JOHN III SOBIESKI, King of Poland. - B. at Olesko (Lviv) on 2 June 1624. His eminent family position - he was the son of Jakób, first senator of the Kingdom of Poland - his broad experience of study at Kraków and of the journeys he made abroad (England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey), his great political and above all military abilities soon raised him to the highest ranks.
Grand Hetman of the Crown, or supreme commander of the army, from 1667, under King Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki he succeeded in redeeming at Chocim (1673), against Mehmed IV and Ahmed Köprülü, the humiliating peace of Buczacz (1672), by which Podolia was ceded to the Turks and Ukraine to the Cossacks. In the face of continuous Turkish pressure on the south-eastern frontiers of Poland, the Polish Diet, after the death of Michael Korybut Wiśniowiecki, which occurred on the very eve of the battle, decided to entrust to him the crown of Poland on 21 May 1674, choosing him from among seventeen candidates. He continued the war against the Turks and Tatars, obtaining from the Porte, by the peace of Żurawno (1676), the restitution of two thirds of Ukraine and all the prisoners held in Turkey; on the other hand, not without the influence of his wife Marysieńka, the Frenchwoman Marie de la Grange d'Arquien, he concluded with Louis XIV the Treaty of Jaworów directed against Austria and Brandenburg (1675), with the understanding of obtaining East Prussia after the war. Since the Turkish danger had decidedly prevailed over Western and Baltic concerns, in 1683 S. drew closer to the Empire, concluding with Leopold I and Pope Innocent XI a pact of alliance against the Turk. And when the army of Kara Mustafa reached the walls of Vienna, G.'s prompt intervention at the head of a strong Polish army made possible on 12 Sept. 1683 a resounding victory for the arms of Christendom. S. reconquered Hungary for the Empire and continued for a long time to wage war against the Turks. Precisely these struggles forced him to renounce, by the agreement of Moscow of 1686, Kiev and the Ukrainian territories beyond the Dnieper. Death overtook him on 17 June 1676, before Poland could recover, by the peace of Carlowitz (1699), all the lands torn from it by the Turk, first of all Kamenets Podolsky.
A brilliant captain, a man of broad, humanistic culture, attached to the see of Peter (to which after Vienna he sent the prophet's green banner), he was a patron and devotee of the fine arts. Disdainful of the sumptuous court of Warsaw, where his wife triumphed, he preferred to it the quiet of Wilanów (Villa Nova), a small palace built to the design of the Italian Locci, where he had assembled, with the help of his secretary, the Jesuit Father Vota, rich art collections, among them many copies of Italian masterpieces.
Bibliography6 works
Angelo Tamborra