Between Helius Eobanus Hessus and George Buchanan : Vigilantius Gregorius Samboritanus and his Psalmography

The main purpose of the paper is to present and to analyse two Psalm paraphrases written in verse by Gregory of Sambor (in Latin: Gregorius Vigilantius Samboritanus, in Polish: Grzegorz z Sambora). Both poems were included in Simon Goritius’ Panegyricum de Diva Anna…Carmen, Krakow 1568. They are written in the Horatian metres - Psalm 113 (112) in the lesser Asclepiadean, and Psalm 15 (14) in the greater Asclepiadean. The former, an exhortation to praise God’s name, is enriched by the poet with an element of the poesi sartificiosa - the acrostic LAUDATE PUERI DOMINUM. The latter is a kind of liturgical decalogue; the metre emphasizes its mnemonic values. The poet, who certainly knew poetical Psalm paraphrases of the period, including Eobanus Hessus’ one, chose his own way of emulation, composing notin elegiac couplets, as Hessus and his followers did. Doing so, he gave us an evidence that he was being aware of the paradigm change of the news - he was the witness of a birth of a new tendency of writing Psalm paraphrases in various lyric metres; the greatest achievement of the tendency was George Buchanan’s Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica (1566). Samboritanus’ paraphrases, addressed to the students, characterised humanistic approach to teaching and learning. Their artistic form may acknowledge that the former philologists’ opinion about the poet’s minor talent and craft was biased