Father Benedykt Chmielowski, 1700—63, was a Polish priest who lived for most of his life in a clergy house in Firlejów; he rose modestly through the ecclesiastical ranks to eventually become Canon at the Cathedral in Kiev. But he is remembered mainly for authoring the first Polish encyclopaedia, the Nowe Ateny or New Athens, published in 1745–6 with a second edition produced between 1754 and 1764.
The Nowe Ateny became a kind of foil for Enlightenment thinkers, as an example of the kind of supposition and hearsay that superior, rationalist methods would displace.
Source: Wikipedia: Benedykt Chmielowski; Wikipedia: Nowe Ateny