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Major dates in Ioannes Dantiscus’ biography

  • 1485, November 1 – born in Gdańsk
  • 1499-1500 – probably studied at Greifswald University
  • 1500-1503 – studied at the Cracow Academy (ending in a baccalaureate)
  • 1500 – beginning of his career at the court of the king Jan Olbracht
  • 1501 – appointed a scriba in the chancellery of Jan Łaski
  • 1502 – took part in the campaign against the Tatars and Wallachians
  • 1504 – appointed a scriba in the royal chancellery of Aleksander Jagiellończyk
  • 1505-1507 – pilgrimage to the Holy Land
  • 1507-1515 – missions to Prussian cities and to the Prussian assemblies (official for Prussian affairs at the court of Sigismund I)
  • 1510 – publication in Cracow of his first volume of verse, including the poem De virtutis et fortunae differentia somnium
  • 1512 – took part in the marriage ceremony of Sigismund I and Barbara Zapolya in Cracow, and in the poetical agon marking the occasion (Epithalamium Sigismundi et Barbarae)
  • 1514 –poem on the victory over Moscow in the battle of Orsza (De victoria Sigismundi)
  • 1515 – took part in the Congress of Pressburg-Vienna in the retinue of King Sigismund I
  • 1515-1517 – stayed with the Polish legation at the imperial court, as secretary of the legation
  • 1515/1516 – three journeys to Venice to mediate between the emperor and the Venetian senate
  • 1516 – ennobled, granted the title of doctor of both cannon and civil law (utriusque iuris), comes palatinus and poeta laureatus by the emperor
  • 1517 – love elegy Ad Gryneam
  • 1518 – took part in the marriage ceremony of Sigismund I and Bona Sforza in Cracow (poem Epithalamium reginae Bonae)
  • 1518-1519 – first diplomatic mission – legation to the court of Emperor Maximilian I and King of Spain Charles I (the matter of validating the testament of Queen Joanna IV of Naples – grandmother of Poland’s Queen Bona); visits to Austria, Switzerland and Spain
  • 1521 – obtained the parish in Gołąb
  • 1522-1523 – second diplomatic mission – legation to the court of Emperor Charles V (Prussian and Turkish matters, and the Neapolitan inheritance); on the way there – meetings with Archduke Ferdinand, Cardinal Mathias Lang, King of England Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, regent of the Netherlands Princess Margaret and the exiled King Christian II of Denmark, as well as Martin Luther in Wittenberg; visits to Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Spain; pilgrimage to Compostela;
  • 1523 – obtained the parish of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Gdańsk
  • 1524-1532 – third diplomatic mission – legation to Bari for the purpose of taking over Queen Bona’s inheritance left by her mother, Isabel of Aragon, and to the Spanish court for a formal validation of acquisition of that inheritance; seven-year stay at the court of Charles V as resident Polish ambassador (Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands); negotiations concerning the secularization of the Teutonic Order; making friends with Hernán Cortés
  • 1527 – birth of his daughter Juana (d. after 1592) in Valladolid
  • 1529 – obtained the Ermland canonry
  • 1530 – took part in the ceremony of Charles V’s coronation as emperor
  • 1530 – publication in Bologna, Cracow, Cologne and Antwerp of the poem De nostrorum temporum calamitatibus silva
  • 1530, August 3 – preconization as Kulm bishop
  • 1531 –publication in Leuven and Paris (French translation) of the report from the Battle of Obertyn (Victoria Serenissimi Poloniae Regis contra Voieuodam Moldauiae Turcae tributarium et subditum parta 22 Augusti 1531)
  • 1532 – return to Poland
  • 1533, March 23, 25 and 29 – ordained as a priest
  • 1533, September 14 – consecrated as Kulm bishop
  • 1534 or 1535 – probably writing of the autobiographical poem De vita Ioannis Dantisci
  • 1536, December 1 – designated by the Ermland Chapter for coadjutor of Ermland Bishop Maurycy Ferber
  • 1536, December – 1537, February – was at the Diet in Cracow (as part of the delegation of the Royal Prussian Council)
  • 1537, September 20 – elected Ermland bishop by the Ermland Chapter (among whose members was his long-time friend Nicolaus Copernicus)
  • 1537, December 18 – official ingress in Heilsberg, the seat of Ermland bishops
  • 1537-1548 – chairman of the Royal Prussian Council (a function automatically connected to that of Ermland bishop)
  • 1538 – mission to King Ferdinand Habsburg of Rome concerning the marriage between Sigismund II Augustus and Elizabeth Habsburg
  • 1543 – took part in the marriage ceremony of Sigismund II Augustus and Elizabeth Habsburg in Cracow
  • 1548, July 10 – publication in Cracow of a collection of religious hymns (Hymni aliquot ecclesiastici, variis versuum generibus, de Quadragesimae Ieiunio, et sex eius diebus Dominicis, deque horis Canonicis Christi Passionis tempore, et de Resurrectione, Ascensione, Spiritussancti missione, Matreque gloriosissima Maria Virgine, recens aediti(!))
  • 1548, October 27 – died in Heilsberg, buried in the Frauenburg Cathedral

Anna Skolimowska

translated from Polish by Joanna Dutkiewicz and Maria Bożenna Fedewicz