Re: why not Dee

[Rene Zandbergen <rene@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Rafal wrote, in response to:

> > (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)

> [...] Those used by Watson
> are: "Prefatio Latina in actionem" bound with Ashmole's papers on Dee
> (and I always wondered why he indicated this particular page, which is
> a verso page so presumably does not have foliation) and the 
> _Ephemerides_ containing the diary edited by Halliwell.

> I am sure Clay Holden (if he listens) could give more authoritative
> judgement of Dee's 8's from his extensive study of Dee's MSS.

> I could not find any reproduction of Kelley's handwritten numbers -
> except one very poor sample with a 7 which looks much more like
> VMS foliation 7's. If VMS is a "practical joke", then of all people
> Kelley would be the one capable of producing it (assuming that 
> all of his visions were fake - which is a matter of belief; 

I guess it is excluded that Kelly would have made entries in Dee's
notebooks e.g. a table of numbers on fol. 9v (unlike the case with
Tycho,
where entries by Kepler may be found, also before the former's death).
I suspect that there must still be extant MS books written by Kelly...

On a side note:
The Svitak book about Kelly (Cesky rytir - sp?) has a supposed 
self-portrait of Kelly (if I understand the context correctly).
Another highly suspicious item... I'll scan these pages (which I
just realise I once promised to do).

There is good reason to believe that the pages in the VMs are not
in the right order. They almost certainly are not in the order
in which they were written, which is not the same thing of course.
In any case, there is a distinct possibility that whoever paginated
the MS could not read it (so even if Dee or Kelly wrote the page
numbers, it is not proof of a fake by them). 
Also, the quire signatures are consistent with the page numbers, but the
signatures are in a very different (older) style. I need to check
if any of the early herbal pages has a quire mark on a B-folio,
or if any of the late herbal-A pages has a quire mark. That would
complicate things....

Cheers, Rene