14-01-2023, 02:44 AM
There is a great amount of additional context.
The sales record in question is the same as the one I pointed out here:
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Stefan Guzy contacted me shortly after that post, and I have been in regular contact with him since then.
The records in Rudolf's accounts refer to 500 Taler. As Nick pointed out after the talk, I already included that in my 2012 Mondragone presentation.
The new information comes from the family archives of Geizkofler, where the same sale is listed as 600 'Rheinische Gulden'. I have always understood these to be gold pieces, but I would like to check that.
Pending that, the common part is that both the Marci letter and this sales record refer to 600 gold pieces. However, they are not the same type of gold pieces, so there has to be a remaining doubt that this is _really_ the reference to the sale of the Voynich MS. However, this could easily have happened as the information was passed orally from an unknown person to Mnisowsky to Marci over several decades.
Ducats were worth a bit more than florins, and I am not sure where the ratio 600 / 333 comes from. If I recall correctly, Venetian ducats were about 10% more than a florin at the time. The Taler at Rudolf's time was 7/6 of a florin, so his 500 Taler was just short of 600 florins.
With respect to the budget of the Imperial library, this was "rediculously low", a thing that is not uncommon for libraries. I know of cases where librarians were forced to spend their budget not on buying books, but to keep the infrastructure from falling apart.
There is an excellent source on the book collections of Rudolf:
Richterová, A.: Alchemical Manuscripts in the collections of Rudolf II. In: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., pp. 249-291.
which also appears in Stefan's references.
The sales record in question is the same as the one I pointed out here:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Stefan Guzy contacted me shortly after that post, and I have been in regular contact with him since then.
The records in Rudolf's accounts refer to 500 Taler. As Nick pointed out after the talk, I already included that in my 2012 Mondragone presentation.
The new information comes from the family archives of Geizkofler, where the same sale is listed as 600 'Rheinische Gulden'. I have always understood these to be gold pieces, but I would like to check that.
Pending that, the common part is that both the Marci letter and this sales record refer to 600 gold pieces. However, they are not the same type of gold pieces, so there has to be a remaining doubt that this is _really_ the reference to the sale of the Voynich MS. However, this could easily have happened as the information was passed orally from an unknown person to Mnisowsky to Marci over several decades.
Ducats were worth a bit more than florins, and I am not sure where the ratio 600 / 333 comes from. If I recall correctly, Venetian ducats were about 10% more than a florin at the time. The Taler at Rudolf's time was 7/6 of a florin, so his 500 Taler was just short of 600 florins.
With respect to the budget of the Imperial library, this was "rediculously low", a thing that is not uncommon for libraries. I know of cases where librarians were forced to spend their budget not on buying books, but to keep the infrastructure from falling apart.
There is an excellent source on the book collections of Rudolf:
Richterová, A.: Alchemical Manuscripts in the collections of Rudolf II. In: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., pp. 249-291.
which also appears in Stefan's references.