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

ioo Medical History in Hungary 1972 (Comm. Hist. Artis Med. Suppl. 6.) for the coronation.

3 From this time on John Dee was continously in the good graces of Queen Elizabeth I; she paid several visits to him in his home in Mortlake in order to admire his library and the instruments he used for experiments. On ground of his good connections in the court Dee was sent to study "hierogliphy" abroad. He stayed in Antwerp in 1562 where he studied Joannes Tritemius's "Steganographia", regarded at that time as the most outstanding work in the science of cryptography. Dee also copied it, and on the basis of this book he later wrote his own work under the title "Monas Hieroglyphica".

4 It was here that he got first in contact with Hungary. It turns out from a letter he wrote to Sir William Cecil that he was being able to get on with his work well because a Hungarian gentleman, who at the time stayed also in Antwerp, had undertaken to copy half of the book in order to help him.

5 However, neither his letters nor his diary reveal the name of this gentleman with whose help he worked in the tavern "The Golden Angel." In Spring 1563 he visited Conrad Gesner in Zürich and then took part in the coronation to Hungarian King the later Emperor Maximilian in the town of Pozsony, the Hungarian capital, on 8 September 1563. Pozsony was a frequented meeting place of Central European natural scientists for more than two centuries,

6 in 1537 for instance the town was visited by Paracelsus. But the physicians and alchemists of Pozsony too, made important contributions to the literature, as did the two Ruhlands. The elder one, Márton Ruhland, alludes to Paracelsus already in the title of his work "Lexicon Alchemiae", and he includes also those hermetic sciences which, not much earlier, John Dee treated in his "Monas Hieroglyphica". István Weszprémi who deserves being regarded as the classic of Hungarian medical history mentions that Dee handed over his work personally to the sovereign whom he mentions it on several occasions.

7 y Róna, É.: Magyar vonatkozások a XVI-XVII. századi angol irodalomban. (Hungarian References in the 16 —17th century English Literature.) Studies in English Philology

. Publication of the Dept. of English, Hungarian Pázmány Péter University of Sciences, Vol. 1. Budapest, 1936, p. 7. 4 Cfr. Apponyi A.: Hungarica

. Ungarn betreffende im Auslande gedruckte Bücher und Flugschriften. 3 Bd. München, 1925, p. 237. 5 "of this boke one half (with contynual labour and watch, the most part in 10 day) have I copyed oute. And now I stand at the curtesye of a nobleman of Hungary for writing furth the rest

; who hath promised leave thereto, after he shall perceyve that I mayremayne by him longer (with the leave of my Prince) to pleasure him also with such pointes of science as at my handes he requireth." Philobiblon Society . Bibliographical and Historical Miscellanies. Vol. 1., 5 — 16 pp. Cfr. Róna E. op. cit. p. 8. 6 ".. .Huiusce rei causas, Ego, proxime iam praeterito Septembri, in Hungarici vestri Regni Posonio, aliquam trahens moram, luculentissimas, easque variis exploratas modis, oculatus cognovi Testis." Josten, C. H.: A Translation of John Dee's "Monas Hieroglyphica" etc. Ambix, Vol. XII, 1964, Nos. 2-3, p. 114.—Pozsony (Pressburg) is not inaptly referred to as the centre of Hungarian alchemists for centuries by L. Sza ĥmárÿ one of the author dealing with the history of alchemy in Hungary __ in his work Magyar alkémisták (Hungarian Alchemists), Budapest, 1928. 7 Weszprémi I.: Succincta Medicorum Hungáriáé et Transilvaniae Biographia. Centuria prima (New edition). Budapest, 1960. p. 186.