I have searched Czech net and found absolutely nothing about Jan ze Sternberka
(Czech spelling, actually ze ?ternberka :-) . The origin of the name is apparently German
( "Stern Berg" means starry mountain) and I cannot find anything in Czech or Latin at
least distantly similar to Barcius so what if it is misspelled our Barschius?
Then of course the first two dates above would be well before his birth....Understand your point but we are not sure that 1550 Rosarium is by Barcius/Sternberg,
I find the ca 1570 date for the Czech version more convincing, as well as the Gloria Mundi
datation: 1602, 1620...I am here dealing with its publication, this one is quite permanently attributed to Barcius/Sternberg (see for instance Opus Magnum).
Now there were 3 ways of adding other names to one's name at that time: one was
the translation:
Sinapi means mustard, that is horcice ( horczice as written then) and second to identity of
location, say Bojanovicensis (meaning from Bojanovice). Horczicky than changed it after
his nobilitatio to "de Tepenec". Those are two ways, but I cannot find any reference to
Barcius nor Sternberg. (One possible name is Barak, meaning the house, apparently
derived from similar root as "baracks" in English, that is military buildings - same way as
"kamerad" originally meant "soldiers living in the same camera", that is "room", lately of
course getting quite different meaning :-).
The third way is creation of something like nickname or alias, such as Paracelsus ( I
believe it was in his case)....Right Paracelsus was in fact Bombast von Hohenheim. why not Sternberg turning
to Barcius? Anyway it's almost a fact, Barcius is Sternberg.
Name Bare?, pronounced "Baresh" (German "Baresch") is very common in Bohemia, so
common people think it IS Czech name :-). The suffix "esch" is of course Czech one,
similar to "er" in English, say bake - baker. There is of course no "baring" in Bohemia (
meaning Czech verb with "bar" :-). So it is probably of Jewish or German origin, but I
doubt it would be derived from Barcius or Barschius, more likely vice verso.
...Interestingly enough perhaps is the fact that Barcius/Sternberg is regularly namedM. Barcius.
I am sure the signature can be analyzed further - besides, it looks like there are two
more lines of text under his name. Come to think of it - Marci called him Barschius in his
letter as well as in his book. Where did we get the name Baresch then? Maybe from his
original Czech name Bares' ( Bare?)?...Here is the ad hoc page:
http://193.206.220.68/kircher/aspimage.asp?ID=1992
Halas I tend to read: M.Georgius Baresch. The B. goes on...
Jean