The paper deals with the problem of the cartographic imagination in the Polish Renaissance literature. The other discussed problem is the impact of cartographic reason on establishing early modern national and European identity of the Poles. The methodological approach of the paper is inspired mainly by the critical cartography (J.B. Harley). The map is defined here in its relatively wide meaning. It is not limited only to the material representations, but it is also understood as a performance, a gesture and a form of thinking (D. Woodward, J. Pickles). The main text examined here is the ode II 24 by a Polish Renaissance poet Jan Kochanowski (1530–1584). The poem concludes his lyrical cycle published posthumously in 1585. The poem is a Polish imitation of the Ode II 20 by Horace (Non usitata nec tenui ferar). In the first part of the paper the author exhibits the context of the 16th-century use of maps. The cartographic revolution of that time made a great impact on the art, literature, philosophy etc. The Renaissance humanist all over Europe lived within the maps and used them as a tool or as a means of expressing, defining and shaping their ideas. In this part of the paper there is shown when and where Kochanowski would have consulted or watch and read the maps. The second part of the texts compares the poem by Kochanowski and its Horatian model. The author reminds the results of previous interpretations by J. Ziomek, L. Szczerbicka-Ślęk and others. Kochanowski’s version is almost a translation but the Polish poet rewrote Horace’s ode in a specific way. He swapped the ancient names of places and put there the names of the regions of 16th-century Europe. In the consequent analysis the author argues that it is not only a sample of the Renaissance metonomasy, but it shows a more complex process of replacing one cartographical imagination by another. While the cartographic imagination of Kochanowski was based on the Ptolemaic tradition and its early modern transformations, the ode by Horace evokes the tradition of the maps similar to the Porticus Vipsania in Augustan Rome its copies the Tabula Peutingerina. Then metacartographies of the both of the poets should be seen as different. In the final part of the paper there is shown yet another difference between the two poems. While the gaze of the Roman poet trespass the limina of the Roman Empire, Kochanowski is looking only on the European and not very distant Mediterranean regions. The author concludes with the hypothesis that this European orientation became typical for Polish poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries. This Europocentric focus is one of the distinct features of Polish literature that make it different from literatures of the countries interested in overseas colonial endeavors.