Thanks for your insights, Psilly. I must admit that I had not looked into these other Marci letters yet in great detail.
One thing strikes me as strange. Kircher called himself the Oedipus of Egypt, because he solved the riddle of the sphinx: he thought he had deciphered the hieroglyphs.
![[Image: Oed-aegyp.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Oed-aegyp.png)
(That's Kircher himself depicted as Oedipus)
Hence, calling Kircher a sphinx would be weird, since the sphinx is his vanquished opponent. It is clear that Kircher's correspondents play along with this metaphor. They refer to challenges for Kircher as Sphinxes.
So I wonder if Sphi... in this sentence was supposed to have a nominative (subject) ending. My Latin is long gone so I'll have to ask for the opinion of others - more qualified. If we complete "Sphi" with a different case ending, could the sentence get a different translation?
Sphi modo quae Amicus meus M. Georg Barschius per me scribi uoluerit, et schaedata hic adiuncta intelliget.
If that were the case, I would be almost certain that it is about the VM. Baresch made it clear that he thought the MS contained "Egyptian" medical knowledge, of which he may have genuinely believed that it would help mankind.
Edit: just for comparison, the "sphinx" part from the latter Marci letter:
"Verum labor hic frustraneus fuit, siquidem non
nisi suo Kirchero obediunt eiusmodi sphinges"
One thing strikes me as strange. Kircher called himself the Oedipus of Egypt, because he solved the riddle of the sphinx: he thought he had deciphered the hieroglyphs.
(That's Kircher himself depicted as Oedipus)
Hence, calling Kircher a sphinx would be weird, since the sphinx is his vanquished opponent. It is clear that Kircher's correspondents play along with this metaphor. They refer to challenges for Kircher as Sphinxes.
So I wonder if Sphi... in this sentence was supposed to have a nominative (subject) ending. My Latin is long gone so I'll have to ask for the opinion of others - more qualified. If we complete "Sphi" with a different case ending, could the sentence get a different translation?
Sphi modo quae Amicus meus M. Georg Barschius per me scribi uoluerit, et schaedata hic adiuncta intelliget.
If that were the case, I would be almost certain that it is about the VM. Baresch made it clear that he thought the MS contained "Egyptian" medical knowledge, of which he may have genuinely believed that it would help mankind.
Edit: just for comparison, the "sphinx" part from the latter Marci letter:
"Verum labor hic frustraneus fuit, siquidem non
nisi suo Kirchero obediunt eiusmodi sphinges"