This major work by the Kaunas-born Jesuit professor Albert Wijuk Kojałowicz (1609–1677), a historian and founder of heraldry in Lithuania, and rector of Vilnius University, was the first written ‘History of Lithuania’, published in Latin in two parts, in Gdańsk (1650, part I) and Antwerp (1669, part II). The first part describes historical events before the Christianisation of Lithuania in 1387. The second part covers the period from 1387 to the death of Sigismund Augustus in 1572. The author used information from the chronicles of Peter of Dusburg and the historian Maciej Stryjkowski (1582), the Radziwiłł archive at Nesvizh, and the Lithuanian Chronicles. Kojałowicz’s history was the only work in the 17th and 18th centuries devoted specifically to the history of Lithuania, and served as the main point of reference for Lithuania and its history not only for nobles, students and professors in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also for historians and geographers in other countries.
Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album
ARS LIBRI (2022). Compiler Algimantas Muzikevičius, text authors Algimantas Muzikevičius, Rolandas Gustaitis
