Racovian Academy

The Racovian Academy (Latin: Gymnasium Bonarum Artium) was a Socinian school operated from 1602 to 1638 by the Polish Brethren in Raków, Sandomierz Voivodeship of Lesser Poland.

The communitarian Arian settlement of Raków was founded in 1569 by Jan Sienieński [pl].

At this point it is estimated that ten to twenty percent of Polish intellectuals were Arians.

Jakub Zadzik, bishop of Kraków, Jerzy Ossoliński, voivode of Sandomierz, and Honorato Visconti, papal nuncio, forced the closure of the Academy and the destruction of all buildings by sentence of the Sejm in April 1638.

Rectors: Teaching staff, in alphabetical order: Notable students at the academy, who became writers in the exile: The Racovian Academy served as a centre for the propagation of Socinian belief in both western and eastern Europe, in particular the Arian mission to the University of Altdorf near Nuremberg (1615), Dutch Remonstrants, Unitarians in Transylvania, even Muscovite sympathizers with Judaism.