Re: Caramuel, Lobkowitz y Chinese

[Zandbergen@xxxxxxxxxxx (Rene Zandbergen)]

Rafal wrote (to me but I think it was meant for all...):

> > [rene:] and I also do not really doubt the statement of
> > Raphael that it was bought by Rudolf. Note that the last
> > two come from independent sources.
> 
> Right - but this is what has always looked very suspect to me.
> After reading Evans (which I have not read), would you say
> that Rudolf could give a high price for the VMS and then
> just give it away to a relatively unimportant person?

Quite possibly, but the other options (below) are valid too.
Evans talks a bit about Jacobus, and adds things not in Schmidl
(or slightly differently). His source is also Balbin.
According to Evans, the Aqua Sinapis (concocted by Jacobus)
was a medicine believed to be able to cure Rudolf (specifically)
of any ailment. Jacobus then became his private physician. 
According to these sources, on one occasion Jacobus did save
the emperor's life and was subsequently nobilitated. Thus,
for Rudolf, Jacobus was a rather important person.
Also clear from Evans is that Rudolf bought so many items 
continually, for such vast sums of money, that the one book
of 600 ducats (which may well be a misremembered price)
may have been relatively unimportant to him.

Pure speculation of course.

Evans, by the way, also briefly discusses the Voynich MS and
writes that both the Baconian origin and the theory that Dee
sold it to Rudolf are not confirmed by any evidence.
He adds, though, that there are major gaps in Dee's
diary, for which we do not know what he was up to.

> Or maybe it was the other way round - Jacobus had it first,
> signed it and then gave to Rudolf? 

Quite possible. Also possible is that Jacobus simply took it
when Rudolf died, or even bought it. Rudolf's material was
being sold for fractions of its value at this time, as I read
in Dauxois (so to be confirmed by a more accurate source).

> That's right. So the *really* certain history starts with
> Baresch - and we do not know *anything* about him, the only proof
> of his existence are the letters. 

Yes. The supposed independent evidence: a letter which Voynich
would have received from Prague, now seems to have disappeared
on us. This leaves the Sapienza records and possibly the 
Prague records of wills (whatever the correct name for that
would be).

> One could imagine a plot
> by Marci to have the Baresch letters fabricated in order
> to convince Kircher of the reality of VMS. Not that I believe it,
> but who knows? Until we have an independent proof that there was
> someone named Baresch in Prague and had a sizeable library,
> anything is just guesswork.

Yes, but with different levels of probability attached to the 
various guesses :-)

> What I meant is that the crossbow man really looks like
> the VMS Sagittarius and that I have not seen that sign
> represented by a man rather than a centaur elsewhere.
> Are there any examples of non-German non-centaur
> Sagittarius?

He does indeed. I found out I have copies of some illustrations
from the same block book (in German) but these are not including
Sagittarius.
Certainly, there are German Sagitarii which _are_ centaurs, but
that doesn't really help. I'll scan a few nice images from
a book called 'Flores Albumasaris' printed in Augsburg around
1480. They're woodcuts but allow a nice comparison with some
of the VMs images. Sagittarius is a Centaur here.
 
> > And the humanist hand was proposed by another expert
> > in his own right.
> 
> But the humanist hand does not mean "Italy". It was
> used in Poland (probably introduced by many Italians
> coming here from the late 15th c. on) and certainly
> also in Bohemia and parts of Germany. 

I was personally also impressed by the similarity with
the cipher alphabets used in Italy (and Spain) in the
15th Century.

As a side note on the humanist hand:
I recently saw some samples of the handwriting of
George of Trebizond. He was a humanist
scholar from the time when the VMs was supposedly written,
but his handwriting (also when writing Latin) betrays his
Greek origin and it looks nothing like the VMs. Now his
son Andreas, who was probably born and raised in Italy
had a very even, round hand.

Cheers, Rene