ALBERTRANDY, Jan Chrzciciel, or John Christian, historian, was born at Warsaw in 1731, his father being an Italian. Educated in the public school of the Jesuits, he joined their order in his fifteenth year, and gave such proof of his ability that, at the early age of nineteen, he was appointed professor at the college of Pultusk. After having successively filled similar positions in Plock, Nieswiez, and Wilna, he became, in 1766, librarian to Bishop Zaluski, who designed to make his extensive collection of books available to the public. A detailed catalogue of the 200,000 volumes which it contained was accordingly prepared by Albertrandy. In 1764 he was chosen by the primate Lubienski tutor to his grandson, Count Felix Lubienski, afterwards minister of justice. In this capacity he visited Italy in 1770 with his pupil, residing first at Siena and then at Rome. The preference Lubienski showed for numismatics induced Albertrandy to devote himself while in Italy to the special study of that science, and he was soon recognised as an authority on the subject. When he returned to his native country, King Stanislaus Augustus appointed him, at the request of Lubienski, keeper of his medals, and afterwards his reader and librarian. The representations he made to the king as to the extent and value of the materials for Polish history that were scattered throughout the libraries of Rome, induced Stanislaus to send him on a second visit to Italy, in order that he might collect these materials. He arrived at Rome in 1782, and devoted three years to the task. The Excerpta, all written with his own hand, filled 110 volumes of manuscript. To complete the collection, he subsequently visited Sweden, where the difficulty of the work was greatly increased by his being forbidden to copy any ...