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Re: Cost of the VMS...?
There was an excellent discussion of how to relate
monetary values of the Middle Ages and ancient times to
modern times. I compiled it in a file and I'm
attaching it.
The short answer is that the 600 gold ducats for the
VMs would be on 1 million US$ today. If you figures
only the value of the gold, you get around $30,000 .
Dennis
Nick Pelling wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Corresponding off-list with Claus, I came up with yet more plausible
> questions. :-/
>
> Has anyone tried to calculate how much the VMS would have cost to produce?
> I'm thinking along the lines of the recent TV documentary where a group of
> engineers worked out (using modern project management tools) how long it
> would have taken to build a pyramid in Ancient Egyptian times. It's way too
> easy to unconsciously project our economic models onto those times. :-/
>
> Also: how easy would it have been to get hold of all the things you'd have
> needed to make the VMS? Here, I'm reminded of the passage quoted on Rafal's
> page where Arthur Dee's tutor, "under pretence of going to Budweiss to buy
> cullors", runs away. Me, I'd rather go there for the beer. :-)
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
Subject: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 00:03:41 +0100
From: Zandbergen@xxxxxxxxxxx (Sabine)
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
Dear all,
As well known, Rudolph II of Bohemia paid 600 ducats for the Voynich
MS. Other 'currencies' used at the time were 'scudi' and 'gulden'.
Anybody know the exchange rates??
Cheers, Rene
Subject: Re: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 14:39:50 -0800
From: jguy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
Sabine wrote:
> As well known, Rudolph II of Bohemia paid 600 ducats for the
> Voynich MS. Other 'currencies' used at the time were 'scudi'
> and 'gulden'. Anybody know the exchange rates??
The best I could manage to ferret out is that the ducat was the
standard gold currency of the times, but varying between 1/4 and 1/6
of an ounce, depending on the date and place of minting. So, that is
anything from 100 to 150 ounces of 22-carat gold, or if you prefer,
400 to 600 sovereigns. Say 50,000 Swiss francs, and you will be within
20% either way of what it cost the Holy Roman Emperor. (I chose Swiss
francs because they're the most stable modern currency I can think
of).
Subject: Re: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 09:25:40 -0300 (EST)
From: Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
> [Jacques Guy:] The best I could manage to ferret out is that the
> ducat was the standard gold currency of the times, but varying
> between 1/4 and 1/6 of an ounce, depending on the date and place
> of minting. So, that is anything from 100 to 150 ounces of
> 22-carat gold, or if you prefer, 400 to 600
> sovereigns. Say 50,000 Swiss francs, and you will be within
> 20% either way of what it cost the Holy Roman Emperor.
Great, so now we have a definite quantity.
However, many years ago I had to look into that sort of question (for a
Usenet discussion on how much did Columbus's voyage cost). One thing I
remember reading is that the value of gold itself increased a lot (was
it 20-fold?) since the 1500's, in comparison with the cost of living.
In that case we would be talking of 2,500 Swiss francs.
Of course the "cost of living" is a tricky metric too. (How much does a
slave cost today? How much did a TV cost then?)
--stolfi
Subject: Re: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 08:40:50 -0600
From: Dennis <ixohoxi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
jguy wrote:
>
> The best I could manage to ferret out is that the ducat
> was the standard gold currency of the times, but varying
> between 1/4 and 1/6 of an ounce, depending on the date
> and place of minting. So, that is anything from 100 to 150
> ounces of 22-carat gold, or if you prefer, 400 to 600
> sovereigns. Say 50,000 Swiss francs, and you will be within
> 20% either way of what it cost the Holy Roman Emperor.
> (I chose Swiss francs because they're the most stable
> modern currency I can think of).
Are those troy ounces (12 Troy ounces = 1 pound; this is the one
used in quoting gold prices today), avoirdupois ounces (16 ounces = 1
pound; this is the one used today, except for precious metals), or
something else (there were many systems of measurements in use during
the Middle Ages, most of which have disappeared today. In Louisiana
USA where I reside, one sees old maps and documents which quote land
in arpents, a French measure for which I can't find a conversion to
modern units.)
