J. Antall szerk.: Medical history in Hungary 1972. Presented to the XXIII. International Congress of the History of Medicine / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 6. (Budapest, 1972)

E. Schultheisz and L. Tardy: The Contacts of the two Dees and Sir Philipp Sidney with the Hungarian Physicians

E. S çĥų ĥeis z—L. Tardy

: The Contacts of the two Dees

... 103 The laboratory was opened in 1584 in Albert Laszky's castle at Szepeshely (North Hungary, today in Czechoslovakia), however the prolonged experiments did not yield the expected results, so the two Englishmen hurried on to Prague, to the court of Emperor Rudolf, King of Hungary. Data about the years that followed are rather contradictory. Edward Kelley tinged gold from mercury before the Emperor's eyes, which aroused general astonishment. He was given nobility by the Emperor at once and Kelley gave in to the entreaty to stay. When, however, the King asked him for the formula of the philosophers stone he, of course, was unable to produce it to him and was put into prison. According to certain Hungarian sources he tried to escape but the rope did not hold; Kelley suffered serious injuries and died within a few days. According to others he got mixed up in a duel and was mortally wounded. The truth is that he returned to England and continued his adventurous life there.

1

2 A Hungarian alchemist, Ferenc Lukasovszky

1

3 saved for posterity the recipe what Kelley had used. The recipe

—as claimed by Kelley

—was found in the tomb of bishop St. Dunstan and came into the hands of an innkeeper by theft. It was there that Kelley caught a glance of the text which was written in Welsh, and acquired it for an insignificant su. According to Lukasovszky the bishop's writing was forwarded to King Rudolf by Kelley and it was copied in the court at Prague by a transcriber on 17 July 1604.

1

4 John Dee's fate was different. After he had left Prague for the court of the Polish king István Báthory and performed there experiments of transmutation successfully

1

5 the fame of his activity spread all over Eastern Europe and he was invited in 1586 by Tsar Fiodor Ivanovitsh, that is by Boris Godunov who ruled instead of him, to carry on his experiments in Russia'

6 for the huge annual salary of 2000 pounds, since alchemy had been unknown in Russia up to that time. However, Dee, after his six-year stay abroad, mainly in Hungary, returned to England in 1589.

1

7 tam, Antverpiae anno 1564 impressam, inscripsit et Posonii obtulit. Anno 1584 in Castello Laszkyano Collegium alchemisticum asperitur, in aurea hac arte Laszkyus fidelissime instituitur, regnum minerale vario igñe diu satis torquetur, et tandem miser nouissime omnium turpiter, vt fieri adsolet, delutidur. Haec M. Belius in Prodrom. Hungar. pag

. 82, 92, 93 item in Not

. Hung. Tom. I. Moreri in Diction in voce Dee Georgius Mathhiae in Consp. Histor. Medic, chronol. pag. 614 et Miscellan. Groning. Tom. III. fasc. I. et alibi." Weszprémi, I. op. cit. pp. 180-187. 1

2 The Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, vol. X., pp. 1230-1232. 1

3 Cfr. Ms. Quart. Germ. 239 Budapest, Széchényi National Library; furthermore Szinnyei J.: Magyar írók élete és munkái (Life and Work of Hungarian Writers). Vol. 8. Budapest, 1902. Column 128. 1

4 Sza márÿ L. op. cit. pp. 205-212. 1

5 Hubicki, Wl.: Chemie und Alchemie des 16. Jahrhunderts in Polen. Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska. Vol. X. 7, Lublin, 1955, pp. 66 — 67. 1

0 Figurovski, N. A.

: The Alchemist and Physician Arthur Dee. Ambix, Vol. XIII., 1965, No. 1, February, pp. 40-41. 1

7 In the above mentioned work of his, R, Deacon points out that John Dee used to send cryptogram reports on these journeys to Queen Elisabeth. He liked to