The Friar and the Cipher (21 page)

The very next year Matthias died, leaving open the question of succession. By hereditary right, the office of king of Bohemia should have gone to his cousin, the Archduke Ferdinand, ruler of Styria (in present-day Austria). But Ferdinand was virulently Catholic. The rebels knew that they could look for no mercy from that quarter, so they scouted around for a new candidate. They found him in Frederick V, the elector Palatine.

The Palatinate was a small, strategically placed triangle in Germany bordered by both the Rhine and the Danube, with its capital at Heidelberg. The head of this province was one of seven electors responsible for choosing the emperor. At the time of Matthias's death, Frederick was twenty-three years old and had been ruler of the Palatinate for ten years. Frederick was weak, provincial, inexperienced, and possessed of a conscience and scruples. He had recently married Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England, herself young, spirited, sheltered, and proud. When Frederick was offered the kingdom of Bohemia, Elizabeth is reported to have swayed him into accepting by opining that “she would rather eat sauerkraut with a king than roast meat with an Elector.”

They seem to have been the only people in Europe (aside from their subjects) who did not recognize their unsuitability to govern a complex and volatile country like Bohemia. The Bohemians thought they were bringing in a rich, well-connected ruler capable of drawing on the resources of the English and the French to protect them from the Archduke Ferdinand and his ally, powerful, Catholic Spain. What they got was a pair of children throwing parties they couldn't afford. Frederick and Elizabeth had no knowledge of their adopted realm's traditions or customs. He scandalized the population by skinny-dipping; she was equally frowned upon for her too-fashionably-low-cut dresses and unwholesome reading material. With the most powerful states of Europe, Spain, France, and Germany, arrayed against them, they could marshal only one ally to their defense, and—this is not a joke—it was Transylvania.

They lasted one year. Then one of Frederick's fellow electors cut a deal with Ferdinand and invaded. The army moved swiftly toward Prague. Frederick's forces, under the command of his chancellor, staked out a defensive position on White Mountain, just outside the city. The chancellor assured the king that there was no need for alarm. Frederick and Elizabeth accordingly hosted a dinner that evening in the castle. The enemy attacked; the Bohemians were overrun. After dinner, Frederick thought he might just go outside and have a look at his troops. He met them, flying past, at the gates to the castle. The royal family had to evacuate so quickly that they almost left the baby behind. The plates were still on the table.

The end of Frederick's tenure marked the beginning of the Thirty Years' War. Over the next three decades, Bohemia would be systematically destroyed as one army after another attacked, conquered, looted, occupied, and was itself routed by a succeeding force. The capital city of Prague, in particular, as a hollow symbol of authority, became a focus of Catholic and Protestant ambitions. After the battle of White Mountain, the invading army closed off the city for a full week and treated itself to a wild looting spree that left the city's inhabitants, Catholic and Protestant alike, stripped of food and possessions. Afterward, Ferdinand claimed Prague as a Catholic stronghold, and the Jesuits poured in to undertake the task of reeducating the populace. Forty Protestant leaders were arrested, tried, and sentenced to a mass execution in the main marketplace. The Protestant citizenry were given the choice of conversion or exile; 150,000 chose the latter.

For Jacobus de Tepenec, the Archduke Ferdinand's victory over the hapless Frederick and Elizabeth meant a return to his home. A deeply religious man, Tepenec embraced the Jesuit cause. When he died in 1622 as a result of a riding accident, he left a fortune in gold and the contents of his Melnick estate to the Jesuit society. Although there is no specific mention of the book in his will, it is likely that the cipher manuscript found its way, with the rest of Tepenec's effects, to the Jesuit College, called the Clementium, at Prague.

For years afterward, the manuscript dropped from sight. The war continued, and each year the situation of the Bohemians deteriorated. In 1631, the king of Sweden banded together with one of the German electors and sent a Protestant army sweeping though Prague, but the victory was short-lived, and the Catholics, with the aid of the empire and Spain, were soon back in control. By 1639, when the Protestants came through again, Prague had been the scene of so much fighting that the city could no longer feed itself. Plague and poverty and death hung over the capital; John Baner, the Swedish marshal in command of the latest army, wrote: “I had not thought to find the kingdom of Bohemia so lean, wasted and spoiled, for between Prague and Vienna all is razed to the ground and hardly a living soul to be seen in the land.” Already, a generation had been born that knew nothing but war. Yet this was the very year that the manuscript resurfaced in Prague. It seems incredible that a book that, after all, could not be read, could have survived such devastation. Perhaps it was saved by its unprepossessing appearance—it had neither brilliant hues nor gilt to make it recognizably valuable—and by the fact that it could not be eaten.

IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE PONTIFICIA UNIVERSITÀ GREGORIANA
in Rome is filed a letter from Georg Baresch of Prague. This letter, dated 1639, is addressed to Anathasius Kircher, then professor of mathematics at the Roman College. Kircher, a Jesuit and renowned linguist, was the author of the recently published
Prodomus Coptus
or
The Coptic, or Egyptian Forerunner. The Coptic
was a primer in the language of early Egyptian Christians. Kircher's ability to read this archaic tongue had made him celebrated throughout Europe. It was only a matter of time, most scholars agreed, before he solved the puzzle of Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were themselves assumed to hold the key to uncovering the divine language that God had handed down to Adam and which had been lost to mankind with the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This Adamic language—the very same tongue for which John Dee had been searching half a century before when he questioned his angels—was said to contain all of the great secrets of the universe, including the secret of life itself.

