Kazimierz Sarnecki’s diary delivers a detailed record of daily routines of Jan III Sobieski in 1691-1696 period. The author paid particular attention to how the king of deteriorating health was entertained.
Besides listening to music, watching the young dance, and playing social games – usually in the evenings – the favourite entertainment of the monarch was a local ride. In Sarnecki's diaries we can find references to it: His highness the king went on a ride' or 'After dinner the gentle king and princesses went to the fields for a ride' As noted by Giovani Battista Fagiuoli, who visited the court in 1690: 'He usually rides in a six-horse carriage with two or three others moving in front, (Polish custom) full of courtly noblemen. He is surrounded on both sides by sentry embellished with wings' Surely the local rides were not always undertaken with so much splendour, but it happened so on most occasions.
Because the eyesight of the keen reader and book-lover deteriorated in the old age, the king had sometimes books read to him by the closest ones: 'In the evening her majesty queen would read to the king a Fench book and entertain the king for many hours, then the priest Vota and the noble minister, until the king fell asleep, and everybody left the room.'
The prevailing form of entertainment, however, was conversation. Of all residents to the court, the king particularly valued two interlocutors. One of them was the missionary of Louis XIV, abbot of Bonportu, Melchior de Polignac, who arrived at the royal court at the beginning of 1693. In order to make an impressive entry, he shook his purse at once: 'as soon as he arrived he ordered rich red velvet attires for a dozen or so pages and valets. The man's silhouette was somewhat slim, rather in his thirties, with protruding nose, and his hair were thick and partly grey. . He must be clever and noble though, as he was sent here in business' – Kazimierz Sarnecki wrote in a letter to his principal. From then onwards, almost everyday, we can find information, that 'the French missionary entertained the king with various discourses'.
Another favourite conversationalist of the king was an Italian Jesuit Carlo Maurizio Vota. The king eagerly 'talked with priest Vota and laughed with him' (Sarnecki again), as the Jesuit was a 'great talker' according to Fagiuoli's relation. The French courtier of Jan III, Francois Daleyrac noted that the monarch was literally dying of boredom without talking with him. Sarnecki similarly noted that although the king 'entertained himself talking to various gentlemen' he misses priest Vota dearly, and for the past few days, has been suffering from constant fever'.
The king eagerly challenged both interlocutors. 'His majesty king made theological disputes with the French missionary and priest Vota, asking them questions indeed hard to solve' – invaluable Sarnecki noted.
Energetic Vota could entertain the king in other ways. At the beginning of December 1693 he returned from one-year mission to Rome and Naples, from where he brought many extraordinary “items” Knowing the kings weaknesses very well, he began by presenting ' 8 Neapolitan mares' which impressed the king to such extent that three months later, 'he was looking at the courtyard and ordered to bring the Neapolitan mares, the ones that priest Vota brought from Rome. They have put on weight nicely and look much better now than when emaciated'.
Priest Vota brought other miracles from this trip, all of which delighted the king. A music box for instance: 'Priest Vota showed the king various items. A music box, for instance, which only needs to be wound up with a crank and it instantly plays tunes in such way, as if it was picked; there were also caskets, paintings and other items'.
Another passion of Sobieski, typical of a soldier, were maps and map books. He had plenty of them in his library and liked studying and correcting them. Back in the days in Vienna he wrote to queen Mary: 'and know it my dear heart, that all Hungarian maps are extremely inaccurate and cannot be relied on. I only have one that is decent but not very accurate as to Polish borders'. Thus the king's habit to introduce corrections and changes to his map books during his war campaigns. (In 1682 Sobieski wanted to share his corrections concerning the maps of Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia, with a French map publisher Guillaume Sanson). During his visit to the court, Giovanni Battista Fagiuoli did not fail to note in his characteristics of the king: 'he possesses a lot of information and is an outstanding geographer'. Cartographic passion of Jan III was shared also by the Italian Jesuit: 'The king[...] together with priest Vota played with maps, which he had brought and ordered to bring to the king' – Sarnecki notes.
A separate section of the King's library was the collection of “Copperplate books”. These, as they would be called today, album collections were sets of engravings on various subjects. Sobieski particularly valued those on architecture. Priest Vota again proved to irreplaceable: 'After dinner, his highness priest Vota arrived [...] and brought many different Copperplate books on architecture and pictures of towns. [...] Then he entertained his majesty the king with various discourses on Roman law.
The versatile Jesuit could also satisfy the more terrestrial tastes of the king. Sarnecki wrote with a lot of dismay, that some of the copperplate books depicted the pictures 'of mostly naked people!'. The reference is punch lined by an exclamation mark, full of outrage: 'pudendas res!' (disgraceful thing). A somewhat strange exclamation mark. It would just suffice for Sarnecki to take a look at the collection of royal paintings in the Wilanów court or the castle in Zolkvia, where mythological nakedness was in excess. Old age does not kill appetite for life. The same taste, so criticised by the contemporary moralists and preachers, caused that erotic contents in epistographic confessions of the young Sobieski to the Queen Mary are so willingly read.
