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The Magic Circle of Rudolf II: Alchemy and Astrology in Renaissance Prague

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A few years back, almost by accident, I got a chance to travel to Prague. I knew very little about the city other than that it was the place where Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler crossed paths and the events that would lead to the development of the Laws of Planetary Motion were set in motion. As I got to know the city, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how impressive and interesting it is. And how, at the turn of the sixteenth century, Prague was the intellectual center of Europe.

The person who can be credited with making Prague the intellectual center of Europe is the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II. In this fascinating book, Peter Marshall describes the rise and fall of this monarch--how he briefly made Prague the crown jewel of Western Civilization in the midst of religious and political upheaval and then lost it all in the madness of his old age.

Born in Eastern Europe, raised in Spain and returning to the East to rise to Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf's life is a reminder of how inbred the royal families of Europe were at this time. This may speak to why so many members of Rudolf's family were clinically insane and why Rudolf himself often seemed touched by depression and madness. And yet, at his peak, his fascination with alchemy, art and science made him gather to himself some of the greatest minds and talents of Europe. His extensive libraries and galleries contained some of the most important books, gadgets and works of art in existence. For awhile, he was able to protect these from the war and turmoil brewing around him but, on his death, his collection was quickly and sadly dispersed.

Mr. Marshall does quite a good job of telling Rudolf's story and that of the intellectuals he gathered around him. If he spends a lot of time on occult figures, alchemy and astrology; well, that is to be expected considering Rudolf's nature and that of his time. The fact remains that some of the most important foundations of modern science came out of Rudolf's laboratories and observatories. And Marshall does point out these important links. Anyone interested in these foundations and the transition of the Middle Ages to the modern world would find much to like in this book.

I first heard about Rudolf II while reading To Have And To Hold: An Intimate History Of Collectors and Collecting. Even though Rudolf II was Holy Roman Emperor, king of the largest empire in Europe, that part of his life is the least interesting and thankfully The Magic Circle of Rudolf II does not spend too much time on politics. Rudolf, too, would have been pleased.

Rudolf II was one of the world's greatest collectors, he spared no expense in finding rare and exotic objects from around the world to fill his castle in Prague. He never married, had a stable of 'imperial women', rarely left his castle or appeared in public, had little interest in the affairs of state - all of his energies were in his collections and in the occult sciences of astrology and alchemy. He was so wealthy and patronized so many artists and intellectuals that Prague became Europe's late Renaissance cultural capital for about 30 years around the turn of the 17thC.

Peter Marshall does a wonderful job of revealing this eccentric and fascinating monarch, and the amazing artists and thinkers that were a part of his world. It was because of Rudolf's patronage that foundational scientific works were created, such as Kepler's "New Astronomy". Although Rudolf's ultimate quest was to find the Philosopher's Stone, a legendary alchemy rock that made one immortal, he inadvertently helped lay the foundational stone of the scientific revolution by allowing many great minds to flourish in an atmosphere of freedom and creativity. It is called the "Rudolfian age", comparable to the "Elizabethan age" (Elizabeth I of England).

History has not been kind to Rudolf, only in the past 50 years or so has his life been been re-examined beyond the lens of his political failures, and his contributions to the arts and sciences been given their due credit. His life story will be appealing to anyone with an interest in collecting, astrology/alchemy, science history, European history, and eccentric monarchs. Marshall writes in a very readable style and brings life and color to the period, people and events.

As one other reviewer has already remarked, Rudolf II has been very poorly covered in the historical literature. This is all the more surprising given his quite astonishing contribution to cultural history through his very wide-ranging patronage. Marshall's book goes some way to addressing this problem by being the only major contribution in recent times to the biography of this important late Renaissance emperor. Marshall's book intends to be a reasonably in depth exploration of the scientific interests of this emperor, although he does touch on some aspects of the more general cultural patronage. It is a shame he does not explore this at more length, as it is as important a feature of Rudolf's mentality as the scientific interests and is motivated by exactly the same concerns. One is best advised to read the exhibition catalogue 'Rudolf II and Prague' in order to fill out this part of the emperor's personality and, by the way, to get a much better understanding of the full spectrum of Rudolf's society from the city of Prague itself to the politico-religious concerns tearing the Empire apart.

