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

["jan" <hurychj@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello  Nick,
  
  
=======  You wrote:  
  
>
>I have to say that I like your idea of documents (rather than gold) being 
>bricked up in an underground room (i.e. 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. :-)

Well, he saw only  boxes, but the documents came first to my mind - since it was also the 
university it was their main "treasure". The removal  of archives by Joseph II is documented 
and apparently the Vienna is the first  place to  look at. As for hidden cellars, the Old City is full of 
them, some were discovered as late as in the last century.  In the 19th century, some were 
meeting places for Masons. Central Europe was place  plagued by many wars and consequent looting, so 
it was practical to have some place to  hide the things.  Once they dug in Old Town Square 
and found complete cobblestone covering laying three feet under the surface, so the cellars tehre are even 
deeper. In Clementine complex, rtaher big, we are maily talking about underground, basements and storage places. However as for legend, they were leading the blindfolded man round and round, so 
there was more than one cellar; I guess there was a whole net of corridors.
>
>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.

Right, but I am living for past 35 years in Canada, can't do it. Besides, after velvet revolution, 
the place was rightfully  returned to Societas Jesu so  it is now privately owned by them. I 
sincerely doubt they would be anxious to let anybody go there and they have a right to refuse. 
  
>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?

Our only contact with SJ is their historian, most of the time doing some scholar work  in 
Rome anyway. It seems that  as for buildings, under 50 years of communist management, things went from 
bad to worse and now SJ has   hard time to get some inventory together nad past  records apparently do not exist. As  I mentioned, the documents that were returned to Czech republic ( I  presumed from Vienna) or any other way  saved from destruction are now spread through State county archives as "jesuitica", sometimes not even marked as such. When I suggested to him  they should ask  the State to return them to SJ he 
said  they already asked but no promise was made. Still, it is surprising how few documents 
they apparently have from the whole lot. And the part from their beginning (1555) till first expelling 
(1773) is practically  missing. I tried to convince him  into doing some discovering of the past history by 
searching for documents for famous members of Prague  SJ, but  it would be a big  job  and  
he has his priorities which I have to respect.

It looks like their admission  they do not have too much documentation  for the period of 
our interest is very true. Apparently there is another problem: the documents they do have 
may be restricted and even for special search by himself, he may need extra permissions.  It 
was my impression that after their second return to Prague (after velvet revolution, 1998 - their 
first return was in 1853) they are trying first to  confront the present rather than  their past. 
 Personally, I think the best place to look now would be Vienna, the ghost story coming only
 as the second best :-).

Regards,

jan

  
>
>.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
 





-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.298 / Virus Database: 265.6.7 - Release Date: 30/12/2004

______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxx with a body saying:
unsubscribe vms-list