Jan Władysław Woś (born April 19, 1939, in Warsaw) is a Polish historian, and essayist, as well as a fiction writer, bibliophile, and book collector.
Woś graduated from the University of Warsaw discussing a thesis on Dante's philosophical system (De amore in Dantis Divina Comoedia quaestiones). He studied later in Milan, Louvain, Florence, Pisa, Bonn, and Heidelberg. He has taught History of the Eastern Europe at the Universities of Pisa (1976-1987), Heidelberg (1985–86), Trento (1987-2009), and Venice (1990–91), also contributing to anthropological research in both Africa and Amazonia.
His fields of interest are Polish history in the sixteenth century and the history of the Roman Church, particularly regarding Italian/Polish relations. Having obtained his Italian citizenship in 1987, he was awarded a “laurea honoris causa” from the Polish University Abroad of London.Hic est permagnus dies festus. Przemówienie wygłoszone w Londynie 19 lipca 2002 z okazji nadania tytułu doktora honoris causa przez Polski Uniwersytet na Obczyźnie, London, The Polish University Abroad, 2002.Woś is a member of the Société Historique et Littéraire Polonaise de Paris, and of the Polish Society of Arts and Sciences Abroad in London.
Woś owns remarkable collections of rare books, prints, engravings, parchments from the 10th to the 16th centuries, and topographical maps,P. Bellini, Carte geografiche della Polonia (sec. XVI-XIX). Dalla collezione di Jan Władysław Woś, Trento, Editrice Università degli Studi di Trento, 1995. all related to Polish history and culture. He contributes to international periodicals, and is in the course of publishing largely informative excerpts from his memoirs Jan Władysław Woś, Ze wspomnień ucznia Liceum Kołłątaja w Warszawie (1954-1958), Warszawa, PIW, 2011; id., Na drogach Europy. Wspomnienia, Warszawa, Anagram, 2016. and diaries.Jan Władysław Woś, Dziennik 1955-1956, Trento, Editrice Università degli Studi di Trento, 1997; Id., Londra 2006. Taccuino di viaggio, Trento, Editrice Università degli Studi di Trento, 2007; Id., Zapiski rzymskie. Wybrane fragmenty z roku 1974, “Odra”, 2010, 12 (586), pages 48-59; Id., Dziennik włoski, “Twórczość”, 2012, 8 (801), pages 52-88.
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