“Quattuor stellae in una iam urbe”. De Officina Plantiniana en de Republiek der Letteren van Breslau (1550–1585)

Abstrakt

Among the many members of the Early Modern Respublica Litteraria who maintained contacts with the famous Officina Plantiniana in Antwerp, there were also several patricians of Breslau Wrocław, Wratislavia, the capital of Silesia. The ‘Four Stars in That One City’ a paraphrase of a sentence uttered by Justus Lipsius about the important Wratislavians, who at the end of the 16th century belonged to the European elite, were the imperial envoy in Poland, later anti-Trinitarian Andreas Dudith, the descendent of the then mightiest Breslau family Thomas Rehdiger, the Calvinist polymath Jacob Monau and the court physician of three Habsburg emperors Johannes Crato von Crafftheim. Their correspondence from the years 1550–1585 shows many literary relationships with Plantin. Their book collections, preserved till today in the Wrocław University Library, with works from the Officina Plantiniana, are clear evidence of the vivid connections between Plantin and the Silesians.