In God’s and people’s books. The world of Jan Lubrański Temporary exhibition

We are happy that we can finally welcome you back to Porta Posnania! During the first stage of reopening our institution to visitors we are opening access to the Cathedral Lock. We would like to invite you to visit our temporary exhibition In God’s and people’s books. The world of Jan Lubrański. The exhibition opens on the 19th of May.

Free entry!

The Cathedral Lock’s opening hours: Tue. – Fri. 11 am – 6 pm, Sat. – Sun. 10 am – 7 pm, Mon. – closed.

Rules of your visit

To ensure your safety, we have introduced new rules of visiting which are in accord with the latest health rules. We ask all visitors to wear face masks and gloves. Please use hand sanitisers before you enter the exhibition, keep safe distance (at least 2 metres apart) and avoid touching the equipment and the surfaces in the building. We have also limited the number of visitors (15) who can be at Porta Posnania at any given time. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation!

MORE INFORMATION

Subject

In May 2020 we are celebrating the 500^th anniversary of Jan Lubrański’s death. The purpose of this temporary exhibition is to present this extraordinary bishop of Poznań, the variety of the projects he was involved in as well as the era in which he lived and worked. Lubrański’s story is presented here through five themes juxtaposing opposite realities (the Middle Ages – the Renaissance, the past – the future, temporal – eternal, body – spirit, an individual – society). This allows us to show and highlight how versatile and open-minded he was and how diversified his projects were.

The example of Jan Lubrański’s life shows us perfectly how the matters of God and the matters of the people were intertwined. Lubrański was an incredibly well-educated man, interested in the latest cultural trends, who chose traditional Church career. Thanks to his position, he was able to both support his family and genuinely take care of the Church. The modernisation of the bishop’s city on the Cathedral Island was an expression of prestige as well as of genuine care about the inhabitants. Jan Lubrański commemorated his predecessors and cared about the family tradition, while at same time he tried to provide the institutions he had established with strong foundations for the future. As a member of the intellectual elite of the time, Lubrański undoubtedly realised that investing in culture and education must go hand in hand with taking care of the more mundane matters. On the one hand, he commissioned valuable works of art and ordered the renovation of churches, but on the other hand, he also founded hospitals, built waterworks and cobbled streets. Lubrański’s multifaceted approach to reality, which is demonstrated at the exhibition, can be best illustrated with a quote from his tombstone, describing the bishop as fluent in understanding “God’s and people’s books” (DIVINIS ET HUMANIS LITERIS).

Arrangement

The key element of the exhibition’s arrangement is a cube. Cubic elements, which are either part of some bigger forms or broken down into smaller parts, symbolise the unanswered questions in Jan Lubrański’s biography. The sources on his life are incomplete due to the time that has passed since his death (500 years!) and many facts will never be discovered.

An important element of the arrangement are white books, which refer to the title of the exhibition. In one of the rooms, they are part of an artistic installation symbolising Lubrański’s book collection which has been scattered around the world. The exhibition has been also enriched by audiovisual elements. The visitors are accompanied by music from the bishop’s times as well as by a recording of the Latin dedication to the bishop written by one of the prominent humanists – Rafał Regiusz.