For those unfamiliar with the English system still used for most
things in the USA: 1 pound = 453.592 grams.
Dennis
Subject: Re: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 10:34:36 -0800 (PST)
From: "R. Brzustowicz" <brz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, jguy wrote:
>
> So, that is anything from 100 to 150
> ounces of 22-carat gold, or if you prefer, 400 to 600
> sovereigns. Say 50,000 Swiss francs, and you will be within
> 20% either way of what it cost the Holy Roman Emperor.
About US $300,000 + at current rates (US $290+/oz)?
Richard Brzustowicz (brz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Subject: Re: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 10:44:39 -0800
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@xxxxxxx>
Organization: Banzai Institute
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
R. Brzustowicz wrote:
> jguy wrote:
>> So, that is anything from 100 to 150
>> ounces of 22-carat gold
>
> About US $300,000 + at current rates (US $290+/oz)?
I read recently that the value of gold is remarkably constant over the
centuries if you measure its buying power in loaves of bread. Do we
know how much anything else cost in Rudolf's court? Annual stipend
for the court astrologer, for example?
--
Jim Gillogly
Highday, 23 Rethe S.R. 1999, 18:41
12.19.6.0.8, 3 Lamat 1 Cumku, Eighth Lord of Night
Subject: Gold
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 09:00:38 +0800
From: "Robert Firth" <robertjf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
Folks
In terms of basic commodities - for example loaves of bread - gold is a
very stable measure of real price. However, it does fluctuate over
large periods of time. It was scarcer (more expensive) in the Middle
Ages, because production was low and tons of the stuff was locked up
in sacred or ceremonial objects. It fell in value in the 16th century
because a lot of it was brought back to Spain from the New World,
creating ruinouis inflation in Spain itself and, to a lesser extent,
in the rest of Europe. Currently, it is at a low value, because
nation states, that used to hoard the stuff, have largely divested
themselves of their gold reserves.
If we're talking say 1400, then the English "penny loaf" was a loaf of
bread nominally 20oz and costing 1d, which was 1/240 of a pound
sterling and so 1/950 troy ounce of gold. That would equate to about
32 cents US, so gold then was perhaps 2 to 3 times as expensive as
today.
If we're talking Rudolph's time, gold was no dearer, and maybe a little
cheaper, than today, so L400 would equate to US$30,000.
Hope that helps.
Robert
Subject: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 20:05:49 -0500
From: "Lawrence Wickert" <lwickert@xxxxxxxx>
To: "voynich" <voynich@xxxxxxxx>
-----Original Message-----
From: Sabine <Zandbergen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx <voynich@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Sunday, March 14, 1999 6:04 PM
Subject: Exchange rates
Dear all,
As well known, Rudolph II of Bohemia paid 600 ducats for the Voynich
MS. Other 'currencies' used at the time were 'scudi' and 'gulden'.
Anybody know the exchange rates??
Cheers, Rene
The Dukat (Ducat) in the Empire was reckoned at:
104 Kreuzer in 1582
114 Kreuzer in 1585
178 Kreuzer in 1619
The Kreuzer was a unit of account in the Empire valued at 1/60
of a Gulden. The Imperial Dukat contained 3.44 grams of fine
gold in 1559 and the Gulden was then a silver coin containing
24.6 grams. The Scudo was a silver coin of Venice and
contained 31.185 grams of silver. So, approximately, in 1582
600 ducats = 62400 Kreuzer = 1040 Gulden = 820 Scudi.
Source: All the Monies of the World - A Chronicle of Currency Values.
Franz Pick, Rene Sedillot, 1971.
How does 600 ducats relate to present day standards of wealth? Using
the English Consumer Prices 1264-1998
http://www.globalfindata.tbukcpi.htm
I get a ratio from 1600 to 1998 as 127 : 1 (This is NOT 127%, it is
12700%). 600 ducats = 2.064 kilo fine gold = 66.35 troy ounces =
US$19907 @ US$300 multiply times 127 to get US$2,528,000
1040 gulden = 34.44 kilo fine silver = 1107 troy ounces = US$7750 @
US$7.00 multiply times 127 to get US$984,000
This discrepancy is due to the fact that the ratio of gold and silver
prices was much lower in the 16th century than it is today. At any
rate, Rudolf paid at least one million dollars for the manuscript.
