Re: Re: Re: VMs: Argentina...and Moretus

[Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

At 08:53 03/01/2005 -0500, Jan Hurych wrote:
> Right, I already said it was only a legend. And there is really a lot of 
> underground spaces in Prague, some of them not yet thoroughly investigated.

I have to say that I like your idea of documents (rather than gold) being 
bricked up in an underground room (ie not a cellar). IMHO, a very candidate 
for this would be cellarage (like pantries) - so a good first step might be 
to work out where the kitchens were in 1773. :-)

This strikes me as the kind of thing armchair treasure hunters like (is 
Mark Parry still on-list?): Jan, if you scan & post maps of the tunnels & 
the overground buildings, people might provide lots of helpful insights.

> What we are missing  here  is Kircher's correspondence to Marci. We
> may assume  it should have been be  in Jesuits's archive in Prague since
> he was admitted to the Order on  his deathbed. Unfortunately, the whole
> archive was confiscated by Joseph II and taken away. Jesuit archive in
> Rome does not have it  and Prague does not  have it  (according to  our
> contacts there) - so the only place it possibly could be is Vienna, but we
> have no contact there. Anybody wants to help?

Presumably in the Nationalbibliothek Wien, as per your email last July...
        http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2004/07/msg00160.html

Is there known to be any kind of index to the former Clementinum holdings 
there? I'd like to add all this to my List of Things People Can Do To Help, 
but it still seems quite vague what is needed. If a Voynichologist happened 
to be in Vienna, what precisely would you suggest they do to move this forward?

Finally, Jan gave a link to the museum of hoaxes concerning Kircher's three 
hoaxes, but the page doesn't mention when they happened. IMO it would be 
more credible to suggest that Kircher threw the first VMs letter just after 
he was made to look foolish - after all, timing is everything. :-)
        http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/kircher.html

Anyway, the information on that site apparently came from...
        Mencken, Johann Burkhard. The Charlatanry of the Learned. (De
        charlataneria eruditorum, 1715). Translated from the German by
        Francis E. Litz, with notes and an introduction by H. L. Mencken.
        "First edition." New York, London, A.A. Knopf, 1937.
...which I will look at next time I'm in the British Library (it has two 
copies).

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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