The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Klonowicz, Sebastian-Fabian

KLONOWICZ, klō'no'vĭch, Sebastian-Fabian, Polish satirical poet: b. Sulmierzyce 1551; d. Lublin, 1608. Studied at Cracow University, acquired the Latin name Acernus and established himself at Lublin, where he became burgomaster and president of the civil tribunal of the Jewish community. Of modest and virtuous character, his wife was a dissipated, vicious woman who brought him to poverty, obliging him in age to take refuge in the city retreat as an object of Catholic charity. He wrote ‘Victoria deorum,’ a poem concerning the ills of the poor at the hands of the rich; ‘Roxolania’ (1584) poem descriptive of Red Russia (Galicia); ‘Flis, or the boatman navigating on the Vistula from Cracow to Danzig’ (1600); ‘Worek Judaszow,’ or Judas purse, decrying the wicked acquisitions of the rich (1600); ‘Memorial of the Dukes and Kings of Poland’ (1600, 1620 and 1639). The Jesuits, against whom Klonowicz leveled so many of his satires and who helped him when in misfortune, burned all his works they could acquire, and some have become very rare.