Re: Why not Dee

[Rene Zandbergen <rene@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Rafal wrote:

> > I have now put up a Web page with my thoughts on Dee's connection
> > (or rather lack of it) with VMS. Have a look at:

and Stolfi:

> The circumstantial evidence (Arthur's recollections, the 600 ducats,
> etc) had already been discussed in this list, and found to be very
> weak. Your new arguments only finished the job.

Indeed, a highly valuable contribution! I'm not sure if this puts the
nail in the coffin, since especially for Arthur Dee's statement
(IMHO the most intriguing of the three items) we can only apply
reason and speculate. There is little in terms of verifiable fact.
Here is the quote from Fell-Smith (Thomas Browne writing to Ashmole
in 1675 about what Arthur Dee had told him):

> [...] that Count Rosenberg played at quoits with silver quoits made by
> projection as before. That this transmutation was made by a powder they
> had, which was found in some old place, and a book lying by it containing
> nothing but heiroglyphicks; which book his father bestowed much time upon,
> but I could not hear that he could make it out. He said also that Kelly
> dealth not justly by his father, and that he went away with the greatest
> part of the powder, and was afterwards imprisoned by the Emperor in a
> castle, from whence attempting to escape down the wall, he fell and broke
> his leg, and was imprisoned again 

Now Fell-Smith will not be quoting verbatim, but the 'I' in 'I could not
hear that he could make it out' is Thomas Browne, not Arthur Dee.
In any case, according to the above, the book in hieroglyphics is
clearly
the book of St. Dunstan, according to the tradition of Kelly's discovery
of it. If this was in Welsh, (also following tradition) Arthur may well
have 
considered these to be hieroglyphics. And maybe Dee *could* read it 
(since Arthur is not making any statement about this).

> For the page numbers, on the other hand, Watson's alleged
> identification still carried some authority, in spite of Ron Carter's
> message (which apparently had been forgotten by the time I joined the
> list). 

This identification has always been treated with subdued skepticism on
the list, since it is so hard to believe, while on the other hand the
man is obviously an expert....

> But your images speak for themselves. Even if Watson had other
> samples of Dee's numerals, more similar to the VMS ones...

The MS on which the statement was based is clearly identified in
the Yale catalogue entry: 

> (we thank A. G. Watson for confirming this identification through a
> comparison of the Arabic numerals in the Beinecke manuscript with
> those of John Dee in Oxford, Bodleian Library Ashmole 1790, f. 9v,
> and Ashmole 487)

Right now I cannot access Rafal's page, so I cannot check if this is
what he used....

In any case, I do think that Rafal's page changes the balance of
the evidence w.r.t. the Dee ownership... But then I'm biased, in
the sense that I'm hoping that the seller was someone else (as this
may give us a new chance of tracing it further back in time).

Cheers, Rene