That was quite a sobering read.
DG97EEB is of course absolutely right, the whole Barbara von Cilli image of orgies and secret alchemy is nothing more than a sensationalist fairytale. Would be a great story for a VM movie - but has nothing to do with reality.
Quote:The account of the relations between Ulrich of Cilli and Frederick III Habsburg is associated with Queen Barbara; it is, in fact, the key to clarifying the origin of the negative historical legend of Barbara. It was there, at the court of Frederick III, that this legend was born. The foundation stone on which it later grew was Emperor Frederick’s hatred toward the Cilli family. In 1443, the famous humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, a close friend of chancellor Kaspar Schlick, began working as a royal secretary at Frederick’s court. Piccolomini thus could not have had any information about the Cillis other than negative information, because he got it from Frederick III and from Schlick. He spent more than ten years at the Habsburg court, providing it with valuable services not only as a secretary, but also as a diplomat and writer. He mostly served the king in the field of ruling propaganda, and through his literary works he created the image of persons and events as his patron so desired. The king eventually awarded him the title of “poeta laureatus.” In the services of the Roman-German king, Aeneas Silvius later became the bishop of Trieste, and the bishop in Siena in 1449. His career reached its peak in 1457 when a three-day conclave in Rome elected him as pope (he took the name Pius II).
The Counts of Cilli, too, in Piccolomini’s work were put into a form that would certainly not have pleased them, and Queen Barbara could not escape Aeneas’s sharp pen either. The fact that the negative image of Barbara was born gradually in his work only after her death testifies to the fact that it is pure fiction. Piccolomini himself undoubtedly bares the primary blame in this regard. For him, Bohemian followers of the chalice were simply heretics, and the fact that Barbara lived and had friends among them was indigestible for him. And so, he made an unbelieving heretic out of Barbara as well.
The Cilli family was, at the same time, famed for strong worship of the Marian cult, by the founding of monasteries and churches, and by their wealthy endowments and donations on behalf of religious institutions. Barbara was no exception in her family: she endowed monasteries with both movable and immovable assets, and confirmed their privileges and supported them. A prayer book decorated with the beautiful illustrations of Martin Opifex, which is today kept in the National Library in Vienna, probably comes from her estate. There is no reason to doubt Barbara’s religiousness, which she ultimately demonstrated throughout her life, whether by regular participation in religious services or the mentioned donations.
Being a heretic and an eccentric medieval atheist is only a short step away from black magic. Therefore, the historical legend of the “black queen” began to circulate around the figure of Queen Barbara. And with this are linked the legends of secret alchemy labs, which she was said to have in at least three different castles, including at Samobor, not far from Zagreb.
The sources for her alleged practice of alchemy are also wonky at best. As she was extremely busy and troubled with various problems while Sigismund was alive, we can rule out she practiced alchemy during that time (before 1438 and her exile to Poland).
Quote:Aside from several small mentions of Barbara’s letters and tiny references in the Old Czech Annals, we know nothing more about Barbara from this time. She lived like a queen in Mélnik, but how she spent her days and who made up her court all remain shrouded in mystery. The invented fantasy of Aeneas Silvio, who in his later literary works created the reputation of Barbara as a licentious woman, indulging herself at Mélnik in a tumultuous life with her young lovers, we can flatly condemn as a politically motivated figure of the writer’s imagination. Perhaps the only information worth considering is that Barbara devoted herself to alchemy at Mélnik, and had relatively good knowledge in this field.
The source of this information is the famous Bohemian alchemist John of Laz, known under the Latin name Johannes Lasnioro, which reportedly hides within it the verbal connection las-nien-oro that is “Laz no gold.” In his manuscript from 1440 called Via universalis, John allegedly described Barbara's capabilities as an alchemist, thanks to which she was supposedly able to make false gold and silver. This alchemy text has not been preserved to the present; we only know snippets of it published in the 18th century. In 1717, Nicolaus Petraeus published the work of another alchemist, Basil Valentine, and in the edition he also published fragments from the lost manuscript Via universalis, mainly the part devoted to Barbara. According to this, John of Laz had reports from several sources that the wife of the deceased King Sigismund was very well acquainted with the natural sciences (in arte physica). Curiosity compelled the queen to visit him, and he described their meeting thus:
I went to see her and subjected her to a test of this science, but she answered me craftily, as women are wont to do. I saw that she took mercury and arsenic and other substances which she well knew (but did not name) and made a powder from them. In this way she was able to make copper white (i.e. to silver it), and this metal looked like silver, but it could not tolerate a hammer. So, she fooled many people. I also saw how she sprinkled red-hot copper with some powder, which when it penetrated the copper and so changed it that it looked like silver and when she melted this ‘silver’, it again became copper. Another time I saw how she mixed various powders, among them ‘crocus martis’ (ferrous sulphate) and ‘crocus veneris’ (cupric oxide), and produced from them a kind of cement, which when she mixed with gold and silver to obtain at first glance pure gold and silver and thus she tricked many merchants. I saw many lies and deceptions by her, which is why I reprimanded her. She wanted to imprison me for this, but with the help of God, I calmly got
away from her.
