The Legacy of the Lanckoroński Family

One of the objectives of the Foundation is to  preserve the memory of its foundress, Karolina Lanckorońska, and her siblings, as well as her father, Count Karol Lanckoroński and their ancestors, and also their cultural legacy.

Apart from the magnificent art collections today in the Royal Castle of Wawel in Kraków, its subsidiary the Castle of Pieskowa Skała, the Lanckoroński Gallery of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the miniatures donated to the Ossolineum which are now on permanent display at the Pan Tadeusz Museum in Wrocław, the drawings and watercolours by Polish artists in the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, the plaster casts of sculptures of the Antiquity and Renaissance sponsored by Karol Lanckoroński and owned by the Institute of Art History at the Jagiellonian University, a significant part of the Lanckoroński family’s legacy is also under the care of the Polish Academy of Learning in Kraków (Polska Akademia Umiejętności – PAU).

The name Lanckoroński has been associated with the Polish Academy of Learning since 1873, that is to say from the academy’s very beginning. Karol Lanckoroński was a benefactor of the academy and since 1891 a correspondent member. In 1929 he donated his collection of approximately sixty thousand photographs of academic value to the academy’s subsidiary in Rome, forming the Lanckoroński Photographic Library.

In the 1930s Karolina Lanckorońska voluntarily devoted her time to cataloguing this collection of photographs. In 1945 she began to work in co-operation with the academy’s commission for the History of Art and after the fall of communism in 1989 and the re-institution within Poland of the Polish Academy of Learning she was appointed an active member.

The crowning achievement of the family’s long relation with the academy came in 1995 with the signing of the agreement between the Lanckoronski Foundation and the Polish Academy of Learning on the basis of which the academy took over the publishing of the monumental Acta Nuntiaturae Polonae previously published by the Polish Historical Institute in Rome, founded by Karolina Lanckorońska, whilst the foundation committed itself to financing all successive volumes.

The Lanckoronski Foundation’s provision of scholarships also came under the academic and organizational supervision of the Polish Academy of Learning. The first agreement regarding this area was signed in 1995. It begins with the words, The Lanckoronski Foundation having for years granted scholarships to Polish scholars engaged in research work abroad in the field of humanities shall henceforth, now that Poland has regained her independence, entrust this responsibility to the Polish Academy of Learning from the date of signing of this Agreement. After Karolina Lanckorońska’s death the academy assumed this role in full.

Karolina Lanckorońska’s archival legacy as well as the “Rozdół Library” (mainly comprising volumes purchased after the Second World War) were donated to the Polish Academy of Learning in 1997 and are in the Academic Archive of the Polish Academy of Learning and the Polish Academy of Science in Kraków. Successive material was donated in 2003 and 2014 including Antoni Lanckoroński’s correspondence relating to legal and estate matters. One may access the resources of the “Rozdół Library” in the Academic Archive’s reading room. The remaining part of this legacy includes biographical and family material, such as Karol Lanckoroński’s correspondence, as well as documents relating to academic matters and social welfare as well as an extensive collection of photographs and estate papers. Moreover it contains the administrative documents of the Polish Historical Institute in Rome, the Lanckoronski Foundation and the De Brzezie Lanckoronski Foundation as well as correspondence with the scholarship holders. The above material is in the process of being catalogued but is already partly available subject to the prior permission of the Secretary-General of the Polish Academy of Learning or the Director of the Academic Archive of the Polish Academy of Learning and the Polish Academy of Science. It is worth drawing the reader’s attention to the fact that the photographic collections donated by the Lanckoroński family are being successively made available in the catalogue of the Artistic and Academic Collections of the Polish Academy of Learning.

Part of the engravings and graphic works donated to the Polish Academy of Learning are kept in the collections of the Academic Library of the Polish Academy of Learning and the Polish Academy of Science in Kraków.

The legacy of Karol Lanckoroński is kept in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, http://www.onb.ac.at/), in the Collection of Manuscripts and Old Prints (Sammlung von und alten Drucken Handschriften). It was created as a result of the donation made in 1972 and purchases made between 1990 and 2008. It comprises almost 3,800 archival units, mainly consisting of Lanckoroński’s correspondence, his travel journals and daily notes dating from 1912-1913 (the so-called Lebenserinnerungen). This legacy in the Austrian National Library is being catalogued in the period 2012-2015 as a specific project of the Viennese subsidiary of the Polish Academy of Science. This project foresees the publication of Karol Lanckoroński’s travel journals from his trips to Italy and Asia Minor as well as selected parts of his correspondence, including letters from Max Dvořák. Most of the correspondence, in summary form, was put on a computer database on the centre’s website which facilitates its availability. Information on the project as well as the database can be found at: http://www.viennapan.org/index.php/en/lanckoronski. In the photographic archive (Bildarchiv) of the Austrian National Library there are also photographs of Karol Lanckoroński and his family as well as photographs from the expedition in 1883, amongst others.