John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought (International Archives of the History of Ideas - Archives internationales d'histoire des idées)

373 Pages·2006·2.43 MB·English

by  Stephen Clucas (editor)

John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought
ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D’HISTOIRE DES IDÉES
INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HISTORY OF IDEAS
193
John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought
edited by
STEPHEN CL U CAS
Founding Directors:
P. Dibon†(Paris) and R.H. Popkin† (Washington University, St. Louis & UCLA)
Director:
Sarah Hutton (Middlesex University, United Kingdom)
Associate-Directors:J.E. Force (Lexington); J.C. Laursen (Riverside)
Editorial Board: M.J.B. Allen (Los Angeles); J.R. Armogathe (Paris); A. Gabbey (New York);
T. Gregory (Rome); J. Henry (Edinburgh); J.D. North (Oxford); J. Popkin (Lexington);
G.A.J. Rogers (Keele); Th. Verbeek (Utrecht)
John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in
English Renaissance Thought
edited by
STEPHEN CL U CAS
Birkbeck, University of London, U.K.
AC.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN-10 1-4020-4245-0 (HB)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4245-4 (HB)
ISBN-10 1-4020-4246-9 (e-book)
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4246-1 (e-book)
Published by Springer,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AADordrecht, The Netherlands.
www.springer.com
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 2006 Springer
No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
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or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception
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and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.
Printed in the Netherlands.
This book is dedicated to the memory of
Robert O. Lenkiewicz (1941–2002)
Painter, Researcher and Bibliophile.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abbreviations ix
List of Plates xi
Notes on Contributors xv
Introduction: Intellectual History and the
Identity of John Dee 1
1. Nicholas H. Clulee – John Dee’s Natural Philosophy
Revisited 23
PART ONE: ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY
2. Robert Goulding – Wings (or Stairs) to the
Heavens: The Parallactic Treatises of John Dee
and Thomas Digges 41
3. Stephen Johnston – Like Father, Like Son? John Dee,
Thomas Digges and the Identity of the Mathematician 65
4. Richard Dunn – John Dee and Astrology in
Elizabethan England 85
PART TWO: DEE AND MARITIME AFFAIRS
5. Robert Baldwin – John Dee’s Interest in the
Application of Nautical Science, Mathematics and
Law to English Naval Affairs 97
6. William H. Sherman – John Dee’s Columbian Encounter 131
PART THREE: DEE AND THE OCCULT SCIENCES
7. Karen De Léon-Jones – John Dee and the Kabbalah 143
8. Federico Cavallaro – The Alchemical Significance
of John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica 159
9. Jim Reeds – John Dee and the Magic Tables in
theBook of Soyga 177
PART FOUR: DEE’S CONVERSATION WITH ANGELS
10. György E. Szönyi – Paracelsus, Scrying and the Lingua Adamica:
Contexts For John Dee’s Angel Magic 207
11. Stephen Clucas – John Dee’s Angelic Conversations and
theArs Notoria: Renaissance Magic and Mediaeval Theurgy 231
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viii TABLE OF CONTENTS
12. Deborah E. Harkness –The Nexus of Angelology, Eschatology
and Natural Philosophy in John Dee’s Angel Conversations
and Library 275
PART FIVE: DEE AND KELLEY
13. Susan Bassnett – Absent Presences: Edward Kelley’s
Family in the Writings of John Dee 285
14. Jan Bäcklund – In the Footsteps of Edward Kelley:
Some Manuscript References at the Royal Library in
Copenhagen Concerning an Alchemical Circle around John Dee
and Edward Kelley 295
PART SIX: LIBRARY CATALOGUE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
15. Julian Roberts – Additions and Corrections to “John Dee’s
Library Catalogue” 333
16. Stephen Clucas – Recent works on John Dee (1988-2005):
A Select Bibliography 345
Index 351
ABBREVIATIONS
Alae Thomas Digges, Alae, seu Scalae Mathematicae, quibus
visibilium remotissima Coelorum Theatra conscendi, &
Planetarum omnium itinera nouis & inauditis Methodis
explorari: tum huius portentosi Syderis in Mundi Boreali
plaga insolito fulgore coruscantis. Distantia, &
Magnitudo immensa, Situsque protinus tremendus
indagari, Deique stupendum ostentum, Terricolis
expositum cognosci liquidissime possit (London:
Thomas Marsh, 1573).
DNB Dictionary of National Biography, ed. by Sidney Lee and
Leslie Stephen, 22 vols (London, 1908).
JDEP I.R.F. Calder, John Dee Studied as an English Neo-
platonist, 2 vols (Unpublished PhD thesis, The Warburg
Institute, University of London, 1952).
Lib.Myst. John Dee, Liber Mysteriorum, London, British Library,
Sloane MS 3188.
MH Monas Hieroglyphica Ioannis Dee, Londinensis, ad
Maximilianum, Dei Gratia Romanorum, Bohemiae et
Hungariae Regem Sapientissimum (Antwerp: Gulielmus
Silvius, 1564), facsimile edition of the Latin with facing
page translation by C.H. Josten, Ambix, 12:2-3 (1964):
82-221.
MP The Elements of Geometrie of the most auncient Philo-
sopher EVCLIDE of Megara. Faithfully (now first)
translated into the Englishe toung, by H. Billingsley,
Citizen of London. Wherevnto are annexed certaine
Scholies, Annotations, and Inuentions, of the best Mathe-
maticiens, both of time past, and in this our age. With a
very fruitfull Praeface made by M. I. Dee, specifying the
chiefe Mathematicall Sciences, what they are, and
wherunto commodious: where, also, are disclosed cer-
taine new Secrets Mathematicall and Mechanicall, vntill
these our daies, greatly missed (London: John Daye,
1570).
NP Nicholas H. Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy:
Between Science and Religion (London and New York:
Routledge, 1988).
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x ABBREVIATIONS
PA Wayne Shumaker and John L. Heilbron, eds. and trans.
John Dee on Astronomy. Propaedeumata Aphoristica
(1558 and 1568), Latin and English (Berkeley, Los
Angeles and London: University of California Press,
1978).1
Parallaticae John Dee, Parallaticae Commentationis Praxeosque
Nucleus quidam (London: John Daye, 1573).
Private Diary The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee and the catalogue of his
library of manuscripts, from the original manuscripts in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and Trinity College
Library, Cambridge, ed. James Orchard Halliwell (London,
1842).
R&W Julian Roberts and Andrew Watson, John Dee’s Library
Catalogue (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1990).2
T&FR A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many
Yeers Between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great
Fame in Q. ELIZ. And King James their Reignes) and
Some Spirits: Tending (had it Succeeded) To a General
Alteration of most States and Kingdomes in the World.
[etc], ed. Meric Casaubon (London: D. Maxwell for T.
Garthwait, 1659).

