He was born in Cracow, approximately in 1546, as son of the rogozinski castellan - Stanisława Rozdrażewskiego (decd. in 1564) and Zuzanny from the house of Myszkowskich. He had been broadly educated in the court of Henryk Walezy in France, as well as the University in Ingolstadt in Bavaria and Rome. He was not only a clergyman, but also a royal secretary to Sigismund II Augustus and Stephen Báthory, a diplomat, bibliophile, and patron of the arts. From 1574 he held the office of Grand Secretary of the Crown. He received priestly ordination in Rome, and with the support of Báthory he became Bishop of Kuyavia (1582). He died in 1600 in Rome.

The bishop’s elder brother, Stanisław (1540–1619), was a Jesuit and the first rector of the order’s college in Pułtusk.

The Holy Year 1600

The year 1600 was announced by Pope Clement VIII as a jubilee year in the Catholic Church. In connection with this, at the end of 1599 various European church hierarchs were arrived in Rome to participate in the ceremony of the opening of the Holy Doors, which each time marked the beginning of grand celebrations. The most splendid retinue that set out from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was that of Cardinal and Bishop of Kraków Jerzy Radziwiłł (1556–1600). The route led through Venice, Padua, then Venice again, from where Radziwiłł travelled by sea to Ancona and proceeded to the sanctuary in Loreto. The next stop on the journey was Rome.

Descriptions of this retinue, which certainly exaggerated, spoke of 100 wagons drawn by a total of 600 horses. Regardless of the actual number of vehicles, the cardinal’s retinue was widely admired by his contemporaries, and its wealth and splendour became the subject of numerous legends. One of Radziwiłł’s companions on the journey was Bishop Hieronim Rozdrażewski. Unexpectedly, shortly after arriving in the Eternal City, the Bishop of Kuyavia suddenly fell ill and died on 6 February 1600. Only slightly earlier (on 22 January), Cardinal Radziwiłł also died in Rome, and both hierarchs were commemorated in the Jesuit church of Il Gesù.

The Roman tomb of Bishop Rozdrażewski

The tombstone of Hieronim Rozdrażewski was set into the floor in front of the entrance to the Chapel of Santa Maria della Strada. The epitaph, measuring 216 × 100 cm, consists of two parts: a large rectangular slab with a coat of arms and a rectangular inscription plaque placed below it, surrounded by a border. It was made using variously coloured marbles – white, black and red. On the vertical slab there is a large depiction of the Rozdrażewskis’ coat of arms, Doliwa, although shown incorrectly in mirror image. 

The epitaph is surrounded by an ornamental cartouche, and everything is surmounted – in accordance with the canons of ecclesiastical heraldry – by a cardinal’s hat with tassels hanging on the sides (the number of which denotes the rank held). The elongated plaque containing the inscription is almost completely worn away. As early as the 19th century it was illegible, and Rev. Ignacy Polkowski in his 1870 guidebook published in Dresden, “Polish Graves and Memorials in Rome”, wrote that the tomb was no longer in the church. Apparently the inscription was so unclear that it was impossible to identify the slab. To this day, it is sometimes mistakenly stated that Bishop Rozdrażewski’s plaque has not survived. The entire tombstone is framed by a red border with black elements and outlines. According to sources, the executor of Hieronim Rozdrażewski’s will was Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564–1631), Archbishop of Milan, who paid Pietro Antonio Bustio 1000 scudi for the execution of two memorial plaques for the bishop: one for the Jesuit church and the other for the church of the Polish nation, St. Stanislaus (the latter unfortunately has not survived, to this day only copies of the inscription are known). 

The tombstone of Bishop Rozdrażewski in the church of Il Gesù is an example of a tradition known in the 16th century, but particularly popular in the 17th century, of creating multi-coloured marble epitaph plaques set into the floors of churches. They served two functions – commemorative and decorative. The plaques of Bishop Rozdrażewski and Cardinal Radziwiłł are not the only ones connected with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. At the end of the 17th century, an impressive plaque placed in the sacristy of the church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane on the Roman Quirinal was also used to commemorate Cardinal Jan Kazimierz Denhoff (1649-1697).