About Thaddeus Hajek

[Zandbergen@xxxxxxxxxxx (Rene Zandbergen)]

Dear all,

since I promised that I'd write something about Hajek, I might as 
well comply. Here's a quote of myself from another piece of mail.
It is admittedly very sketchy. It doesn't help that all good
publications about him seem to be in Czech.

It is worth mentioning that the Czech historian Zdenek Horsky
suggested Brumbaugh that he should consider Hajek when looking
for the history of the VMs. (Part of the below is in fact from
Horsky.) The same suggestion was made to Stolfi and myself
by Lubos Antonin when we were in Prague.

Cheers, 
         Rene

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[...] That man, Thaddeus
Hajek, is really a totally relevant character for us. It is
unthinkable that he has not at one time seen the VMs, and,
after Dee/Kelly,  he is my next suspect for selling it to Rudolph.

His father, Simon Hajek, was a collector of old books. Dee and Kelly
lived in Simon Hajek's house while in Prague (hosted by Thaddeus
because I think that his father had died by then). Thaddeus studied in
Italy. His specialties were botany and astronomy (he was also the
first astronomy professor at Charles University).
Thaddeus was a trustee of Rudolph and was present at his coronation.
He also was Rudolph's private physician.
Later, he became the 'screener' of all alchemists applying for
Rudolph's patronage. He died at about the time when Jacobus
appeared.