Stanislaw Kostka Potocki (November 1755-14 September 1821) was a Polish nobleman and politician who patronized the Polish Enlightenment.
Biography[]
Stanislaw Kostka Potocki was born in Lublin, Poland-Lithuania in 1755, the son of a general and the brother of Ignacy Potocki. He served as Great Podstoli of the Crown from 1781 to 1784 and became the head of Polish Freemasonry in 1784, and he emerged as a leader of the Enlightenment movement in Poland. He went on to serve as an Artillery General of the Crown during the War of the Second Partition in 1792, after which he went to live in Saxony before being expelled in 1794, imprisoned by the Austrians from 1794 to 1795, and exiled to Italy. He later returned to Poland, where he introduced Napoleon to Marie Walewska in 1806. He died in 1821.