The essence of Barbara’s alchemy performances thus consisted in the quality colouring of copper so that it looked like gold and silver. We could easily believe the narrative of John of Laz, but some things do not quite add up. First of all, if the manuscript was dated in 1440, the alchemist could not have visited Barbara at Mélnik. Only a meeting in Poland would have been possible, during the queen’s stay there in years 1438-1441; an earlier date is excluded, because in the text he describes her as the wife of the “deceased King Sigismund.” But not even this reference seems trustworthy. In 1440, only a few people referred to Sigismund as a king.
A later lover of alchemy, Zbynék Zajic of Hazmburk, had doubts about the trustworthiness of the information from Johann of Laz nearly two centuries later, when he expressed himself very unfavourably regarding Barbara’s abilities in alchemy.
So what to make of this?
Barbara certainly was a bold and educated woman who did the things she felt were necessary in the way she deemed right. She was the de-facto ruler of Hungary in Sigismund's absence and due to her personal possessions probably the wealthiest and most powerful woman of her time which brought her many enemies. Anything else however is greatly exaggerated. There are several issues with the idea that her immediate surroundings were involved in the creation of the VM.:
First of all, when Sigismund returned from Rome and stayed in Mantua in Sept. 1433 where he allegedly received Taccola's manuscript copy, he was in an extreme hurry to get to the council of Basel. He certainly had other worries than dealing with some obscure sketchbook. If it existed, it probably ended up somewhere with his entourage never to be seen again. Or was left in Basel. Sigismund only returned to Hungary in October 1434 and the reunion with Barbara was not a happy one. Sigismund again had her stripped of all possessions and de-facto removed from power, presumably because of the way she governed the country while he had been gone for 4 years. Barbara's character showed traces of her father’s hardness and ruthlessness, especially if money was involved. She mainly governed her personal possessions (which included a substantial part of Hungary) and made sure all taxes were duly paid to her, no matter what. She also struggled against Hussite incursions, with varying success. A large part of the Hungarian Kingdom was devastated by attacks.
By mid 1436, Sigismund had reconciled with his wife, restored her possessions and took Barbara to Bohemia to have her crowned Queen of Bohemia. She only briefly ever returned to Hungary - as prisoner after Sigismund's death. It's important to understand why her stepson Albert, husband of her daughter Elizabeth, felt the need to get rid of Barbara, accusing her of treason and pretending the dying emperor had issued an arrest warrant for his wife. She rightfully owned lage parts of the Hungarian kingdom as private property, including strategically important castles, had enormous wealth and still was the wife of the late emperor. Ruling against her will as new king would not have been feasible. In theory she could even have prevented Albert's succession by remarrying, though this was certainly not in her interest as she would have lost all her possessions in this case. She later was set free but permanently lost all her possessions in Hungary. When Albert was crowned King of Hungary and Bohemia in 1438, tensions flared up as many Hussites rejected him. Barbara decided to escape beyond Albert's reach.
Quote:She sought protection at the Polish court; long years of good relations with the Polish royal court now helped her find refuge. The flight of the queen from Hungary, where she had spent her entire life and where several months before she had been one of the wealthiest and most influential persons in the country, was not easy. Barbara left the Hungarian Kingdom in an entourage of 500 riders laden with all the wealth she was able to place on wagons. Her escort on the road to Poland was attacked by Albert's supporters, who killed 150 people in the resulting battle and captured another 200. The queen herself barely escaped with her life, but she lost all of her treasures in the fight.
This means even in the highly unlikely event that a Taccola copy remained in Barbara's possession, it would have been lost during her flight to Poland and never made it to Melnik. Barbara basically from scratch there, living wealthy from the taxes of Bohemian possessions granted to her, but by no means luxurious.
TL;DR
The chain of events that would wash a Taccola copy to Melnik castle to an Alchemy-practicing Barbara are - extremely speculative. If the crowned nymph in the VM really depicts Barbara, it was probably rather created by her enemies than her supporters.
The question however remains how and where the VM artist got hold of a copy of Taccola's book then?