Using the Atti della Nazione Polacca at the University of Padua as a main source, the author describes the role that this university played in the education of students from the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth from the 16th to 18th centuries. According to the author’s research, this role was crucial in the 16th century, when a significant part of Polish elites included a stay at this university in their curriculum. In the 17th century, the number of students from Poland-Lithuania studying in Padua decreased slowly but continuously, and in the 18th century, the number was marginal. In the period under discussion, the social structure of this group significantly changed: students looking to acquire knowledge that was necessary for their future professional career were gradually replaced by young men of aristocratic and noble families, for whom a visit in Padua, be it long or short, was only a stage in their educational European Grand Tour. According to the author, this can be explained by intellectual changes in Polish-Lithuanian society: a general and rather superficial education was gradually preferred to university-based and professionally-provided knowledge. A study of selected travel diaries supplemented and confirmed the results of the presented statistical analysis. All Polish travellers visiting Padua in the 16th and 17th centuries described the University and considered it as the most important institution of the city; meetings with compatriot students were also often mentioned. Later on, the University was no longer the obvious subject of the descriptions and 18th-century travellers often did not even mention it at all. Nevertheless, there is still available evidence that the Polish presence in Padua, although reduced, was visible and important for the city.

This article is dedicated to the image of Padua in the diary of August Fryderyk Moszyński (1731-1786), a close collaborator of King Stanislas August Poniatowski, architect, director of royal buildings, and promoter of the Warsaw theatre. The diary, which covers a journey to France and Italy (1784-1786), has been partially published in the original French version (1930; 2010) and Polish translation (1970). The diary is remarkable for Polish 18th-century odeporic literature due to its critical approach, quasi-scientific character, and interest in contemporary developments. In this article, the author establishes the dates of Moszyński’s stay in Padua and then analyses elements such as the descriptions, impressions, and assessments of urban environments; buildings, pictures, people, and events; as well as cultural and scientific life. The portrait of Padua drawn by Moszyński is compared with that which emerges from other travelogues and texts presented to the Polish public at the time, in particular with the description of Italy that appeared in the Warsaw journal Pamiętnik historycznoPolityczny in 1787. The analysis of the travelogue passages relating to the two stays in Padua confirms the versatility of the traveller. The description of Padua by Moszyński is multifaceted, often ironic and personal. He wrote as an expert in architecture and urban spaces; a connoisseur of theatre; a builder of scientific instruments; an admirer of Renaissance artists; a lover of truth in art; and a sharp and critical observer. The last part of the article is dedicated to the circumstances of Moszyński’s death, which, contrary to what may be suggested by the diary, did not occur in Padua but in Venice (on 3 July 1786, at the famous Leon Bianco inn).

Italy, seen as the cradle of European culture and the destination of the wanderings of Polish intellectuals and artists, often appears in the Polish press of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Among the cities described, Padua is present, although it appears less frequently than Venice or Rome. Articles dedicated to this city, however, have a particular character, because not only is “Padova la dotta” famous for the cult of Saint Anthony, but it is most often presented in the contexts of centuriesold Italian-Polish relations linked mostly to the University and of the Paduan polonica. There are in fact two moments that find a particular resonance in the Polish press: the first, in 1922, for the seventh centenary of the University, and the second, in 1931, for the celebrations of the seventh centenary of Saint Anthony’s death. This article offers a review of the texts that have appeared in various periodicals and includes a brief presentation of the authors—scholars, artists, or journalists active in the promotion of Italian culture. From the texts published both in newspapers and in cultural magazines or even scientific periodicals, the image of the city emerges as strongly marked by the presence of Poles, who were students, university professors, or pilgrims.

The article deals with the first burial in the tomb crypt built under the altar of the natio polona in the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua. Stanisław Miński, a Polish state dignitary and diplomat who was passing through Padua on his way from Naples, was the one buried here. The tombstone, removed only in the first half of the 20th century, contained information about the laying of Miński’s body to rest in the place where church services associated with Poland and Poles were performed. For over three centuries, the tomb attracted the attention of pilgrims from Poland coming to Padua, reminding them not only of the outstanding Polish diplomat, but also of the natio polona, which, in the 16th and early-17th centuries, constituted a large and distinctive group of ultramontani, that is, those who came from beyond the mountains, most of whom had come to study at the flourishing university. In the article, little-known documents concerning the burial are gathered; these documents are kept in the Paduan archives and had been collected by the clergy and secular administration of the Basilica. Via the analysis of these documents, the cultural context in which the decision against bringing Miński’s body to Poland is reconstructed. The role of the institution, constituted by the administration of St. Anthony’s Basilica operating under the name of Veneranda Arca di Sant’Antonio, which grants permission to lay the body in the Basilica, is also established.

In the article, four illustrations by Aleksander Gierymski are described. These illustrations were completed for the illustrated press during Gierymski’s sojourn in Italy from 1885 to 1886. These illustrations were typical of the “Polish traces in Italy,” relating to Padua in this case, and were published in the magazines Wędrowiec and Kłosy. These illustrations show the tombs of exceptional Poles who were buried in Padua; commemorative plaques dedicated to them (in honour of Copernicus); or the monuments of Prato della Valle (Sobieski and Batory). However, in the article, based on the illustrations and the accompanying texts, and based on the artist’s correspondences (with the likes of Józef Ignacy Kraszewski, Michał Wiszniewski, Stanisław Dunin-Borkowski, and Władysław Bełza) and his diaries relating his time in Italy, the following issues, amongst others, will be addressed: Gierymski’s work method; the discourse (including the visual discourse) of “Polish traces in Italy” in Padua; Gierymski’s illustrations as an interpretation of the Polish lieux de mémoire in Italy. The article encourages an adoption, in the future, of a wider perspective that includes the illustrations of the “Polish traces in Italy” of other Polish artists from that period.