11-09-2025, 12:10 AM
(10-09-2025, 05:12 PM)Jorge_Stolfi wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The VMS survived mostly thanks to one lucky accident: Barschius writing to Kircher and getting him interested enough to want to get it. Otherwise the manuscript would probably have remained in Prague after Barchius death. It may have sat "uselessly gathering dust on the shelf" of another obscure owner or two, and then discarded to make way for a bowl of petunias...
The main problem is survival, indeed.
Even the material that Marci sent to Kircher, beside the MS itself, does not seem to have survived.
This happened more than 200 years after the creation of the MS, and there are not too many places where it could have ended up (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.). Most of these are well-researched, especially by the many people researching Kircher) so chances that it will still turn up are not too good.
Specifically about Barschius: he did not leave just the MS to Marci, but his alchemical library, perhaps his whole library. Its fate is described by Czech historians: Marci left his books to his son Johannes Ludwig. This is of some interest as it should also have included the letters he received from Kircher. His son entered the monastery of Zahan (Sagan in Silesia), where this library was also deposited, but from there it has disappeared without a trace.