„Ultra prognosticare me sidera non permittunt”. O okolicznościach powstania przepowiedni elekcyjnej Jerzego Joachima Retyka

The so-called elective prophecy by Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514–1574) was written most likely in the early 1560s and widely disseminated in a significant number of copies, textual variants, and translations into the German and Polish languages. This abundance of copies led to a great confusion concerning the original character of Rheticus political horoscope, followed by a series of explanatory notices, as the late and corrupted variants had been quite often taken as representative for the entire tradition of this text. This article seeks to discuss the nature of previous misconceptions regarding the original character of the prophecy in the light of the most reliable witness (MS Wrocław, Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, Akc. 1949/594, fols 56v–57v) and other variants located in European libraries. It also aims to shed some critical light on probable origins of Rheticus’s horoscope and the way it evolved into a popular prophecy, deprived of proper astrological apparatus, and shaped political opinion among the members of the Polish nobility (szlachta).