his journey to Silesia, Friedrich of Hessen-Darmstadt stayed with his retinue in Loreto, Verona and Trento, entertained everywhere with great pomp and ceremony. Then he went to Vienna, where he took part in imperial audiences and was granted the title “Durchlauchtigst”. At the end of his journey he went to Nysa and from there to Wrocław. From the art history point of view this travelogue contributes information about the “occasional architecture” and the decoration of the churches in Nysa and Wrocław, liturgical vestments and vessels, and about costumes and vehicles of Silesian dignitaries. From the literature on the subject we know that on the occasion of the arrival of the cardinal to Wrocław three new doors to the local cathedral were founded. The main entrance doors were decorated with relief depicting Jacob’s Dream and Joseph in a Well. In the light of the appropriate biblical quotations and commentaries on them these scenes illustrate the idea of the gate to the heavenly Jerusalem as well as the symbolical transition from the sphere of death to the realm of life.

ITALIAN OPERA IN WROCŁAW (1725-1734) AND ITS LINKS WITH OTHER MUSIC CENTRES

In the years 1725-1734, there was an Italian opera troupe performing in Wrocław, which was composed almost entirely of well-known Italian artists. At the beginning, its repertoire mimicked those of Italian theatres operating in Venice, Vienna, Florence, Genoa and Prague. Later on, however, the operas staged by Treu and Bioni, the music directors of the Wrocław opera, were also performed by other European theatres. The owner of the theatre in Prague and the originator of the idea to set up a theatre in Wrocław was Count Anton von Sporck, an imperial governor and a friend of Silesian aristocracy. It was on his initiative that a meeting with Antonio Vivaldi was arranged and the performers he recommended were invited to Wrocław. Thanks to the extensive contacts of Wrocław’s impresarios and bandmasters, the city’s virtuoso singers travelled throughout Europe, and outstanding musicians, stage designers and ballet masters were hired. The fame and high standards of Wrocław’s theatre caused its chief conductor, Daniel Gottlieb Treu (Daniele Teofilo Fedele), a pupil of Vivaldi, to write the history of the theatre, which was published in Hamburg (1740) by Johann Mattheson in Grundlage einer Ehren-Phorte. During the nine-year long operation of the theatre, a total of 45 operas were premiered, and their librettos are partly extant in the collection of Wrocław’s University Library (the Silesian-Lusatian Section) and at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan. Recently, a previously unknown copy of the opera Il Daphni by Spanish composer Emanuele d’Astorga, currently in the collection of the Sapieha Library, part of the collection of the Wawel Royal Castle Museum, has been discovered. The staging by the theatre in Wrocław of eminent baroque operas, performed by outstanding artists, puts them among the most interesting events in the European opera in the 18th century. : Italian theatre, Wrocław, baroque, opera, Daniel Gottlieb Treu

GIACOMO CASANOVA: LOVE, HISTORY AND THE GOOD COMPANY IN WROCŁAW

The article investigates an episode from Giacomo Casanova’s life concerning his stay in Wrocław, which was described in his biography entitled Histoire de ma vie. The analysis takes into consideration the structure of the whole biography. The main purpose of this article is to find in this work the most characteristic features of Casanova’s writing, as well as information on this period, its main representatives and the historical background of Wrocław of that time. Casanova, leaving Poland after a duel with Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, decides to go to Dresden, where his family lives, spending three days in Wrocław. In this short time Casanova makes the acquaintance of Abbot Bastiani, a very interesting person. At the same time, Casanova meets a young girl and once more begins to believe in love. The part of his biography concerning Wrocław provides an opportunity to analyse psychological aspects of these two people.

WROCŁAW IN MUSIC AND LETTERS OF NICCOLÒ PAGANINI

The life and works of Niccolò Paganini, a Genoese violinist, are the subject of many texts and articles. Despite the discovery of his letters and the existence of his numerous biographies, often divergent in content, from which I will try to reveal and compare more accurate and reliable information, there are many unclear issues concerning various episodes of his life. These doubts concern his stay in Wrocław, an episode of his life thought of as secondary in relation to many others, but in which many important events took place, events allowing for enrichment of his biography and getting to better know the personality of the Genoese master. The article offers an analysis of the master’s stay in Wrocław, comparing his more reliable biographies, extracting information from his personal letters, which are a valuable literary source, and not forgetting the art for which he lived, music.

The Wrocław patrician Thomas Rehdiger (1540-1576), during his Wanderjahre, amassed a rich collection of books, manuscripts, coins, precious stones, and works of art. In his will, he bequeathed this collection—gathered mainly during his stays in Padua, Bologna, and Venice—to his hometown, thus giving rise to the first public library in the Wrocław metropolis. In 1589, the Bibliotheca Rhedigeriana was established in the Auditorium Theologicum of St. Elizabeth’s Church. In his youth, Rehdiger was educated in the school operating at the church; almost 100 years later, the school’s teacher, Daniel Sartorius (1612-1671), gathered a large collection of music prints, which were published in that period in Venetian publishing houses. This unique collection, stored together along with the Rhedigeriana Library, was later merged with the library’s content. What was the significance of this collection in the culture of 17th-century Wrocław? This collection, undoubtedly, was assembled based upon inspiration from the Humanistic period, which had been promoted in that Elizabethan school at least as of the times of Laurentius Corvinus. It was supposed to serve the teaching at the Elisabethanum and shape the artistic tastes of its students, who performed state-of-the-art Italian music during school activities or afternoon recess. Attempts were made to introduce the carefully collected repertoire into the liturgical practice of a nearby church, using the technique of contrafactum that was popular at the time. The Sartorian Library’s semiophoric function, however, was to define a new form of cultural memory for the Wrocław elites and to outline the original profile of their identity, which was oriented by the same ideals that guided the composers of the Italian Seicento.