Fourteen symposia on early/lower vertebrates have taken place over the last 50 years, usually at about four year
intervals. An average 60 participants have taken part at these symposia, with over one hundred occasionally. The
results of the symposia have been published in proceedings. The symposia started honoring E. A:son Stensiö and
E. Jarvik. Honors were taken up at the 11th symposium in Uppsala again. Since the 13th symposium a Stensiö
award is also given to young researchers in the field.
School textbooks written by a Spanish erudite and pedagogue Juan Luis Vives were used in schools of Protestant denominations in Royal Prussia – in Gdańsk, Toruń, Elbląg, but also in other towns and cities of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth– for teaching Latin. Nicolaus Volckmar, of German descent, a Polis language teacher at the Academic Gymnasium in Gdańsk, utilized the structure and themes of Vives’ dialogues Exercitatio linguae latinae (1538) for teaching the Polish language. In this manner, paradoxically, the “phrasebook” of the Spanish humanist, as well as its subsequent editions, still in the 18th century was used by Gdańsk schoolers of German origin to learn the language which they needed for everyday communication in the community of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Gdańsk. The Vives-Volckmar phrasebook was undoubtedly used by Arnold von Holten, later a lifetime mayor of the city, sent on a diplomatic mission to Spain by the Hanseatic League.