Souvenirs of European and Polish rulers

The exhibition consists of manuscripts, old prints and maps kept in the Czartoryski Princes Library. Among the presented materials relating to European monarchs, there were documents related to the dynasties ruling in Poland, as well as graphic representations of the rulers.

They include parchment documents – issued by Pope Julius II, Emperor Maximilian I, King Sigismund I the Old, and French kings Charles V the Wise and Charles IX, relating to Polish affairs.

The presented prayer books have supralibros of French rulers on their bindings. The first bears the ownership marks of Sun King Louis XIV and his wife Maria Theresa of Austria, the next of his successor, Louis XV, while the manuscript prayer book belonged to Maria Leszczynska.

Of interest is a manuscript given to the former Spanish Queen Marie Christine de Bourbon with the "Our Father" prayer transcribed in various world languages.

Genealogical inferences show the relationships and histories of the rulers. The World Chronicle , a 15th-century illuminated parchment scroll, contains a history of emperors, popes, and the rulers of France, England, and Jerusalem. The Jesse Tree on display, on the other hand, is a 15th-century depiction of the family tree of Jesus Christ, going back to the father of the biblical King David.

Horoscopes and prognostics were supposed to foretell the future to the descendants of rulers, as in the case of Jacob Sobieski, son of King John III.

From the Statute of Jan Łaski of 1506, printed on parchment, comes a woodcut showing a meeting of the Senate in the presence of King Alexander Jagiellon, all surrounded by the coats of arms of the lands of the Crown and Lithuania. Two 18th century maps by Pieter Schenk and Johann B. Homann with beautiful cartouches show the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.