The text describes the house in which the Sobieski family lived, specifically Maria Kaźmira, widow of Jan Zamojski and widow of Jan Sobieski. The history of the family and the question of the house are recalled (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1886, Series 4, vol. 8, No. 203, p. 335, after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

Sobieski House in Rome.

For a long time, Christian Rome has been a hug for those derailed or fallen from the pedestal of earthly greatness. Without speaking of a whole series of past events, suffice it to recall those closer to our time: Christina, Queen of Sweden, the family of John III, King of Poland, the family of Napoleon the Great, Maria Christina, Queen of Spain and others. "At heart, the most beloved Marysieńka - Jan Sobieski: after the death of her husband and the removal of his sons from the throne, she had as many as two reasons for living in the eternal city: to hide her humiliated pride and to do penance to a wronged sinner.
At the very end of the 17th century, in the year 1099, she was seen in Venice as:

"a lady in black garb knelt in the basilica of St Mark's, praying for her deceased spouse, and a scarcely slender circle surrounded the mourning woman, as she, avoiding the throng of pressing people, visited the temple in secret".

The author of these words was some Italian chronicler. He was referring to the Wawel Cathedral from Słowacki's Balladyna, and the figure he made famous was Queen Maria Kazimiera, who was on her way to Rome to live, having lost all hope in Poland. She was travelling to a house she had already bought on the Tiber, which, in a city with a gift for petrification of everything from brick to imagery, gave our times its Polish coat of arms on the facade. The Margrave d'Aranville, as the widow of the Polish king, had the right to use them, but she used more than was necessary for the sake of decency and good taste.

The Sobieski House in Rome, shown here in a drawing by Mr Badowski, is unfortunately a reminder not of the splendour of the name of the hero from Vienna, but of the dying torch of his family's splendour, extinguished in the second generation. The widow of Jan Zamoyski, Voivode of Sandomierz, the widow of Jan Sobieski, Maria Kazimiera, reigning over both of them only with "charms, caprice and extraordinary charm". - according to Bartoszewicz - here she divided her time between the leaps of pride and the humility of novena. It was in this house that the queen made life miserable for her second son Alexander, so much so that he entered the Capuchin monastery without a vocation and died, nor did he have a vocation. Capuchins and died neither a monk nor a layman. In this house she imprisoned her youngest son Konstantin until he allowed her to divorce Maria Wesslówna, and only after her death the divorce, annulled by the Holy See, allowed the poor couple to be reunited in their old age. We have had bad queens, we have had Ryks and Bona, but Maria Kazimiera was the first to block the way to the Polish throne for her own offspring.

The fame of the Sobieski palace in Rome, like that of the Radziwiłłs' alley in Paris, is also growing dim, and is bound to fade any moment now. That is why we are handing over to historians a memento whose traces may fade any day now. But, although these traces will fade, Sobieski's name will not fade from the memory of the Romans for long. To this day, an old Roman folk poem praising, in local jargon, John III's victory at Vienna is sold on the streets of Rome for a fairy tale, on a par with King Humbert's new speech. It is fair to assume that John III will live on in the memory of the Romans into their late years.