The sum he paid was certainly sufficient to motivate an educated
person to concoct an elaborate hoax to sell to the widely known
"lunatic" emperor who had a ravenous hunger for this sort of thing.
Could this explain the document?
How would I go about this? First, design a fanciful alphabet and
start transcribing some common book and illustrate it with fanciful
pictures of flora and the heavens. After doing a few pages I might
realize that this is just a simple substitution code. Rudolf and his
cohort of alchemists will surely decipher it and I may end up in an
imperial dungeon. No, this work must be untranslatable.
I start over and just make random strings of letters; this is hard
work, I start reusing groups of letters and interweave with random
selections. After a few more pages I realize that the purchaser will
surely make a table of letter frequencies. I do this on my manuscript
and find that it is too flat; doesn't look like any language.
So I select a letter frequency and mark say 1000 small squares of
paper with the letters in my alphabet according to the frequency
table. At this time select a few dozen two letter combinations and a
few three letter combinations. Make up another thousand squares of
paper with these combinations (adjusted to the frequency table) and
mix them in the box. Randomly drawing sequences of 3 to 7 letters I
make up a dictionary.
After getting a few hundred words I make up new squares of paper
containing the words putting long words in one box and short words in
another; multiple slips for the short words and some of the longer
ones. Now I start making the text choosing long and short words in
whatever order looks good to my eye. Every other word goes into a
recycling box and the others are replaced in their original boxes.
Now and then I pick a word from the recycling box.
One final step, if I am really paranoid, is to impose a grammar.
Several sets of boxes, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs &ct.;
articles placed by hand from a small set of two and three letter
strings.
Use any book as a blueprint. If the sentence in your book consists of
"ARTICLE ADJECTIVE NOUN VERB CONJUNCTION VERB NOUN." simply select
your words from these respective boxes and replace or recycle
according to plan.
This should pass any 16th century tests for random letters vs. an
underlying natural language.
HOW WOULD SUCH A TEXT BE INTERPRETED BY APPLICATION OF 20TH CENTURY
METHODS?
While the above outlined manuscript generation algorithm is highly
labor intensive (as were most tasks in the 16th century) it is fairly
simple to adapt it to computer implementation (except perhaps the
parsing of the reference language text for sentence structure). The
sentence structures could be fed in by hand.
Just some thoughts, I don't have time to pursue. Maybe I am totally
off or this has already been tried.
Sincerely, Larry Wickert
Subject: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 21:44:59 -0500
From: "Lawrence Wickert" <lwickert@xxxxxxxx>
To: "voynich" <voynich@xxxxxxxx>
To: anyone out there reckoning 600 ducats in terms of thousands of
dollars rather than hundreds of thousands or millions.
Please look at http://www.portsdown.demon.co.uk/mark.htm
for prices and wages in Southhamptom in 1625:
Item, that every man being in company six or more together at dinner
or supper good bread and drink, beef and mutton boiled or roasted, or
else veal boiled and pig, beef or veal roasted, or otherwise upon fish
day to have good bread and drink, salt fish or salmon, ling, egg and
butter and so in default of one meat to have another.
Every man to pay for his meal. 6d
In 1625 The Clerk to the Market salary was 13d. a day.
This was the Clerk to the Market for His Majestys household, not the
toothless hag peddling day old fish.
Taking 200 working days per year we get his ANNUAL salary to be 10 l.
8 s. 6d. In the reign of James I the pound contained 8.3 grams of
fine gold. The Clerks annual salary was therefore 89.91 grams of fine
gold = 2.89 troy ounces.
If we take todays salary of some low government official at say $40,000
we get an effective gold price of $13,836 per ounce. This rough ratio
would put 600 ducats (66.36 troy ounces) at US$918,183.
