At the end of the previous year, 2022, the list of Polish-Italian projects approved for being supported in years 2023-2024, in the framework of the joint programme between the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) and the National Research Council (CNR) (on the basis of the agreement between PAN and CNR from October 12, 2016) has been announced. Among 8 projects, the “Teachings and cross-border mobility of students between early modern Italy and Poland-Lithuania: a history of knowledge perspective” project have been listed with the project leaders being Dr. Lorenzo Mancini (ILIESI CNR, Italy) and Prof. Valentina Lepri (IFiS PAN, Poland).
The goal of this project is to better understand the intellectual dynamics and mutual stimuli between Italy and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the early modern period, by considering both educational theories and learning practices. Specifically, the two research activities that the focus is on contain: 1) a comparative analysis of the “curricula studiorum”, notably those taught at the Jesuit Roman College and at several educational institutions located in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, regardless of their religious orientation; 2) the circulation of students between Rome and Poland, with a specific reference to Polish, Lithuanian and Ruthenian students who attended the Roman College.
This month, July 4-8, the first trip within this two-year exchange project took place. Our Polish team (Prof. Valentina Lepri, Prof. Danilo Facca, Dr. Alicja Bielak, Dr. Gábor Förköli) traveled to Rome, Italy, to meet up with the Italian party of the project. Both teams presented the course of work and the results obtained so far by them, discussed the current outcomes and next steps, as well as decided on the future meetings. Polish team took advantage of local archives and conducted two-day searches at the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu and the Archivio della Pontificia Università Gregoriana, where various source materials were analyzed.