This is a very unevenly written book. It appears to have been written as a series of independent chapters written in isolation from each other, and there is a worrying amount of information recapitulated from one chapter to the other, but introduced in the succeeding chapter as though one hadn't read it earlier. Some of the material has been written in a sensationalistic, historical novel kind of way (some of it quite entertaining) rather than as a work of historical scholarship. The bibliography seems to attest to a reasonably wide reading of esoteric materials of the late Renaissance, but the historical foundation material is often from generalist texts and one does not get the impression that the book is a profound meditation on the world, motivations and culture of Rudolf II. A surprising amount of the book, for example, is pure biographical material (of Rudolf himself, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, etc) without critique and is the kind of information one could as easily have got from Wikipedia. A work of historical criticism should be more deeply critical than this often purely descriptive book tends to be.

Marshall's view of Rudolf is skewed by his desire to make Rudolf and his father Maximilian II into non-religious proto freethinkers. There is no doubt that Rudolf and Maximilian felt deeply ambivalent about their positions as leaders of the temporal sphere of a world which included (for the first time in history) Catholics and non-Catholics. This ambivalence drove them into conflicts not just with the Papacy but with Protestant forces as well. I remain unconvinced that Rudolf's fascination with esoterica represents any other than a completely normal type of Catholic religiosity of its time, one that saw no real conflict between Hermetical teachings, Egyptian mysticism and so forth and Catholic faith. To suggest otherwise would make Leo X (he shared some of the same interests, as did a string of other Humanist Popes) before Rudolf and the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher after Rudolf also into freethinking non-Catholics. Marshall's desire to cast Rudolf as non-Catholic causes him to write some things verging on bigotry about the Catholic Church. Rudolf is far more interesting when considered within Catholicism than without; his brand of Catholic religiosity throws a fascinating light on the concept of Catholic religious expression at this critical time.

How do you judge a ruler? Henry VIII and Louis XIV are judged Great, but did they manage to create a period of relative peace, religious tolerance, rich artistic production, world changing scientific breakthroughs and a safe place for heretics and those outside the mind set of the dominant culture? Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, did and has been largely forgotten.

You can read this book and learn more about the transition from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment than in most traditional histories. You can read it and learn indirectly about the impact of ideological warfare on societies and learning. But what I learned was the value to a society and to a culture of a ruler without concern to grow his power, without concern to assert his authority, the value of ruler whose only concern was to have beautiful things and intelligent, creative people around him.

Marshall writes more about the intelligent, creative people and their prodigious contributions to a new and exciting era in European history than he does about Rudolph, but by doing so, he shows the value of the man with all his weaknesses to the history of Western civilization.

Since no other Amazon reviewers have mentioned the standard historical work on Rudolf II, I will do so. It is "Rudolf II And His World" by R.J.W. Evans, Oxford University Press 1973, ISBN 0198225164. That ground-breaking work is a bit out of date, although I see that there is a new "corrected paperback edition," on which I can't comment.

When I first read about it on-line, I got the idea that "The Magic Circle of Rudolf II" would be either a cheap imitation or an updated sequel to Evans's effort. As it turns out, it's a little of both.

While Marshall has read Evans, and cites him occasionally, he seems to be more of a biographer than a historian; at least, that is the approach he takes in this book. He tries to paint a complete picture of the time and environment of Rudolf, something Evans does not do, concentrating on the people involved. Marshall describes hills, streets, buildings, décor, fashion, and all the things that create a living, vibrant picture of the time, which is not that surprising, considering the number of travelogues he has written. He tends to focus on sensational anecdotes, which make for entertaining reading. This approach may not be to everyone's taste.

The book starts out with a long biographical portrait of Rudolph's youth and education at the court of his uncle Philip II in Madrid. This section is particularly full of the "bring the past to life" level of environmental detail.

Once Rudolf becomes Emperor and moves to Prague, the emphasis shifts to the other characters in the play, and Rudolf almost fades into the background. This is precisely as it should be, as there is a large cast and much needs to be said about all of them. This part of the book, while still emphasizing interesting anecdotes more than straight historical delivery, is less plagued with "vibrant detail" than the first three chapters.

There are a couple of chapters on art and artists, and Rudolf's collection of unusual objects and their creators. Then we get to the title material, the Hermetic philosophers, Cabalists and alchemists who made Rudolf's world such a fascinating historical locale.

While Marshall does not have the encyclopedic breadth of Evans's work, he still manages to touch upon all the important characters in the drama that played out in Rudolfine Prague, and to include a few of the more obscure ones, even a couple that Evans missed. There is a nice little section on the Jewish community of Prague.

Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler receive a chapter each (and Kepler even a bit more), much greater depth and detail than is provided by Evans. Marhsall's summaries pick a good set of events, and are not overly driven by anecdote. The chapter on Kepler is well sprinkled with quotations from his works. My only complaint about this section is that Tadeash Hajek, the great Czech astronomer of the sixteenth century, is not given his due. He is featured, but too briefly.

Then we go back to a biography of Rudolf for the last three chapters, although this time they are more about historical events and political machinations than personal anecdote.

A brief Epilogue follows, a mishmash starting with the events leading to the disastrous Battle of the White Mountain. Then a few paragraphs on the Rosicrucian phenomenon, Kepler's life after Rudolf's death, and, in a final bid for irrelevancy, a bit on Isaac Newton, who had no connection to Rudolf whatsoever. Then a little on Descartes, who did, although Marshall incorrectly characterizes him as some kind of anti-Rosicrucian.

It is in the Epilogue that Marshall's thesis becomes most clearly limned: Rudolfine Prague was the crossover point where old thought, or, as he calls it, superstitions, dreams and fantasies, was transformed into modern scientific mechanicalism.

* * * * *

There are a fair number of glaring errors, primarily regarding dates. For example, Marshall says Dee went to Prague in 1586, stayed for 6 years, and left in 1589 (the last two are correct -- he got there in 1583). Or that he sent his son (who was six at the time) to Russia to become court alchemist for Tsar Michael I. (Arthur Dee did go, but was sent by James I, from London, not from Prague, and it was many years later.) Or that Charles V expelled the Jews from Spain, an event that happened 8 years before Charles was born. Or that Maximilian was the youngest brother of Rudolf, a claim belied by his own very useful genealogical diagram at the front of the book. Or that Sir Philip Sidney attended the wedding of Frederick V and Elizabeth Stuart in 1613 (Sidney died in 1586).

Still, I can't imagine these kinds of errors will make much difference to the intended audience for "The Magic Circle," which is clearly more of a general public interested in ancient and distant lands, and perhaps in the history of the occult, rather than strict academic historians. For the latter, Evans's work will still have to suffice, along with numerous publications in journals and proceedings since it was published.

This kind of sloppiness prevents me from being able to bring myself to rate the book a 5, although it probably deserves it. (I did rate Evans a 5). These kinds of errors cast a shadow over other interesting tidbits Marshall provides, which I am therefore unwilling to accept without independent confirmation. One thing I was able to verify is that Sendivogius discovered oxygen 150 years before Priestley. One I have not been able to verify, and which I doubt, is that Dee was the tutor of Thomas Muffet.

But for the average reader, Marshall has done an excellent job. His style is enjoyable, eminently readable and definitely keeps your interest. This is more than can be said for Evans, who is so dense that at times it is more like reading a telephone directory than a travelogue.

Marshall's work is narrative and sparse on footnotes, quite properly for its intended style and audience. (I must make one comment about the footnotes, though. The editor was clearly a sadist. They are arranged by chapter number and footnote number, with no chapter name or page number reference. The chapter numbers are only present in the Table of Contents and nowhere else. So to track down a footnote, you have to look at the name of the chapter (thankfully printed at the top of the page you're reading), find the Table of Contents, find the chapter number, then go to the back of the book and find the chapter number in the Notes section, and finally find the number of the footnote you're looking for. Which, if you are like me, you will have forgotten by that time. As close to being useless without actually being so as anything I've ever seen.)

Anyone who has not read Evans will be fascinated and amazed at this journey to one of the most intriguing places and times in European history. Marshall's writing style and choice of material ensures that there is never a dull moment.

Those familiar with Evans will still find a few individuals that are not present in his work, and some satisfying tidbits of newer information about those that are. Even though I have read Evans numerous times, I found "The Magic Circle of Rudolf II" to be a very enjoyable and somewhat valuable way to spend my time.

Most importantly, Marshall has given a wide readership an opportunity to discover Rudolf and his world. Evans's book is hard to find, expensive and laborious to read. Journals and proceedings are inaccessible to all but academic scholars. Marshall has given the masses their only chance at exploring this magical monarch and the characters that peopled his Hermetic realm.

This is an excellent overview of the stories of all the famous Renaissance personalities known to be at residence in the court of Rudolph II. Compellingly written and does not suffer the fate of many books that tackle the well known alchemists of that day by staying focused and clear and not speculating too much.