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The Star Summer Palace, built by Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol in the years 1555–1560, was an exceptional building at its time, which was also reflected in Latin language poetry of the day. Two longer poems were written in the sixteenth century describing the building and the surrounding game reserve. The Ferdinandopyrgum by Laurentius Span, preserved in manuscript and written at the time when the building of the summer palace was not yet completed (ca. autumn 1556), was influenced by Italian architecture poems. A later poem, Stella Bohaemica, was published in 1597 in Olomouc under the name Iulius Torzarrellianus, and was reissued in 1617 in Prague under the name Jan Sixti of Lerchenfels. At the time of Rudolf II, the Star Summer Palace also became the subject of shorter poems by Heinrich Clingerius and Frederick Kropilius. Jan Sixti of Lerchenfels praised it in 1621 in his occasional print Stella stellae as a symbol of the victory of the Catholic party in the Battle of White Mountain. While Ferdinandopyrgum became an important source of art historical research, Stella Bohaemica has been largely neglected by researchers. The present article therefore draws more attention to this poem, focusing on its disputed authorship, which may have been the joint work of Jan Sixti and his Olomouc professor of poetry Johann Clingerius, a personality whose significance has not yet been fully appreciated. A detailed analysis of the poem demonstrates the connection with Sixti’s activities as a singer in the imperial court choir and a musician. Finally, the basic features of the image of the Star Summer Palace in Latin poetry of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries are summarised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the aesthetic philosophy of poet and English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins, who debated in his letters with friends about the value of poetry to society. Jesuit attitudes toward literature in the 19th century, Hopkins interest in the relationship between poetry and speech, and the role in inspiration in poetry are discussed, as well as Hopkins analysis of the poetics of Alfred Tennyson. The nationalist value of poetry in Great Britain, Hopkins' ordination as a Roman Catholic priest, and his supernatural beliefs are also discussed.

The paper presents three Greek hymns to Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier, written by the eminent Polish Jesuit and lexicographer Grzegorz Cnapius. The poems were added to the second volume of his dictionary Thesaurus Polono-Latino-Graecus printed in 1626. Their first modern edition, prepared by Janina Czerniatowicz and included in the anthology Corpusculum poesis Polono-Graecae saeculorum XVI–XVII (1531–1648), Wrocław 1991, is based on the second edition of the dictionary from 1644, which contains several errors. The main goal of the paper is, therefore, to produce an edition of the three hymns based on editio princeps of the dictionary's second volume, published in 1626. Cnapius composed and delivered the hymns on the celebration of the canonization of the two Jesuits, which took place in Kraków. The hymns are written in hexameter and elegiac distich. The first poem to Ignatius Loyola is an alphabetical acrostic, while the second is a complex acrostic, the initial letters making the name Francis and the last – Xavier. In the third poem Cnapius praises the missionary work of Francis Xavier by comparing him to Alexander the Great, Heracles and Bacchus. The hymns contain many rare Greek words and prove Grzegorz Cnapius's excellent knowledge of the Greek language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on re-connection of aesthetic and moral criticism of English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It mentions that American literary critics J. Hillis Miller and R.K.R. Thornton have tended to put the religious and aesthetic alegiances of the poet in opposition. It also highlights the role played by imagination in Jesuit theology and mentions the three phases of Hopkins's education as theologate, philosophate and priest.

This article discusses and analyses the early poetic sources related to Josaphat Kuntsevych: the two long and poorly researched Latin cycles of epigrams accompanying the poem Iosaphatidos sive de nece Josaphat Kuncewicz [...] libri tres (1628) and the biography of Josaphat Cursus vitae, et certamen martyrii B. Iosaphat Kuncevicii (1665), written by Jakub Susza. The ten epigrams of the Iosaphatidos cycle (devoted to "separate examples of Josaphat Kuntsevych's virtues") are distinguished by their poetical mastery and the merits of their epigrammatic Baroque style. They are characterized by the play of contrasting meanings and unexpectedly "sharp" final phrases. In the epigrams of the Susza's cycle one can perceive the influence of the earlier cycle's epigrams. Both cycles' epigrams are related by the originally structured system of poetic images that frames certain hagiographic episodes associated with St. Josaphat. In the hagiographic thread of the martyrdom the polysemantic symbolism of blood and water dominates. The final epigram X of the Iosaphatidos cycle is especially worth mentioning. It represents the symbolic image drawn by the future saint himself. The text of the epigram appears enter to into polemics with the emblematic and armorial tradition that celebrate the family and the noble parents of the hero: the wall image painted with the blood of Kuntsevych correlates with the face of Christ - the prototype of all Christian martyrs imprinted on St. Veronica's Kerchief or the Shroud of Turin. The analysis of the text reveals this epigram's connections with the symbolism of the image "painted" with Christ's blood that is rendered in contemporaneous Latin Jesuit poetry. This symbolism uses the analogous means of an image system to encode the message of an illustrated mystery: the image of a martyr - not beautified and not allegorized - which is drawn with real blood and is beautiful in its imperfection. There is no need for high-origin genealogy for its value to be confirmed and, one can maintain that the only "patron" immortalized in it is Christ himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a poem among the unpublished manuscripts that belonged to the Jesuit and Cardinal Sforza Palavicinio now in the Biblioteca Casanatense. The poem seeks to demonstrate how art compensates for man's limited perception of the natural and supernatural world. Nature has condemned man to perceive everything that lies beyond the soul's confines of the body through five senses. His sphere of perception is narrowly restricted in the present. This confinement blinds man to the traces of celestial beauty that God has hidden in even the most vile of creatures. Luckily, ingenious arts can imitate nature's vigor to render things. Painting, prone to none of the defects that hamper sculpture and writing, is the best helper for the confined spirit. It is so powerful that greatest care should be taken when choosing a subject-matter. The poem then proceeds with a description of the painting, an exaltation of its painter and a conceited comparison between the painting's subject-matter and divine creation.