Education
Szymonowic studied in Poland (Lwów, Krakow), France and Belgium.
Szymonowic studied in Poland (Lwów, Krakow), France and Belgium.
He was known as "the Polish Pindar."
From 1586 he was associated with Grand Hetman and Royal Chancellor January Zamoyski, with whom in 1593–1605 he organized the Zamojski Academy. In 1590 he was elevated to the nobility (szlachta), with Kościesza coat-of-arms. A humanist fluent in Greek and Latin, Szymonowic wrote in Polish Sielanki (Pastorals, 1614), a work influenced by the pastoral poems of Virgil and Theocritus.
He also wrote plays in Latin, e.g., Castus Joseph (1587) and Pentesilea (1614).
Szymonowic is considered the last great poet of the Polish Renaissance. He was acquainted with the Scottish Latinist Thomas Seget of Seton (1569 or 1570–1627).