Re: looking for Baresch

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    > [Rafal:] I have now checked (and I should have thought of it
    > long ago!) the _Berni rula_. It is the tax census of the Czech
    > lands from 1653 and names everyone who owned something (house or
    > land). [...] If Baresch had a house in Prague, he should be
    > there. But he is not!

    > [Rene:] I agree that this is a bit of a surprise. His letter of 
    > 1639 was sent from Prague.

It is of course possible that he didn't own any property in Prague,
and either lived in a rented house, or didn't live in the city at all.

If the latter, he would probably have learned about Kircher's
Prodromus during a visit to Prague, just before 1639 --- most likely
to his friend Marci, who, as a friend of K., would have been one of
the first people in Prague to get the "dense summary" that Baresh
mentions. In that case, Baresh may well have written his letter to K
right away, hence the Prague date.

Besides, I presume that it would have been easier to find suitable
carriers to Rome at Prague than elsewhere in Bohemia.

    > Mnishowski and of course Hajek were long dead by that time
    > [1653], so their entries would have been found through their
    > descendants/heirs. For Baresch we don't known when he died but
    > we have even less of a clue about any dependants.

Well, we know (do we?) that he left his alchemical library to 
Marci.  That slightly increases the probability that he left no children.
(Even if his children didn't care about alchemy, I would expect him
to leave his books to them, so that they could make a few extra ducats
from the sale.  But of course that is by no means certain...)

Rafal, I see that the _Berni rula_ records the prior owners of some
proeprties, sometimes going back to 1628. Was that a general rule,
or was that information recorded only occasionally?

All the best,

--stolfi