Extremely rare first edition of this attack on Protestantism by the well-travelled Polish author and cleric Stanislaw Reszka (1544-1600), intimate of King Stefan Batory and Cardinal Hosius, and known to Montaigne and Tasso; no copy located in UK or US libraries.
The title of the work harks back to such works as Gigantomachia, Batrachomyomachia and other Greek texts popular in the 16th century, and the work itself is a review of the verbal controversies and dissensions in the ranks of various Protestant writers of the period from Luther onwards. Some of the names are mainstream (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Menno Simons) but many are now obscure (e.g. Smidelinus (=Jakob Andreae, 1528-90, see ADB), Hesshusius (= Heinrich Heshusius, 1556-97, see M. Halvorson, Heinrich Heshusius?and confessional polemic in early Lutheran orthodoxy, 2010).
The whole point of the little book is to underline the fractured and embittered nature of Protestant or evangelical doctrines and personalities across a wide geographical spectrum, from English Puritans, to the attacks on Calvin and others by the Lutheran Francesco Stancaro (1501-74) (described by one writer as ‘the most disagreeable theologian known to history’ (Wotscke) ‘but a man of great learning and attractive eloquence. But withal ambitious, self-conceited, arrogant… abusive, violent, obstinate’ (Wilbur, History of Unitarianism, Harvard UP, 1946, p. 297).
The work begins with Luther and his attacks on the Zwinglians and other Protestant sects and then proceeds to attacks on him (Luther) by various writers, including his pupil Cyriacus Spangenberg (1528-1604), and in much milder form Erasmus. He then proceeds to attacks on Calvin and gradually the whole range of ‘evangelical’ writers, including the English Puritans (pp. 95-97) and the Machiavellian English politicians of the age. Nor does he forget the Socinians who were to be so favoured in Polish lands. He does mention favourably some of the English Catholic controversialists like Stapleton, Sander and Cope (Queen Elizabeth I is attacked (pp. 48-49) and described as ‘papissa anglicana’), but in many ways the little book serves as a guide to Protestant controversy of the century. Indeed on p. 37 is a section devoted to the Frankfurt Book Fairs in which, writes Reszka, three times the number of books available are devoted to inter-Protestant strife as are devoted to attacks on Catholicism. The author’s epilogue contrasts the humane treatment of enemies or those of contrary views in print by Catholic writers from Jerome and Augustine on to Eck and John Fisher and others more contemporary like the hugely popular Thomas Stapleton (1535-98, born just days after the execution of St. Thomas More) all singing from the same sheet ‘quia in diversitate linguarum oris, est una lingua cordis, qui Christum sequuntur colligentem, non Luth[erum] & Calvinum dispergentem’ (p. 150).
The author Reszka (1544-1600) was a supporter, aide, and correspondent of the Polish king Stefan Batory. He was also later in life abbot of the Cistercian abbey of Jedrzejów in southern Poland, called in Latin Andreovia whence, dated early March 1591 (4 Idus Martii) is inscribed the preface to the reader. This ecclesiastical honour he probable owed to his service to the crown of Poland and king Stefan Batory. His closeness to king Stefan is shown by something he published in Rome in 1582 at the press of the heirs of Antonio Blado De rebus gestis Stephani I… contra magnum Moschorum ducem (CNCE 48493). He was also close to his chancellor Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605). But more particularly, as a leading figure in the Counter Reformation (something clearly underlined by this little book) he was an intimate of Cardinal Hosius (Hozjusz), Bishop of Warmia, whose secretary he was and whose biography he wrote in Latin. That was published in Rome in 1587 (translated into German, Ingolstadt, 1591). Earlier in Rome in 1580 he had published his Epistola… de transitu et dormitione Stanislai Hosii and at the Krakow press in 1582 De obitu magni Stanislaii Hosii cardinalis ode lugubris (this poem in Sapphics was also printed in Epistolarum, Naples, 1594, pp. 99-107).
It was whilst in Rome that in April 1581 he met Montaigne who records in his Journal de Voyage en Italie ‘en ce temps là entr’ autres connoissance à un Polonois, le plus privé ami qu’eût le cardinal Hosius, le quel me fit fit presant de deus exemplaires du livret qu’il a faict de sa mort et les corrigea de sa mein.’ (Oeuvres completes, ed. Thibaudet & Rat, Pleiade, 1962, p. 1241). This must be a reference to the Epistola of 1580.
In 1594 he was in Naples as ambassador for king Sigismund III (a role also played in Rome) and it was there that he was later to die in 1600. He seems to have met there the poet Torquato Tasso, who inscribed ‘di propria mano’ to him a copy of his Gierusalemme conquistata¸ Rome: G. Facciotti, 1593. The title-page is further inscribed by Reszka ‘ab auctore Neapoli 1595.’ Tasso died in Rome on 25 April 1595.
During the Naples sojourn in 1594 Orazio Salviani printed for the booksellers Carlino & Pace Epistolarum liber unus, a collection of fifty-five interesting letters in over 500 pages mostly to his Polish contemporaries, along with (as part 2) Piarum meditationum progimnasmata. Together these demonstrate wide reading in Latin (and Greek) writers, the Fathers, and Holy Writ. Amongst his correspondents also was the Antwerp scholar Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) who wrote to him in August 1593 (Lipsius. Epistolarum selectarum centuria singularis ad Italos & Hispanos, 1601 no. 12). This is of interest as on the front fly-leaf of this copy are quotations garnered from Lipsius headed De christianorum sectis (not the title of a work by him).
The printer of the book Jan Januszowski (1550-1613) was the son of Lazarz Andrysowic (who by marrying the widow Barbara Wietor inherited a long-established and leading Krakow print business). He was an educated lawyer (studied at Padua 1572) who worked in the royal service until the death of his father in 1577 when he became a printer. He had many important contacts, not least Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605) who engineered (1578) his printer’s privilege and was involved in the production of liturgical books like the Missale Warmiense of 1587. In January 1588 he was ennobled by Sigismund III Vasa.
Provenance: from a Fugger family library, with ink monogram inside front cover ‘SA’, and ink pressmark on upper cover.
Estreicher Bib, Pol. XV-XVIII, vo. 26, p. 267. Goluszka, M. Polnische Drucke und Polonica P. 826.
