A Lithuanian nobleman’s mapping of Poland: "The Itinerary of a Peregrination" by Stanisław Samuel Szemiot (1680)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė (LDK; Grand Duchy of Lithuania; GDL); Lietuvos istorija; Kartografija; Itinerariumas; The Lithuanian history; Cartography; Itinerary.

ENThis chapter will use Szemiot’s itinerary to present several similar pictures of the Polish Crown. Sometimes Szemiot’s dense and concise descriptions can be supported by seventeenth-century views of towns and castles. Thus, we can easily imagine some places he visited in September 1680. At the centre of our interest, however, is Szemiot himself and the way he mapped Poland. I use the term ‘mapping’ advisedly, because his diary - in a similar way to the 1663 manuscript map of Skawina - was a self-made map of a part of Poland. Several questions arise concerning this mapping. What is particular in Szemiot’s writing about Poland? To what extent did he regard it as something different from his own country? What cultural and literary filters did he apply to constructing his narration? How did he forge his personal map of Poland? And finally how can we imagine the mentality and spatial imagination of this young Lithuanian nobleman?. [Extract, p. 205]