Category: links

Biweekly links 12-22-2015

Historical links: necklaces from the Cheapside Hoard
Historical links: necklaces from the Cheapside Hoard being mounted for display. Source: AstleyClarke.com

Merry/Happy [insert holiday here]!

First glimpse of lost library of Elizabethan polymath John Dee – delicious animated images of marginalia and pop-up elements in books from Dee’s famous library. A sneak preview of an upcoming exhibit at the Royal College of Physicians that I’d give my eyeteeth to attend. Here’s hoping they do an exhibit catalog!

How much do you know about Elizabethan money? I only got 50%, maybe you can top me.

Where there’s a quill … help to unpick manuscripts from the days of Shakespeare – a crowdsourcing project in which volunteers transcribe 400 year old documents. I love it when technology intersects with primary sources in an effort to make them available to everyone! Check out Shakespearesworld.org to get started.

The Studiolo of Francesco de’ Medici – a secret room created in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, it’s a beautiful example of a study/cabinet of curiosities popular in the sixteenth century.

biweekly links 12-9-2015

Infographic: Women Onstage and Offstage in Elizabethan England – includes Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady”, early actresses, and cross-dressing.

From Magic to Science: The Intriguing Ritual and Powerful Work of Alchemy – discusses the philosopher’s stone in the context of spiritual transmutation and eternal life.

More Bard: review of Ross Duffin’s “Shakespeare’s Songbook”. “Shakespeare’s audience would more likely have gained their knowledge of myth and history from popular song than from Ovid…” – parallels to the current popularity of the broadway musical “Hamilton”.

More magic: Academy of Arcana opens doors downtown Santa Cruz, aiming to be nexus for mystical community. Part school, store, library, museum, and salon, they provide “secular instruction in history, lore, [and] practice of mystical traditions”. And their proprietor bears a striking resemblance to Dumbledore/Dee.

More inspirational images

A busy week, a short post:

Lots of authors build collections of inspirational material. Music, pictures, objects, etc. help you “go there” and I am no different.

But I got so caught up in hammering out the first draft that I sort of…forgot. Or kidded myself. “Half this stuff doesn’t exist anymore anyway.” “I’ve got portraits, and that’s enough.” Well, no.

I was really just avoiding the astounding time-suck of Pinterest.

spiral staircase
From https://www.pinterest.com/pin/70368812905239243/

Because it would be so easy to play here all day to the exclusion of all else. Rudolfine Prague, Elizabethan everything, alchemical miscellanea, and all so pretty!

I’m pulling my head out to continue teeth-grinding, hair-tearing rewrites but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy my book research board. Let me know what you think and recommendations are always welcome!

Pop culture roundup

Whenever I tell people I’m writing about John Dee and Edward Kelley, they tend to say:

“Who?”

I’m surprised how often I hear this – they’re “B-list” historical figures but I’m not the first to fictionalize them. A friend suggested I whip ’round the Web to see if they ever showed up in the more accessible worlds of tv/movies/video games and I found a few examples:

Dee may be the inspiration behind white-bearded wizards Gandalf and Dumbledore but seems to be more of a niche/”alternative” character on his own. Director Derek Jarman and author Alan Moore were/are fans; it cracks me up that Richard O’Brien played Dee in Jarman’s punk film “Jubilee”.

Richard O'Brien as John Dee in Derek Jarman's "Jubilee"
Yes, that’s “Rocky Horror”‘s Riff Raff, courtesy johncoulthart.com

Edward Kelley was harder to find; he’s better known in the Czech Republic than in the English-speaking world due to his gold transmuting feats (“feats?”) in Prague. Still, he turned up in the (now defunct) Facebook game Assassin’s Creed: Project Legacy. The designers clearly did their homework: they included Kelley’s stepdaughter Elizabeth Jane Weston and together with Dee they do alchemy and look at mysterious books.

Man shows little girl a handful of magic red dust
Edward Kelley showing Elizabeth Jane Weston the magic red dust. Image found at assassinscreed.wikia.com

And of course, “Supernatural” introduced the Enochian angel language to a wide tv audience.

productimage-picture-it-s-funnier-in-enochian-7212-480x300
T-shirt design found at HideYourArms.Com

I found other brief references: Dee in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age“; an Edward Kelley costume for rent (but only in the Czech Republic). There’s more at their respective Wikipedia pages, but most of the references are literary.

Feel free to include other examples in the comments!

 

link dump

In lieu of a proper blog post (I was sick last week) I’m sharing links related to the book:

A Portrait of the Artist as a (Wild) Young Man: My Life with Berti Spranger, a novel by Eva Jana Siroka – Rudolf II didn’t just support alchemists like Dee and Kelley but promoted art and artists as well. Spranger was one of his favorites; evidently he liked the artist’s mythical nudes so much he kept him a near prisoner, but Spranger still managed to get in a lot of trouble. The eccentric characters of Rudolfine Prague are so ripe for fictionalization it’s sad they aren’t played with more often (or are they? Please leave book recommendations in the comments!)

James VI and Witches, both Friend and Foe – James I hated and feared witchcraft – Dee wrote him a long, desperate letter in 1604 attempting to clear his reputation for conjuring – but paradoxically allowed known witches into his inner circle, to the extent of having one help in his wife’s birthing chamber. Illustrative of the gray area witchcraft occupied in Elizabethan/Jacobean England; high status practitioners of useful magic got a pass.

A magical walk in the footsteps of the Pendle witches –  this second of a two-part series discusses Alice Nutter, one of the wealthier of the twelve accused. Nutter appears in fictional form in Jeannette Winterson’s “The Daylight Gate” where she’s presented as an associate of Dee’s and Kelley’s. Hey, it’s fiction, so why not?