Re: what we know about the VMS' creation time

[Zandbergen@xxxxxxxxxxx (Rene Zandbergen)]

Rafal wrote:

> But we do not know if he (Balbin) knew about the VMS. 

we don't, but as a historian writing relatively short after the
events, he is a potentially interesting source. He did write about
Jacobus, and was Schmidl's main source for him.

> The images of Balbin's manuscript on great Bohemian writers
> (I don't remember the title right now) is available on the
> Web site of the National Library in Prague - but unfortunately
> the resolution makes it practically illegible.

Evans quotes 'Bohemia Docta (Prague 1777)'.

> Rudolf may have got the VMS from practically anyone who visited
> Prague so any guesses are unfounded (just as it was with Dee).
> As it is highly probable that Sinapius owned it for some time
> and that he received it from Pontanus (whose one other MS he had),
> and as Evans says they were on friendly terms (I have not read
> his book as there seems to be no copy in Poland)

It is a must read, :-)

> the correspondence of Pontanus survives somewhere? Perhaps
> he wrote to someone in Europe about it? Anyway, he may now
> be counted among those who (most probably) saw the VMS.

Evans has quite a bit to say about him, which I can't repeat
right now for lack of time. Just this:

  He was a friend and associate of Zdenek Lobkovic [...]
  associated with a circle of Counter-reforming propagandists
  [...]. These men were grouped around Lohelius, abbot of
  Strahov [...] and they included Catholics [...] like [...]
  and the physician Sinapius.
  [Pontanus] was a very familiar person at court [...] and a
  well-known poet in the circle of Westonia [...] 
  His extant MS writings include, beside scribbled Latin elegies
  [...] various vocabulary compilations, among them a Rottwelsche
  Grammatik of thieves' or gypsies' cant.

there are several references. I'll write more fully soon.
 
Cheers, Rene