1 This edition conflates two separate editions of Dee’s Propaedeumata. These are: (cid:518)(cid:519)(cid:517)(cid:299)(cid:505)(cid:511)(cid:507)(cid:498)(cid:522)(cid:514)(cid:505)(cid:521)(cid:505)
(cid:505)(cid:301)(cid:517)(cid:519)(cid:511)(cid:520)(cid:521)(cid:511)(cid:512)(cid:505)Ioannis Dee, Londinensis, de Praestantioribus quibusdam naturae virtutibus, ad
Gerardum Mercatorem Rupelmundanum, Mathematicum et Philosophum insignem (London: Henry
Sutton, 1558) and Propaedeumata Aphoristica Ioannis Dee, Londinensis, De Praestantioribus quibusdam
Naturae Virtutibus (London: Reginald Wolf, 1568). All quotes, references and translations in this volume
are taken from the Heilbron-Shumaker edition.
2 Readers should note that where this abbreviation is followed by a number only (as “R&W, 13”, the
reference is to a page-number in Roberts and Watson’s book. Where the abbreviation is followed by “no.”
or “nos.” (as “R&W, no. 13”) the reference is to a catalogue number assigned by Roberts and Watson to
an item in Dee’s Library catalogue. Further information regarding these items may be found by
consulting the section of their book headed “Notes to the 1583 Catalogue” (R&W, 79 et seq.).
LIST OF PLATES
Plate 1: John Dee’s circumpolar chart, drawn in 1580. Reproduced by courtesy of
the Burghley House Collection.
p.102
Plate 2: The Frontispiece of Dee’s General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the
perfect Arte of Navigation (London, 1577). Reproduced courtesy of Durham
University Library.
p. 11 0
Plate 3: A navigational chart of the North Atlantic, 1578. Drawn by William
Borough, revised by Christopher Hall. Hatfield House CPM1/69. Reproduced by
courtesy of the Marquess of Salisbury.
p. 122
Plate 4: The geometrical construction of Dee’s ‘Hieroglyphic Monad’, Monas
Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), p. 24r. Reproduced from the facsimile edition of C.
H. Josten, courtesy of Ambix.
p. 160
Plate 5: The ‘Hieroglyphic Monad’, Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), p. 25r.
Reproduced from the facsimile edition of C. H. Josten, courtesy of Ambix.
p. 163
Plate 6: The ‘Egg diagram’, Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), p. 17r.
Reproduced from the facsimile edition of C. H. Josten, courtesy of Ambix.
p. 168
Plate 7: The ‘artificial vessel’ (Vas artificiale) Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp,
1564), p. 22r. Reproduced from the facsimile edition of C. H. Josten, courtesy of
Ambix.
p. 171
Plate 8: The ‘Horizon Æternitatis’ figure, Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), p.
27r. Reproduced from the facsimile edition of C. H. Josten, courtesy of Ambix.
p. 173
Plate 9: Book of Soyga, T1 Aries table. The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford,
BodleyMS , 908, fol. 180r.
p. 181
Plate 10: Book of Soyga, T1 Aries table. Department of Manuscripts, British Library,
Sloane MS8, fols. 102v and 103v. (By Permission of the British Library).
p. 182
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