Background
He was born in Kamieniec Podolski, died in Lviv.
He was born in Kamieniec Podolski, died in Lviv.
His own clan and coat of arms were that of Rawicz. He headed chairs of theology in Lviv and Bologna. The center of the province was located in Lwow.
In 1637-1638 Okolski accompanied Crown hetman Mikołaj Potocki during his neutralization of rebellious Cossacks driven by Jakub Ostrzanin and Dmytro Hunia.
Being a witness and a direct participant of those developments, Okolski gave a detailed description of them in his field diaries. The latter were published immediately and became a valuable source of information for historians and writers: for instance, Nikolai Gogol must have used these materials for his "Taras Bulba" - a novel devoted to the Cossack rebellions 1637-1638.
Okolski was an author of historical and heraldic books among which an armorial encyclopedia of the Polish nobility "Orbis Polonus" (1641–1643) in three volumes is the most famous one.