82 prodromus reginae artium Mary) as the author of PRA in the work itself as well as in other sources, such as the Piarist and later the Marian documents. Furthermore, his authorship is confirmed by documentation testifying that he was present in the shop during the printing of this work in Warsaw and Krakow and – as the book’s author – oversaw the fidelity of the printed text to his manuscript. The book’s title – for which the author chose a word of Greek origin, prodromus (from the verb prodromeuein, i.e., to serve in equestrian reconnaissance; the noun pródromos means forerunner, or arriving first, but can also be understood as harbinger; the noun pródromos can be regarded as the equivalent of the Latin praecursor, meaning predecessor or antecedent; in other words, someone who proclaims something new) – indicates that Fr. Papczyński had in mind the work on rhetoric which he composed in six books entitled Regina Artium (Queen of the Arts). PRA was to be the forerunner of this work. We know that Fr. Papczyński, who taught rhetoric in the Piarist colleges, compiled for teaching purposes a comprehensive textbook of rhetoric under this title as early as 1658 and included some of its fragments in PRA. Basically, Prodromus Reginae Artium is a short version of Regina Artium, as Papczyński himself indicated in PRA; but we cannot verify it today, because Regina Artium was never printed, and its manuscript was lost. However, its existence is confirmed by documentation used in Fr. Papczyński’s beatification process, which informs us that two books of Regina Artium were submitted to Rome in 1773. Account of the PRA’s Subsequent Releases The title page of the first edition is a full-page engraving made from a metal plate (either copper or steel), showing Mercury (Greek name Hermes) as the god of eloquence (Greek: Hermes Logios), who holds a kerykeion (Latin caduceus), i.e., the herald’s staff entwined with two snakes (the symbol of his power as well as the staff of peace, with which he reconciled the quarreling parties), and a shell-shaped shield inscribed “Messenger of the Queen of the Arts, or Training in Eloquent Speech-making, by
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