Or, take the gluttonous meal and a few bottles of wine for 6 d. Shall
we say $40? that would put the purchasing power of a pound (240 d.)
at $1600 (for 8.3 grams of gold. 600 ducats (2064 grams of gold)
would be $398,000.
In either case ducats were Big Money.
L. Wickert
Subject: Re: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 20:16:21 -0800
From: jporter@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Julie Porter)
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
This came up on the Dickens-L list recently. I am do not think they
will mind if I post I here. This is rather topical and seems to be a
common problem. Usually this is discused in terms of Bob Cratchet
around chrtistmas time. what he is really worth. While this is
Predominatly victorian there is much to be learned. I think the loaf of
bread rule, Was created By Mark Twain in Connetucut Yankee
On Tue 02 Mar, Patrick McCarthy wrote:
> Patient DICKNS-ELLERS,
>
> The following inquiry from Jeffrey Boss <ad1070@xxxxxxxxx>
> has had partial answers in the past, especially when we were discussing
> Bob Cratchit's salary. I forward it to you now, however, since I suspect
> that there are enough subscribers who do not have a useful answer to
> give their students and would like to have one. PJM
>
> -----------
> I am teaching GREAT EXPECTATIONS to a class of freshmen and sophomores.
> Everytime I teach the novel to such a group two questions arise: (1.)
> How much is £500 per annum (the amount Pip receives upon reaching the
> age of 21) in today's money and purchasing power; and (2.) what does Pip
> do during the day as a gentleman who is not a member of the
> aristocracy? I referred my students to the Daniel Pool book, among
> others, but wonder if anyone has any answers to these two recurrent
> questions.
>
> Jeffrey Boss
> Wayne State University
>
re:- Pip's £500
Information from the Bank of England shows that prices have increased
roughly 40fold since mid-victorian times - inflation was not a problem
then, indeed prices fell for much of the century. But prices and wages
are two very different things.
Estimates of earnings of people in 1850/51 put the middle classes at
between £150 and £500 a year - just over 90,000 came into that
category.
Higher middles classes £500-£3000 of whom there wre 18,300.
And higher classes at £3000 to £50,000. But there were only 1,889 of
them.
The population divided into 1.5mn taxpayers, 6.9mn lower middle class,
and 19.3mn labouring classes.
So with £500 a year, Pip was propelled straight into the middle
classes from being a blacksmith's apprentice, probably with an income
ten times Joe's and for doing no work.
The lower middle class were people like teachers who earned between
£75 and £100 a year. In the labouring classes, spinners (in cotton
factories) earned about £1 a week - so £50 a year. Skilled labourers
were lucky to earn more than £1.25 a week, say £65 a year.
Agricultural workers earned around half these amounts, though they
usually got accommodation and some free food.
The average sort of earnings in 1851 were put at - lower middle class
£80 per year and labouring classes £52 a year. Remember that to earn
these wages people often worked 60 hours a week or more.
All this information - including the slightly uncomfortable notion of
'classes' though people in the UK do still think in this way to an
extent - from _Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes - report to
Sir Arthur Bass_ by Leone Levi, John Murray, London 1885.
I cannot recommend this original source too highly - much much better
than Pool, which I don't find fully reliable.
Paul
[-jP this also was on the list]
From: James Henderson <James.Henderson@xxxxxxxxx>
To: DICKNS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Value of money G.B. 19th century <fwd>
--- Begin Forwarded Message ---
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 10:04:02 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
From: James Henderson <James.Henderson@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Value of money G.B. 19th century
Sender: James Henderson <James.Henderson@xxxxxxxxx>
To: DICKENS-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: James.Henderson@xxxxxxxxx
Reply-To: James.Henderson@xxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <SIMEON.9903061002.A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I teach economics at Valparaiso University and I
developed this table to illustrate the value of money in
London during the 19th century. I made one assumption,
which I believe is reasonable (one quartern loaf of bread
is consumed in one week by a family). My students have
found this useful. Hope you do to. Jim Henderson
The value of money (London, 19th century)
4 farthings = 1 penny d
12 pence d = 1 shilling s
20 shillings s = 1 pound "L" (my editor cannot reproduce
the symbol for the British pound, hence "L").
