L. Rauwolf

[DG97EEB]

I've been reading through the correspondence on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and reading both Rauwolf and Widemann correspondence, I'm coming to the conclusion that Widemann simply inherited (by accident or legally unknown) Rauwolf's library. Widemann spends most of the time complaining about how poor he is and then all of a sudden he's sending letters to kings around Europe and discussing secret books. In the letter to James 1st, he talks about collecting books for 30 years. If you work back from the date of the letter, it suspiciously falls on the time at which he came to live in Rauwolf's house. Controversial maybe, but my view is he was a chancer who knew of Rauwolf's association with Rudolph, and after his death corresponded with him and others to offer them manuscript from his collection. Occo, Camerius, Bauthin, all talk about going to see Rauwolf's collection... Widemann had also studied at Padua, so would have been familiar with the materials.