An ideal image of the past : the iconography of Saint John the Baptist in early modern coats of arms in Lesser Poland

The article refers to the iconography of Saint John the Baptist in early modern coats of arms in Lesser Poland. It provides some works of Polish researchers of auxilliary sciences of history and focuses on the civic iconography issue, especially the Saint John the Baptist image that occurred in many seals and coats of arms in early modern period. The author is deeply focused on Prodromos' life and presents spread of his cult all around the medieval Europe, including Lesser Poland. Then he explains some images of St. John the Baptist in heraldry of few towns, like for example Frysztak, Koprzywnica, Krościenko, Piwniczna, Dobczyce, Proszowice, Nowa Góra, Dukla or Skalbmierz. Further those cities' coats of arms were created from depictions that occurred on seals. We can see here Saint John's symbol as well as his attribute, in a form of the Lamb of God or the decapitated head put in a bowl plate. It seems that the meaning of them is not so obvious as it looks like, so the author is trying to explain why Prodromos depictions appeared on seals and coats of arms and if they were always connected with Saint John.