Jan Dymitr Solikowski was a Polish aristocrat, clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church, royal secretary (beginning from 1564), writer, the Archbishop of L’viv (beginning from 1583). He was born in 1539 in the town of Sieradz in a Protestant family. The Solikowski family name comes from the village of Solki in the Sieradz Voivodship. In 1556 – 1559 he studied at the Krakow University and then continued his education at the University of Wittenberg. After the graduation he served in the office of the judge of the Sieradz district court Jan Krzysztoporski, to whom he dedicated the collection of religious poems “Poemata” in 1562.

Having converted to Catholicism, he joined the office of the Bishop of Kuyavia Jakub Uchański, to whom he addressed his panegyric «Hamaxa sive religionis et Reipublike» in 1564. After the death of King Sigismund II Augustus in 1572, he entered the dispute around the election of a new king and the social state of the country, sharing his ideas in handwritten anonymous pamphlets, that became very popular. At first, he supported the Habsburg candidate, but later turned to Henry Valois. When Stefan Bathory was elected king, Bishop Stanisław Karnkowski send Solikowski as an envoy to meet the new king and find out what were his religious beliefs. The king received him in the town of Snyatyn on April 3, 1576. During the audience Solikowski said, that “only the Catholic faith may reinforce the Polish Kingdom”. He accompanied the king on the way to Krakow and was present at his wedding with Anna Jagiellon. In 1583 he became the leader of the Roman Catholic congregation of L’viv.