Jan Andrzej Morsztyn

Jan Andrzej Morsztyn (1621–93) was a Polish poet, member of the landed nobility, and official in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was starosta of Zawichost, Tymbark and Kowal. He was also pantler of Sandomierz (1647–58), Royal Secretary (from 1656), a secular referendary (1658–68), and Deputy Crown Treasurer from 1668. Apart from his career at the Polish court, Morsztyn is famous as a leading poet of the Polish Baroque and a prominent representative of Marinist style in Polish literature. Over his lifetime he accumulated considerable wealth. In 1683 he was accused of treason and was forced to emigrate to France. Biography Morsztyn was born 24 July 1621 at Wiśnicz, near Kraków, into a wealthy Calvinist family of coat-of-arms Leliwa. He studied at Leiden University and, with his brother, traveled extensively in Italy and France. After returning to Poland, he became a retainer of the magnate Lubomirski family, and through them became attached to the royal court. He was a deputy to the Sejms of 1648, 1650, 1653, 1658 and 1659. He served on numerous Sejm commissions for diplomatic, legal and fiscal matters. He took part in diplomatic missions to Hungary (1653), Sweden (1655) and Austria (1656). He was named Royal Secretary in 1656, Crown Referendary in 1658, and Deputy Crown Treasurer in 1668. During those years he took part in many diplomatic missions and negotiations; he was part of the mission that negotiated the Treaty of Oliwa (1660). He fought in The Deluge and in the Chmielnicki Uprising. In politics he represented the pro-French faction, promoting the French candidate in the royal election of 1668, and become a vocal supporter of French policies in the Commonwealth. He accepted French pension and citizenship. When king John III Sobieski distanced himself from France, and allied with Austria, he was accused of treason and emigrated to France in 1683, where he assumed the title of comte de Châteauvillain and spent the last years of his life as a royal secretary. The Sejm of 1686 stripped him of all offices and titles and banned him from the country.