Silva rerum is a multigenerational family diary kept by Polish nobility in the 16th-18th centuries, containing diverse entries such as legal documents, artwork, and commentary. It provides historians with insight into life during that time.
A silva rerum is a special type of multigenerational family diary kept by members of the Polish nobility in the 16th-18th centuries. In Poland, silva rerum is a writing tradition in and of itself, and excerpts of notable examples have been widely printed and distributed. In addition to being a historical style of writing, silva rerum also appears in modern literature, with some authors attempting to recreate the look and feel of the traditional silva rerum in their works.
The size of a silva rerum would have varied, depending on how verbose the authors were and how long the diary had been kept. Most would have been under 1,000 pages, although some were much longer and the contents were generally quite diverse. Far from being a simple diary, a silva rerum was a complex and multifaceted chronicle of events in the lives of family members, linked to current events in the wider world.
In addition to traditional format journal entries, a silva rerum would have original artwork, copies of legal documents, commentary on the day’s events, notable quotes and comments, and entries from friends and family. The silva rerum was a collective document used by all family members to record significant events, and was primarily intended for internal circulation, although some families occasionally published their own.
You may also see a silva rerum referred to as a family chronicle, household diary, or simply “sylwa”, a Polish corruption of the original Latin “silva”. In Latin, “silva rerum” means “forest of things”, and that is exactly what these books contained: an assortment of diverse and varied objects that collectively told the story of a family. Incidentally, there is some controversy over the pronunciation of the “v” in Latin. Some people think the “v” has a soft sound, more like a “w”, while others prefer a hard “v”, so you could say “syl-wah” or “syl-va”, depending on your taste personal .
The fashion of keeping such diaries has been an immense boon for historians, who have been able to construct lush pictures of what life was like in Poland during the period these diaries were kept. Thanks to the often painstaking detail in these magazines, it is possible to see how much tenants paid for rent, what the prevailing costs of foodstuffs were, and how communities responded to various events and crises, among many other things.
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