Re: About Thaddeus Hajek

["Rafal T. Prinke" <rafalp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Rene Zandbergen wrote:

> If Rafal could translate it, then it would be interesting to
> find out from where it originates. 

Milan has done it better than I would (my understanding of
Czech relies only on its similarity to Polish which sometimes
may lead astray). And Jim Reeds has found the original
text from Dee's MSS, while Mark Parry reported the quotation
is from Charlotte Fell-Smith. It is, therefore, clear
that Svitak used "free quotation" by Fell-Smith rather than
the original text.

Anyway, if his books have any value for Dee/Kelley (and it
now seems - in the light of what Milan said - that they
do not), that value would have to be supported by Czech
sources rather than well known publications in English.
Working in California he could hardly have access to
Prague archives, so I suspect he had the book by 
Jaroslav Svatek, _Obrazy z kulturnych dejin..._ with
him and that is where the information not found in English
publications comes from. 

> > Also, if he spelt the name "Georg Baresch" rather than "Jiri Bares",
> > it strongly suggests (at least to me) that he picked it from
> > some other publication.
> 
> ... ve vlastnictvi Georgia Barschia.

I have checked some Czech <g> reference works but found no trace of
this Baresch - the surname Bares ("s" with "hacek") seems quite
common and there was also a noble family of that name but no
Georg/Jiri is mentioned.

> He uses the non-Czech spelling of Raphael Missovski's name (like
> I just did) 

Yes - he is either spelt with "s-hacek" or (in some of his Latin 
publications) with "sch" - and always with final "y".

> but the proper equivalent of Voynich (Voynic').

Is it? I have always wondered about his surname. One of the
Web pages says he was "Polish born" but I could not find
any details. The spelling is certainly anglicized - and in
Polish would be Wojnicz (there is now about 1000 persons
of that name living in Poland).

> He mentions Newbold and Kent (which should leave us no doubt
> about one of his main sources) and also Strong. He does also
> mention Brumbaugh (the only source for Baresch' name as far as
> I am aware) as Stolfi correctly remembered.

He certainly was a good researcher - but more of the library
than archives type, I guess. 

> > The "factoid" of Dee's ownership of VMs seems to be based on
> > the comparison of folio numbering with those in Dee's MSS.
> 
> Of course, this is very much advertised in the Newbold/Kent
> book as being the truth.

I believe rather strongly that it was not so. Perhaps I will
write a separate message explaining why.

> > > For Kelly's death year one can read 1595 and 1597.
> > The title of his book seems to say "1598"
> 
> You could be right. Michal Pober, in Prague, suggested that
> 1595 should be correct. I think it is fair to say that it is
> still contested :-).

I discussed it with him some years ago and it was then when
I decided on my point of view. There are basically two
sources for it: Dee's note and Svatek's book mentioned above
(not Svitak's!). The latter is a sound work based on
primary documents but - alas! - with no proper references.
He just lists the archival collections he used but does
not point to sources of particular pieces of information.

> >    http://main.amu.edu.pl/~rafalp/HERM/SENDI/westonia.htm
> 
> I no longer trust the picture used by Svitak, but if the above
> is from Pelzel (>100 years later), how can we be sure it is her
> true likeness? (No criticism, just curious....)

We can never be sure :-) But this engraving of Westonia
certainly looks like a 17th c. copper-plate and is signed
by the artist who can probably be identified. Moreover,
the original comes from the museum in Most where she lived
and was reproduced by eminent scholars - interested in
her poetry rather than the magical connections. I can see
no possible source of "reasonable doubt" here.

Best regards,

Rafal