This is evidently the second letter of its kind that Baresch had written to Kircher—he makes reference to an earlier appeal for which he obtained no answer. The letter that survived was successfully delivered by the Reverend Father Moretus, a Jesuit priest traveling from Prague to Rome. In it, Baresch wrote:

Most Reverend Father,

Expressing my highest regards, I wish that you may receive all happiness from Him who provides happiness . . .

After the publication of the
Prodromus Coptus
, Your Reverence became famous in the whole world. In that work you had asked for help in finding additional material . . . from all those who might have something from which this work might be enriched . . .

Since such a Sphinx in the form of writing in unknown characters was uselessly taking up space in my library, I thought I would not be unjustified in sending this enigma to be solved . . .

Having thus transcribed (taking pains to imitate the writing) a certain part of this old book, which the carrier of this letter has seen with his own eyes and about which he can inform you, I send this writing . . . with the aim that (if Your Reverence would have been willing to undertake this investigation and convert these characters of unknown creation to known letters) this toil could be of use either to [you] . . . or to me, or to the common good . . .

From the pictures of herbs, of which the number in the Codex is enormous, of various images, of stars and of other things which appear like chemical secrets, I conjecture that it is all of medical nature . . .

This work will be worthy of the effort of a virtuous genius, especially since this is not a work for all, which one may conclude from the fact that the author would hardly have gone to such lengths just to hide things which are open to the public . . .

I will be obliged to you for this, not just for what the work contains, but also all else that will become possible . . .

With this I recommend myself to Your Reverence and I wish you a happy, successful completion of this work . . . May the Almighty Lord preserve you for the community of literates.

M. GEORGIUS BARESCH
Prague, 27 April 1639, on the same day on which, in Rome in April 1605,
I took up my studies at the University “La Sapienza”
 [The University of Rome].

Very little is known of Baresch outside this letter. He seems to have been an alchemist, and something of a local scholar—his allusion to his days at the University of Rome was in the manner of one establishing credentials. If he went to school in 1605, he was probably born between 1580 and 1590, which means that he was old enough to have been infected by the scientific mania of Rudolph's court. He would have known of Tepenec. He had close ties to the Jesuits although was not a member of the order himself. How the manuscript came into his hands is a complete mystery.

There is no evidence that Kircher ever wrote back to Baresch, who continued to labor over the cipher manuscript throughout his life. It seems to have become an obsession with him—the light tone he adopted in his letter to Kircher about “a Sphinx uselessly taking up space in my library,” masked a passionate desire to break the code. He never did. Perhaps, however, he broke the three-line key on the last page, and the notation that matched Newbold's attributing the manuscript to Roger Bacon which was labeled “1630” was his.

When Baresch died, he left his library, mostly alchemy books, to his good friend Johannes Marcus Marci of Kronland, a professor of medicine at the University of Prague. Marci had studied to be a Jesuit priest but decided instead to teach and practice medicine. He lectured at the university from 1630 until his death in 1667, eventually becoming dean of medicine and finally rector.

In 1638, Marci had gone to Rome and met Kircher, with whom he established a long and enthusiastic friendship, writing frequently, asking for books and advice. In 1640, Marci, too, had written to Kircher from Prague, recommending Georg Baresch and vouching for his credentials. In his letter he called Baresch
amicus meus
(my friend), and said that he came from an aristocratic family and was a scholar of intelligence.

When Marci came into possession of Baresch's legacy, he again wrote to Professor Kircher in Rome:

Reverend and Distinguished Sir; Father in Christ:

This book, bequeathed to me by an intimate friend, I destined for you, my very dear Athanasius, as soon as it came into my possession, for I was convinced it could be read by no one except yourself.

Johannes Marcus Marci
BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, YALE UNIVERSITY

The former owner of this book once asked your opinion by letter, copying and sending you a portion of the book from which he believed you would be able to read the remainder, but at that time refused to send the book itself. To its deciphering he devoted unflagging toil, as is apparent from attempts of his which I send you herewith, and he relinquished hope only with his life.

But his toil was in vain, for such Sphinxes as these obey no one but their master, Kircher.

Accept now this token, such as it is, and long overdue though it be, of my affection for you, and burst through its bars, if there are any, with your wonted success.

Dr. Raphael, tutor in the Bohemian language to Ferdinand III, King of Bohemia, told me the said book had belonged to the Emperor Rudolph and that he presented the bearer who brought him the book 600 ducats. He believed the author was Roger Bacon, the Englishman.

On this point I suspend judgment; it is your place to define for us what view we should take thereon, to whose favor and kindness I unreservedly commit myself and remain at the command of your Reverence,

JOHANNES MARCUS MARCI OF CRONLAND
Prague, 19th August, 1666 (5?)

Enclosed with the letter was the cipher manuscript.

THAT A CURIOSITY LIKE THE CIPHER MANUSCRIPT
should make its way to Anathasius Kircher was, perhaps, inevitable. Kircher was as celebrated for his wildly eccentric, exhaustive collection of oddities as he was for his Egyptian hieroglyphics. He had a
Musaeum
at the Collegio Romano, one of the first of its kind in Europe, jammed with everything from stalactites to a stuffed crocodile. He had traveled extensively, picking up specimens along the way, before finally settling down in Rome; also, as word of his collection grew, people—like Marci—sent him things. He loved gadgets, and whole rooms were devoted to the latest in seventeenth-century technology: magic lanterns (slide projectors), thermometers, clocks, megaphones (he linked these up from room to room to form an intercom system), spheres,
Smicroscopia
(Kircher's name for the microscope), magnets, trick mirrors. There were telescopes manned by Jesuits on the roof of the observatory tower, and, as a practical joke, one of the megaphones opened up behind a Greek statue in the foyer, which Kircher nicknamed the Delphic Oracle.