Maciej Miechowita, or Maciej z Miechowa, whose family name was actually Karpiga, chose a good moment to publish his Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis (Treatise on the two Sarmatias) in 1517. The discovery of the Americas had rocked faith in the geographical knowledge of the Ancients, and Miechowita's assault on Ptolomy's misconceived ideas on the geography and ethnography of eastern Europe struck a resonant chord. As he pointed out, the great east European plain that stretched to the Urals was flat, and the so-called Riphean and Hyperborean mountains, which were prominent on Ptolomy's map of the region, were a product of his imagination, as was much of what had been written in both ancient and modern times. More accurate knowledge of what was just as much a Novus Orbis to western Europeans as the Americas, was in demand, as the great upsurge in imports of agricultural and forest products began through the Baltic in the late fifteenth century. Miechowita's treatise was rapidly reissued in Augsburg in 1518 and Cracow in 1521, while none other than Johann Eck paused from his disputations with Martin Luther to publish a German translation in 1518 that was sponsored by Jakob Fugger. A Polish translation had to wait until 1535, but down to 1606 there were ten Latin editions, and eleven translations into German (two), Polish (three), Italian (five) and Dutch (one).

Saskia Metan's new study of the Tractatus aims to set it within the context of recent debates about cultural transfer and translation studies. Her work begins with an extended chapter that critically surveys current literature in these two fields, arguing that—just as in Miechowita's day—eastern Europe needs to be far better integrated into the picture of cultural transfer in early modern Europe. Nevertheless, what follows does not really develop these ideas to any great extent, and the chapter reads more as the obligatory methodological introduction to a German doctoral thesis that forms the basis of this book.

That is not really a criticism, for what follows is a detailed and valuable study of the Tractatus that is in some respects rather old-fashioned in its approach, and none the worse for it. The central chapters of the book comprise a meticulously-researched examination of the Tractatus in its various editions, both Latin and translations. Careful attention is paid to variations in the text, and to the choices made by the translators. With regard to the translations, individual sentences are printed in the original Latin and in their translated form, together with an informed discussion of those choices.

The result is an erudite and thoughtful study that will be of great interest to specialists in various fields. Several of the editions appeared in general treatises on geography, and Miechowita's work had a substantial influence on Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia (1544) and many other works of Renaissance geography and ethnography. The extended discussion of the translations, and a rather brief chapter at the end on the Tractatus's reception indeed reveal much about cultural transmission, and the problems of rendering the elegant Latin of scholars and members of the Republic of Letters into the vernacular language editions that were of more practical use to merchants and bankers like Fugger. More might have been said about Miechowita's views on the origins and nature of the Sarmatians, since his account bears marked differences from other sixteenth-century writers on the matter. The Sarmatians, portrayed in ancient accounts as a fierce and martial people who had successfully resisted the Roman empire, came to play a significant role in the historical mythology of the Polish-Lithuanian union, and debate raged about which peoples were descended from them. Miechowita was unusual, in arguing that the Poles were descended from the Vandals, seen as a Germanic people—a theory rejected by Marcin Kromer later in the century—and argued that most of Poland had not actually been part of ancient Sarmatia. It is unfair, however, to criticize a book for not being what it never intended to be. Overall this is a work that will be read with profit by many, and not just by those interested in eastern Europe.