[1] He was the son of Konstancja née Kurowska, the daughter of miecznik of Czersk; and Tomasz Tański, leaseholder of the villages Orszymowo and Rębów, belonging to the starost of Wyszogród Michał Szymanowski.

[1] In his childhood, Ignacy has been friends with members of the Szymanowski family, with which he was affiliated by his mother; and with his relative Józef Tański, who was a poet.

[3] Working with Jan Łuszczewski and Józef Orsetti, under the supervision of Maurycy Glaire, he co-developed a constitution, i.e. the statute of the reformed lodge of Grand Orient.

From January 1788 Tański served as the First Supervisor of the Grand Orient, and according to Wojciech Pękalski he became a member of the Supreme Chapter of the lodge.

The group, that worked under the chairmanship of Onufry Kopczyński, consisted of, among others: Michał Wyszkowski, Konstanty Tymieniecki, Alojzy Feliński, Mikołaj Dzieduszycki, Franciszek Skarbek Rudzki and Jan Feliks Amor Tarnowski.

[1] As the secretary of the Royal Cabinet of Foreign Affairs, on 19 April 1794 he signed the accession of citizens and residents of the Masovian Duchy to the Kościuszko Uprising.

[1] He also joined the Targowica-Grodno Deputation (Deputacja Targowicko-Grodzieńska), which was set up to control the Targowica Confederation and the Grodno Sejm activity.

He also helped to prepare an alphabetical list of names of people who were in any way engaged in the Targowica Confederation, and thus were recognized as ones that should not hold public trust offices.

He agreed to a proposal of his friend, Jan Łuszczewski, and took over the lease of the village of Wyczułki in the Sochaczew poviat, which was within the borders of Prussia from 1795.

He lived with his family in a thatched cottage, organizing the farm and maintaining social contacts, including with Łuszczewscy, Szymanowski from Izdebna and Tekla Teresa Łubieńska and her husband Feliks Łubieński from the nearby Guzów.

Also around that time, Aleksandra, the oldest daughter of Tański, was admitted to a girls' school in Puławy by Izabela and Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski.

[1] Around 1801, Tański accepted the invitation of Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski to become his secretary with a salary of six thousand Polish złotys a year, and together with his wife and daughter Zofia moved to Puławy, an estate of the Czartoryscy, that was in the territory remaining under Austrian rule.

The way in which Tański has been building the intrigue was later compared by literature historians to The Presumed Miracle, or Krakovians and Highlanders by Wojciech Bogusławski.

Roman Dąbrowski assessed that “in terms of artistic value, these were average pieces, usually short, with a light theme and mood, close to rococo, sometimes sentimental poetics.”[1] Ignacy Tański died on 15 August 1805 following a sudden attack of apoplexy while he was visiting the Szymanowscy in Izdebno.

[1] After Tański's death, his widowed wife Marianna received half of her husband's salary from Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski.

[1] The collective edition of Tański's works titled Wiersze i pisma różne (Various Poems and Writings) was published three years after his death, in 1808.