Giovanni Andrea Archetti and Stanisław August Poniatowski. A Portrayal of the King and Mutual Relations in Dispatches from the Nuncio to the Secretariat of State at the Apostolic See in 1776–1784

Abstract

The article studies mutual relations between King Stanisław August Poniatowski and Giovanni Andrea Archetti, the papal nuncio in the Commonwealth from 1776 to 1784. Information about the Polish king was an important part of the dispatches sent by the nuncio to the Roman secretariat of state. The king was concerned with creating a positive image of a ruler respecting the rights of the Roman Catholic Church. During this period several potential crises involving the state and the Church were resolved amicably.

The correspondence conducted by Archetti frequently mentions royal declarations of loyalty towards the Apostolic See and the monarch’s attachment to Pope Pius VI. Stanisław August “silently” consented to a backstage campaign conducted by the nuncio against the election of a dissident envoy at a sejmik held in Wschowa in 1776, and disagreed with projects of additional taxes to be paid by Church institutions on royal landed estates. At the same time, the Polish monarch rather decisively insisted on assuming control over the estates of the Cistercian abbeys in Ląd and Bledzew and did not meet all the demands made by Archetti regarding custody over Bishop Kajetan Sołtyk of Cracow. The king behaved in a more conciliatory fashion during the trial of Benedykt Oganowski, who having accepted ordination was subjected to Church jurisdiction although he was to be tried for earlier crimes committed as a layman. Despite the involvement of the nuncio the failed project of a legal code by Andrzej Zamoyski did not alter the way in which the king declared his total loyalty towards Pius VI and demonstrated his good will towards the papal diplomat. Archetti wrote about the monarch with sympathy and even compassion as he observed royal efforts aimed at a reform of the Commonwealth together with simultaneous political ineffectiveness sustained in particular by Russia. Stanisław August confimed his positive personal contacts with the nuncio by decorating the latter’s nephew, Giovanni Battista Vertova, with the Order of St. Stanislas and the Order of the White Eagle despite the fact that the recipient’s only merit was kinship with Giovanni Andrea Archetti.