13-02-2016, 03:52 PM
David,
the point has been talked about pretty often as far back as it became an issue for anyone. Since at least the 1990s.
The general consensus seemed to me to be (when I went back reading up on it) that the price was ridiculous for that time, given the look of our manuscript, the sort of price that manuscripts even of first quality then fetched, and the extant records of Rudolf's purchases: not just their cost, but the sort of things he liked to buy.
I recall one person saying that his library consisted chiefly of the latest printed books about alchemy and new science, though here my reference is even vaguer than Mnishovsky's was.
So on balance, my view came to be that Mnishovsky was hoping to finagle it for himself, by suggesting that it actually belonged among Rudolf's collection (over which he had, as it were, testamentary/executive authority) and that failing that, he might wangle 600 ducats as price of the redemption.
Reading all the associated Kircher letters that Rene and others hunted up - for which our gratitude is earned - it looks as if no-body ever believed the idea, and to contemporary eyes the thing looked so ratty that not even Kircher wanted it at first, and talked of it as if it had been some student's abbreviated work. The term 'libellum' is still used specifically to mean a text which is highly abbreviated in both form and content.
Caveat emptor, I think, about buying the story. You'd think if he'd heard of it, Baresch would have mentioned it to encourage Kircher; if Marci had believed it, he'd have done the same. If Kircher had believed it, he might have been quicker to work on it. If anyone else had believed it, they might have said something in their letters to Kircher such as "I hope you're getting on with the Emperor's book" - because if anything excited Kircher more than himself, it was rubbing shoulders (as it were) with Personages.
So no, I'm not buying.
the point has been talked about pretty often as far back as it became an issue for anyone. Since at least the 1990s.
The general consensus seemed to me to be (when I went back reading up on it) that the price was ridiculous for that time, given the look of our manuscript, the sort of price that manuscripts even of first quality then fetched, and the extant records of Rudolf's purchases: not just their cost, but the sort of things he liked to buy.
I recall one person saying that his library consisted chiefly of the latest printed books about alchemy and new science, though here my reference is even vaguer than Mnishovsky's was.
So on balance, my view came to be that Mnishovsky was hoping to finagle it for himself, by suggesting that it actually belonged among Rudolf's collection (over which he had, as it were, testamentary/executive authority) and that failing that, he might wangle 600 ducats as price of the redemption.
Reading all the associated Kircher letters that Rene and others hunted up - for which our gratitude is earned - it looks as if no-body ever believed the idea, and to contemporary eyes the thing looked so ratty that not even Kircher wanted it at first, and talked of it as if it had been some student's abbreviated work. The term 'libellum' is still used specifically to mean a text which is highly abbreviated in both form and content.
Caveat emptor, I think, about buying the story. You'd think if he'd heard of it, Baresch would have mentioned it to encourage Kircher; if Marci had believed it, he'd have done the same. If Kircher had believed it, he might have been quicker to work on it. If anyone else had believed it, they might have said something in their letters to Kircher such as "I hope you're getting on with the Emperor's book" - because if anything excited Kircher more than himself, it was rubbing shoulders (as it were) with Personages.
So no, I'm not buying.