Here is a list of the prices of a Quartern Loaf of Bread (4 lbs. loaf)
in London during the 19th century. If we assume that a family
consumed one quartern loaf of bread per week, then a year's supply of
bread would cost:
Price of a Quartern Cost of a Year's
YEAR Loaf in London d Supply of Bread
1800 - 04 11.7d "L"2 11s
1805 - 09 12.2d "L"2 13s
1810 - 14 14.6d "L"3 3s
1815 - 19 12.8d "L"2 15s
1820 - 24 10.0d "L"2 3s
1825 - 29 9.9d "L"2 3s
1830 - 34 9.4d "L"2 1s
1835 - 39 8.7d "L"1 18s
1840 - 44 8.9d "L"1 19s
1845 - 49 8.4d "L"1 16s
1850 - 54 7.8d "L"1 14s
1855 - 59 9.1d "L"2
1860 - 64 8.2d "L"1 16s
1865 - 69 8.7d "L"1 18s
1870 - 74 8.4d "L"1 16s
1875 - 79 7.3d "L"1 12s
1880 - 84 7.0d "L"1 10s
1885 - 89 6.0d "L"1 6s
1890 - 94 5.9d "L"1 6s
1895 - 99 5.4d "L"1 3s
SOURCES:
Col. 2, B. R. Mitchell and P. Deane, "Abstract of
British Historical Statistics," pp. 497-8. Col. 3, calculations by
James P. Henderson.
-julieP
> > [Jacques Guy:] The best I could manage to ferret out is that the
> > ducat was the standard gold currency of the times, but varying
> > between 1/4 and 1/6 of an ounce, depending on the date and place
> > of minting. So, that is anything from 100 to 150 ounces of
> > 22-carat gold, or if you prefer, 400 to 600
> > sovereigns. Say 50,000 Swiss francs, and you will be within
> > 20% either way of what it cost the Holy Roman Emperor.
>
>Great, so now we have a definite quantity.
>
>However, many years ago I had to look into that sort of question (for
>a Usenet discussion on how much did Columbus's voyage cost). One thing
>I remember reading is that the value of gold itself increased a lot
>(was it 20-fold?) since the 1500's, in comparison with the cost of
>living. In that case we would be talking of 2,500 Swiss francs.
>
>Of course the "cost of living" is a tricky metric too. (How much does
>a slave cost today? How much did a TV cost then?)
>
>--stolfi
Subject: Re: Exchange rates
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 20:29:34 -0800
From: jporter@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Julie Porter)
To: Voynich@xxxxxxxx
>jguy wrote:
>>
>> The best I could manage to ferret out is that the ducat
>> was the standard gold currency of the times, but varying
>> between 1/4 and 1/6 of an ounce, depending on the date
>> and place of minting. So, that is anything from 100 to 150
>> ounces of 22-carat gold, or if you prefer, 400 to 600
>> sovereigns. Say 50,000 Swiss francs, and you will be within
>> 20% either way of what it cost the Holy Roman Emperor.
>> (I chose Swiss francs because they're the most stable
>> modern currency I can think of).
>
Dennis wrote:
> Are those troy ounces (12 Troy ounces = 1 pound; this is the one used
>in quoting gold prices today), avoirdupois ounces (16 ounces = 1 pound;
>this is the one used today, except for precious metals), or something
>else (there were many systems of measurements in use during the Middle
>Ages, most of which have disappeared today. In Louisiana USA where I
>reside, one sees old maps and documents which quote land in arpents, a
>French measure for which I can't find a conversion to modern units.)
Douzieme, Lignes, Puces and Pieds. Are used in watchmaking. (well in
the restoriation of such) this was a duodecimal system simular to the
imperial units. I have some Ligne guages. I can not find the
conversion quickly. It would take several hours. These are the small
mesures. Note the last one is french for feet. The defintion I could
quickly find in Britton's Watch and clockmakers dictionary is that
each one is one 12th of the other. A typical rolex is about 8 to 12
lignes.
> For those unfamiliar with the English system still used for most
> things in the USA: 1 pound = 453.592 grams.
