The Roman fame of the Hetman and the King

The Eternal City, together with the Holy See, gave great attention and support - spiritual and economic - to King John III (1674-1696) and his policies. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as an 'Antemurale Christianitatis' - a country forming a frontier against the expansion into Europe of the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate - was regarded as a permanent and natural ally of the papacy.

Rome and the Vatican reacted like a seismograph to events taking place in the country on the Vistula River. The interest in the person of John III, his popularity on the Tiber and his relations with the court in Warsaw are documented by numerous materials preserved in the collection of the Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana). Vatican Sobiesciana are found, among others, in the codex Barb.lat.6618 with the title on the spine: "Polonia / Giovanni III / 1674-1696".

Just as interesting as the extensive collection of surviving written sources and prints is the memory of the events that unfolded in Rome after the two greatest military triumphs achieved by John III - the Battle of Chocim (1673) and the Battle of Vienna (1683).

Prologue - the Battle of Chocim

The echoes of the victorious Battle of Chocim, fought on 11 November, resounded loudly over the Tiber thanks to Hetman Sobieski's clever information and propaganda campaign.
After the spectacular victory over the Turkish army, with a view to his possible election to the throne, Sobieski sent Jan Chryzostom Gniński, starosta of Chelm, to Rome. The latter handed over to the then Pope Clement X of the Altieri family (1670-1676) the Turkish banner captured during the battle. The trophy was solemnly received by the pope and then hung at the main entrance to St Peter's Basilica.

On 2 June 1674, news of Sobieski's election to the throne reached the Pope. On Sunday 17 June, a solemn papal mass was held on the Quirinal for the occasion, during which the Te Deum was sung. Rome celebrated, and testimony to the interest of its inhabitants in the new King of Poland remains, among other things, a print preserved in the Vatican Library (one of many associated with John III) - "Ragguaglio Dell'Elettione del Serenissimo Re di Polonia Giovanni III...".

Act I - Battle of Vienna 1683 - news of the victory reaches the Tiber River

Almost ten years after these events, under the pontificate of Pope Innocent XI of the Odescalchi family (1676-1689), similar scenes played out in the Vatican. The first news reporting the salvation of Vienna reached Rome as early as 20 September, just over a week after the battle. According to one account, upon receiving the news of the victory of the Christian armies united under the command of John III, Innocent XI fell to his knees and kept vigil in a prayer of thanksgiving all night. On 25 September, the royal secretary, Tommaso Talenti, arrived in Rome to officially convey the news of the distant Turkish threat to the Pope and the College of Cardinals. On 26 September, Talenti had an official audience with the Pope, which included the presentation of the famous letter written by King John III just after the battle, beginning with the words: "Beatissimo Padre, Venimus, Vidimus, Deus Vicit". This letter is still kept in the collection of the Vatican Library (ASV, Lettere di Principi, vol. 110, f. 80r). Analogous to the victory at Chocim, also this time a flag was sent as a material symbol of triumph over the enemy, which, according to accounts of the time, the king himself had seized from the hands of the Turks and 'by no means wanted to drop it'. In the aforementioned letter to the Pope, he wrote: "Heaven forbid, in a short time, I should have been able to bear with the jaws of 180,000 Ottoman troops, to capture the great Vizier's banner...".

Whereas in a letter to Maria Kazimiera: "I have all the signs of his Vizier which were borne over him. The Mohammedan pennant which his Emperor gave him for the war, and which I have still today sent to Rome to the Holy Father by Talenti by post".

Act II - the flag as a symbol of triumph

Let us turn to the account published in 1683 describing the trophy: "the whole banner is made of brocade, partly red, partly green, woven with gold Arabic letters; red on the bottom, with a green stripe around it, two ounces wide and a palm's width; between the red bottom and the said stripe runs another, smaller, only eight ounces wide, woven with arabesques and silver crescents. The height of the whole banner is eight palms (about 180 cm), and the length sixteen (about 270 cm); up to eleven and a half palms it runs the same, then sharpens at the tip, into a triangular shape."

The 29th of September 1683 was set as the date for the ceremony of handing over to the Pope the banner captured by John III. At the time, it was regarded as the banner Kara Mustafa received from the hands of Sultan Mehmed IV. In fact, it was not the most important symbol of the Ottoman army, but a flag belonging to one of the Turkish dignitaries. The ceremony took place in the chapel of the Quirinal Palace with the participation of the Pope, cardinals including Carlo Barberini, the protector of the Republic, Talenti and Cardinal Jan Casimir Denhoff. The latter delivered a fiery oration on the victory of the Christian armies, during which Talenti spread the banner on the ground before Innocent XI. The Pope then placed his foot on the trophy, symbolically marking who was the victor. On 17 November that year, the banner was moved to the Vatican basilica, where it was hung at the entrance to the sanctuary, next to the Chocim trophy already there.

Epilogue - the Ottoman banners and their mysterious fate

The final source documenting the presence of the banners in the Vatican basilica is the diary of Carlo Cartari, a witness to the Roman celebrations of the Vienna Victory. At the end of November 1683, he noted that the two banners had been hung higher up in the basilica to prevent theft and attempts to recover them by envoys of the Ottoman Empire.

Two hundred years later, on the occasion of the jubilee of the victory at Vienna, Italian researcher Filippo Lancelotti noted that the banners were lost in the 18th century, during the occupation of Rome by French troops. He also gives information about the process of restitution of the lost works by the Canons of St Peter. However, in the list of objects compiled at the time, the flags appear as lost property.

One hypothesis assumes that, at an unspecified time, the flags (or the Viennese ensign itself) were transferred to the Church of St John Lateran and returned to the Vatican before the Second World War. This is where the trail stops.

Vatican memory traces

Finally, it is worth noting that the aforementioned collection kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana - an invaluable polonicum - includes numerous manuscripts and prints reporting on the reign of John III and the Republic's relations with the Holy See.

Yet another memento - although never materialised into an actual work - remains the idea of erecting a statue of the equestrian king as a triumphalist. The initiative was taken on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Vienna Victory, and the monument itself was to stand in the vestibule of the Vatican basilica, opposite the statue of Emperor Constantine the Great.