Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski as a go-between in the preservation and purchase of books for Elżbieta Sieniawska at the end of the first quarter of the 18th century

Abstract

The multidimensional activity of Toruń’s town councillor and royal postmaster Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski mainly concerned the running of an information agency dealing with editing and distributing manuscripts . An important aspect of his cultural activity became his role as an agent in book-binding services and the purchase of books for the wife of the Grand Crown Hetman and Castellan of Cracow – Elżbieta Sieniawska. Rubinkowski, a noblewoman, a Baroque erudite and a bibliophile – he was an ideal candidate to carry out such tasks. His work was facilitated by the fact that Toruń enjoyed a strong position on the Polish bookselling market, which guaranteed the possibility to purchase both Polish and foreign books which were in demand. The bookseller’s search query included the works of Sieniawska’s father – Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski), other Polish authors (also from the territory of Royal Prussia) along with the classics of the early modern European literature. Equally important was the fact that Rubinkowski had a direct contact with Toruń’s guild of book-binding masters, which helped Sieniawska to preserve and renovate the books, which mostly came from her library in Puławy. Rubinkowski, particularly in the years 1725–1726, informed about the upcoming auctions of books organised in Toruń, received books sent in ships from Puławy and organised the transport of the purchased and renovated volumes. Within two years he participated in the purchase of a few hundreds of books, which made him one of the leading book-selling agents of the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.