81 ??? Introduction Work and Circumstances of Its First Editions The original title of Prodromus Reginae Artium, or Training Students in Artful Speaking (PRA), is Prodromus Reginae Artium sive Informatio Tyronum Eloquentiae. This is a textbook of rhetoric composed in Latin by St. Stanislaus Papczyński1. Prodromus Reginae Artium first appeared in print inWarsaw, in 1663, at the printing house of the royal printer named Elert. The same shop produced two subsequent editions in 1664 and 1665. The third edition, which did not survive to this day, was released under the revised title Prodromus Rhetoricus sive Institutiones Rhetoricae. The author’s preface to the fourth edition tells us that the Prodromus’s third edition aroused great controversy, probably because of the disapproving opinion of liberum veto expressed in the book. As a result of this “storm,” Fr. Papczyński had to make some changes when preparing the text of PRA for the fourth edition. Toward the end of 1669, he submitted the corrected text to the royal printer in Krakow, the Baltazar Smieszkowic Print Shop. It should be noted that the PRA fourth edition does not give the year of its release. We know, however, that in September 1669, Fr. Papczyński went to Krakow to personally supervise the printing of this edition. In this book, he identifies himself as a Piarist, hence it should be assumed that its printing was done before his departure from the Piarist Schools on December 11, 1670. There is no doubt as to the authenticity of Fr. Papczyński’s authorship of the original work and four of its subsequent editions. He is named by his surname Papczyński (Stanislaus of Jesus and 1 This study acknowledges and uses translations and research made by Bogdan Kupis and included in the monograph Niedoceniony podręcznik retoryki Stanisława Papczyńskiego (1631–1701), Warszawa-Lublin 2006, and Casimir Krzyżanowski, MIC, included in the Introduction to the critical edition of PRA.
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