Szymon Starowolski

Szymon Starowolski (1588 – 1656; Simon Starovolscius) was a writer, scholar and historian in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was probably born near Pruzhany, and died near Kraków. He was very prolific writer, left behind over 70 works, mostly in Latin. Some of them survived until its translation into Polish.

Szymon Starowolski was born into an impoverished Lithuanian noble family. As a young man he visited the courts of many magnates, including the famous Chancellor Jan Zamoyski (at age 17) and Bishop Jakub Zadzik. After his studies, he traveled in the service of the Ostrogski family through Western Europe (Germany, France, Holland), where he visited the University of Louvain. On his return, from 1612 to 1619 Starowolski studied and taught at the Kraków Academy (Jagiellonian University), and then at the Cistercian monastery in Wąchock.

Starowolski became secretary to the famous Polish military commander, Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, whom he accompanied at the Battle of Chocim (1621). Later he served as tutor to many young nobles, among them Aleksander Koniecpolski, son of Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski. Connected with many other powerful magnate courts, he often traveled abroad.

In 1639 he was ordained a Catholic priest, and subsequently became a canon and worked as a preacher, cantor and canon in Kraków and Tarnów. During the Swedish invasion of Poland (the Deluge), he performed the functions of a bishop in place of Piotr Gembicki.

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