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The article deals with communication and interaction between papal diplomatic missions in the early modern era. Mainly due to a lack of extant source materials, it remains the white spot in the research into the history of Polish and foreign nuncios. However, thanks to materials from Archivio di Stato di Roma, namely the section of Archivio Santa Croce containing the originals of letters received by Nuncio Antonio Santa Croce in 1629, it is possible to attempt at least a partial reconstruction of the collaboration between the papal diplomat residing at the Court of Warsaw and his counterpart at the Court of Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg in Vienna, Giovanni Battista Pallotta. The correspondence analysis allows us to conclude that the contacts between the papal diplomats residing in Warsaw and Vienna in 1629, and probably earlier and later, were regular and intensive. We can assume that the routine products of the information and analytical work carried out for the Secretariat of State by both papal missions were shared in the correspondence, and the Nunciatures of Vienna and Warsaw were thus well informed about the course of affairs related to the pan-European conflict in several theatres of war. However, they also communicated and cooperated on strictly ecclesiastical matters, such as the ongoing reform of religious congregations in the 1620s.

This article is based on source material from the unique collection of correspondence of the Warsaw nuncio Antonio Santa Croce, stored in the Roman Archivio di Stato in the Archivio Santacroce ensemble under number 774 and containing 846 letters from the year 1629, addressed to the nuncio from various senders. The authors analyze the correspondence of the nuncio from the Roman Catholic bishops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, consisting of 109 letters. 104 from the ordinary bishops and 5 from suffragan bishops. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the most regular and intensive correspondence was maintained with the nuncio by Archbishop of Gniezno Jan Wężyk and Bishop of Cracow Marcin Szyszkowski (presumably twice a month). Most of the other bishops approached the frequency of one letter per month, and this concerned the bishops of Vilnius, Cuiavia, Poznań, Płock, Samogitia, Łuck (Lutsk), Przemyśl and Chełm. The bishops present at the court, such as Bishop of Chełmno, Chancellor Jakub Zadzik or Bishop of Kamieniec Paweł Piasecki, made less frequent contact with the nuncio by letter. The bishops only sporadically addressed political issues in their letters and this was connected with the preparation for the sejm. Some hierarchs were interested in the Brest Union and referred to it in their letters. Most often, however, the bishops raised in their correspondence the issues of nominations for benefices, problems related to the discipline of the diocesan clergy and the issues of dispensations and facultates. The bishops' contact with the nuncio therefore concerned in the vast majority of cases ecclesiastical matters and the secular functions of hierarchs, as senators of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, only occasionally marked their presence in correspondence with the papal ambassadors.