Schultheisz Emil: Traditio Renovata. Tanulmányok a középkor és a reneszánsz orvostudományáról / Orvostörténeti Közlemények – Supplementum 21. (Budapest, 1997)

20. The contacts of the two Dees and Sir Philip Sidney with Hungarian physicians

Z^oo¡ Langųet had known Sidney's intention to accompany Carolus Clusius to Hungary, imagining he would not stay longer there than three days, but he stayed at least a month.

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5 The correspondence of Langųet and Sidney was published in 1633 in book form too;

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6 in the first letter Langųet thanks for the letter Sidney wrote from Pozsony and expresses his pleasure that at his recommendation Sidney was so warmly received by Georgius Purkircher, doctor medicinae. Dated 22 September 1573 this letter proves that these relations were rather extensive, and also lasting.

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7 Mona Wilson refers to this when she remarks that a few years later Clusius and Purkircher told Langųet that they had been drinking Sidney's health in Austrian wine and hoped shortly to do it in Hungarian in memory of the merry days spent together.

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8 Sorrow is expressed in Languet's letter written from Frankfurt on 8 November 1577 in which he reports the death of Georgius Purkircher.

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9 Georgius Purkircher was an outstanding Hungarian physician and botanist of the age; he built the first botanical garden in Pozsony, the town in which he had been born in 1530. He studied in Padova between 1561 and 1563, where he got his medical diploma and from here he went on to Paris. Then dealt with botany in Wittenberg. From 1566 onwards he lived again in his native town and was active as a physician of high repute and a passionate botanist, and became one of the central figures of the Hungarian world of scholarship. There is no doubt that behind the great interest in Hungary of Sir Philip Sidney—which interest we can also find in his poetry

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—there stood his close ties of friendship with Georgius Purkircher and other personalities belonging to this Hungarian humanist circle. Eva Róna, the outsanding researcher of English—Hungarian literary relations states that ,,Sidney and Dee both often present at court had known each other. Was it before or after Sidney's visit to Hungary that they discussed the country? It is hard to see, though Dee does not fail to speak boastingly of Sidney's many visits to his house at Mortlake."

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1 In the light of this statement, we can be sure that Sir Philip Sidney's interest in Hungary sprang from both Hungarian and English sources. In Hungary, constantly inflicted by the Turkish wars and isolated from foreign scientific relations, the appearance of Englishmen being in close friendship with Hungarian scientists 3

5 Buxton, J.: Sir Philip Sidney and the English Renaissance. London, 1954, 61. 3

6 Hubert¡ Langveti, viri clarissimi epistolae politicae et históriçáé, scriptae quondam ad illustrem et generosum dominum Philippum Sydnaeum etc. Francofurti, 1633. 3

7 "Habeo tibi gratiam, quod literas ad me Posonio dederis testes tuae erga me benevolentiae et gaudeo meas commendationes tantum ponderis apud Doct. Purkircherum habuisse, ut tibi ea humanitate officia praestiterit, quae tuae virtuti, ac morum suavitati debentur" etc. Ibid. 1—2. 3

8 Wilson, M.: Sir Philip Sidney. London, 1931, 53. 3

9 Epistolae Langveti op. cit. 226. — It was, however, a false report, in reality he died a year later. 4

0 Róna, É.: Sir Philip Sidney op. cit. 48. 4

1 Ibid. 46. — On the London period of their relation Deacon remarks: "The fact that Dee 'received slautation' from Laski on his arrival in England suggests that Laski had already heard of him. It may have been that he asked the Queen to be introduced to Dee, or that Dee sought an interview. What is abudantly clear is that the Queen was anxious for the two men to meet and that she gave Dee money through the Earl of Leicester for the purpose of entertaining Laski. On 13 May Dee wrote: 7 became acquainted with Albertus Laski in the Earle of Leicester his chamber in the Court of Greenwich. This day was my lease of Devonshire mynes sealed at Sir Le¤nne Ducket s howse.

' Five days later Dee recorded that Laski came to see him at Mortlake. In June Laski visited Oxford and by order of the Queen was entertained in the most regal fashion with banquets, plays, pageantry and public disputations. From Dee's diary it would seem that Sir Philip Sidney accompanied Laski to Oxford, for immediately after this visit Sidney brought Laski to see again at Mortlake." Cf. Deacon, R. op. cit. 70, 91, 176.