>
> Dennis
Subject: ducats
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 22:13:57 -0700
From: djl <djl@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'voynich'" <voynich@xxxxxxxx>
Wasn't the value of (I think 500) ducats in 1580 or thereabouts about
the same as one daughter, according to Shaxper?
:-) Don
Subject: Gold
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 15:58:52 +0800
From: "Robert Firth" <robertjf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
Gee, what a piece of work is Team Voynich! Thanks for some really
interesting data.
Two further comments: I respectfully disagree with Lawrence that we
should compare wages. People of almost all classes (except the
highest) were a lot poorer in the past, especially before the massive
increase in productivity brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
I think prices are a much better guide, and best of all the price of
basic commodities such as bread, cloth, wood.
Also, the wage of a member of a household was normally exclusive of
room and board - servants and even what we would think of as clerks
lived with their masters / employers and ate at the common table. So
13d per day would be much closer to the disposable income of a modern
worker, and I'd knock off at least a factor of 10 from that $40k. In
Victorian times, an upper servant would be paid L20 to L30 per annum,
plus room and board; that's 4 to 6 oz au or $1200 to $1800 pa, and
believe me they lived pretty well.
On the ratio of gold to silver: this has traditionally varied between
16:1 and 20:1. Lawrence's figures show
1 ducat = 3.44 gau
1 gulden = 24.6 gag
And so at an exchange rate of 1:2 (1 ducat = 120 kreuzer)
we have 3.44 gau = 49.2 gag or 14.3 : 1, and at an exchange rate of
1:3 (180 kreuzer) we have 21.5 :1. Not out of line, by any means.
Turning to the nineteenth century: prices were at an historic maximum
in 1805, because of the Napoleonic Wars and the Continental System.
After Trafalgar, and still more after Waterloo and the Congress of
Vienna, prices began a decline that lasted for almost a century,
driven by steadily rising productivity.
Subject: The value of the ducat
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 20:32:24 +0100
From: Zandbergen@xxxxxxxxxxx (Rene)
To: voynich@xxxxxxxx
Dear all,
the response is indeed overwhelming. While it is fascinating to
speculate on the current-day equivalent of those 600 gold ducats, my
first interest went out to the relative value of the monetary units at
the time. Thanks to Lawrence Wickert we know that in 1582 (which we
can tentatively take as the time R bought the VMs):
> 600 ducats = 62400 Kreuzer = 1040 Gulden = 820 Scudi.
The real reason I wanted to know is because, as Voynich writes, Jacobus
of Tepenec was wealthy during his life, lending Rudolph money, and
leaving the Jesuits at Prague a large sum of money at his death. This
sum turns out to be 50,000 Gulden, i.e. over 40 cipher manuscripts
(give or take an unknown scale factor, taking into account that he
died 40 years later).
But there is more. Toresella writes that while the VMs cost 600 ducats,
the Juliana Anicia codex cost only 100 (but we don't know when, or who
paid that). Still, it probably helps in understanding the value of 600
ducats.
Jim G. also had an interesting suggestion:
> Do we know how much anything else cost in Rudolf's
> court? Annual stipend for the court astrologer, for example?
Let me repeat the ticker:
> 600 ducats = 62400 Kreuzer = 1040 Gulden = 820 Scudi.
For Johannes Kepler (one of my heroes) we have two wildly different
values. He was (among others) astrologer at the court but of course
especially known for his publication of the Rudolphine tables
explaining the planetary motion. He had an annual income of 150
Gulden, before he joined Rudolph. At the end of his life, the empire
still owed him more than 12000 Gulden in unpaid salary.
Another item is given by the fact that (several decades later) emperor
Ferdinand III donated 3000 scudi to Ath. Kircher to finance the
printing of his book on hieroglyphs. In exchange, several of Kircher's
famous (at the time) volumes were dedicated to him.
So, while the 600 ducats do represent a very large sum of money (I like
to think of it as a Rolls Royce) it is not unique in the history of
book-dealing.
I do not know what Rudolph paid his artists (painters etc), but this
should be intersting as well.
Cheers, Rene