Two days after his audience with Rudolf, Dee announced to the spirits that he had fulfilled his mission. Uriel appeared in the stone, his face covered with a black blindfold, to cover his face from those ‘as defile the seat of the soul, and are suffocated with drunkenness’ – Kelley, in other words. ‘In the year 88 shall you see the sun move contrary to his course, the stars increase their light and some fall from heaven,’ Uriel announced, leaving Dee wondering if he meant 1588. ‘In the mean season will I be merciful unto Rudolf and will bring into his house such as shall be skilful unto whom I will give my spirit to work God, Silver and the Ornaments of his house. And he shall perceive that I bless him.’1
Rudolf’s response to Dee’s impertinent revelation had been surprisingly humble. According to Dee, the Emperor had ‘said he did believe me, and said that he thought I loved him unfeignedly, and said that I should not need so earnest protestations: and would not willingly have had me to kneel so often as I did.’ A week later, he received a letter from Spinola, Rudolf’s chamberlain. Dee was told that the ‘business’ was to be entrusted to ‘the magnificent Master Dr Curtz’.2
The ‘magnificent’ Jakob Kurz von Senftenau was one of Rudolfs most trusted courtiers, and was soon to become the imperial Vice-Chancellor. He was a keen botanist, his garden being stocked with exotic fruits and flowers, including a magnificent pear tree.3 He was also interested in astronomy. In coming years, Kurz would deal with Tycho Brahe just as he was now being asked to deal with John Dee.
On 15 September, Dee arranged to go to Kurz’s house in the Malé námestí, a small square in the Old Town, just a short walk from Bethlehem Square. He arrived at one, and was shown into the reception room where there was a table with two chairs. Acutely sensitive to the balance of power that would prevail in the coming interview, Dee minutely inspected his host’s behaviour for signs of disrespect. But Kurz was friendly, and deliberately offered Dee the position of ‘pre-eminence’ at the head of the table.
Kurz said that he had heard of Dee’s ‘fame’ and seen his writings, and was ‘very glad of the opportunity now of my coming to this city’, and not just for the Emperor’s sake. For the next six hours Dee explained his mission to Kurz, showing him excerpts from this books of actions and the crystal stone. These books now numbered eighteen (only a few of which have survived), and contained a complex description of a completely unknown language, with its own alphabet, words, rules of pronunciation, grammar, method of writing and system of use. It was by any standards an impressive production – not, as later critics would characterise it, a ‘rhapsody of…Whimsies’, but, at the very least, a magnificent folly, a labyrinthine structure spread across the landscape of Renaissance thought.
But what did Kurz make of it? In the following days, Dee began to fear that he did not regard it as seriously as he should. Again and again, Emericus was despatched to the palace to find out if Kurz had made his report to the Emperor, and each time he returned breathlessly with no news.
At seven in the morning on 27 September, a servant appeared at Dr Hajek’s house and told Dee that Kurz was on his way. Kurz came on horseback at nine, and was shown into the study where Dee and Kelley performed their actions. He was invited to sit in Kelley’s chair, Kelley having for some reason hidden in his bedroom. By now in a frenzy of anxiety and suspicion, Dee complained to Kurz of ‘envious malicious backbiters’ rubbishing his name. Kurz claimed to have heard nothing of this. He had heard from the Emperor, however, who wanted to see the books of actions. Presumably due to his distrust of Kurz, Dee refused, saying he could only deliver copies, which he would produce ‘at leisure’.
Despite these sharp exchanges, the meeting ended amicably. Dee showed Kurz his Propaedeumata Aphoristica, and offered to lend him a copy of a work co-written with Federico Commandino, the mathematician and translator of Archimedes. However, Kurz’s visit marked a decisive turning point in Dee’s relations with Rudolf’s court.
In a subsequent meeting with Kurz, Dee was more or less dismissed, being told that Rudolf considered his sins to be a matter between himself and his confessor.4 Rudolf did say he would act as Dee’s benefactor, but nothing came of the offer.
The atmosphere in Prague became increasingly hostile towards Dee. Rumours spread about the nature of his mission, that he prophesied, as one Bohemian noble noted, ‘a miraculous reformation’ across the Christian world that would ‘prove the ruin not only of the city of Constantinople but of Rome also.’5
Early in 1585, Dee somehow intercepted a private report written by one of Rudolf’s secretaries that confirmed his worst suspicions. It was a digest of a letter from Johannes Franciscus Bonomo, bishop of Vercelli. Bonomo was the first papal nuncio (ambassador) in Bohemia for over a century, appointed by Pope Gregory XIII to re-establish the Catholic church’s influence over a region of Europe that had managed to remain stubbornly beyond its reach since the time of Jan Hus. The instrument for this project was Rudolf himself, whose personal commitment to Catholicism it was Bonomo’s job to translate into political action.
Bonomo’s letter had been sent to the Emperor in late 1584 – around the same time as Dee’s interview with Kurz. Bonomo had heard the rumours concerning Dee, in particular that he had summoned spirits ‘with the aid of certain magical characters’. According to Catholic orthodoxy, ‘good spirits are not enchanted and moved to appear’ by such means, Bonomo pointed out. Therefore Dee must be acting on behalf of evil ones. Furthermore, Dee was married ‘and was thus given to the cares of this life and to worldly matters’ – in other words, lacking the essential purity that enabled the celibate Catholic priesthood to mediate between God and His flock.6
As the letter clearly demonstrates, Dee’s problem was not that he was considered mad or deluded. In fact, Bonomo noted that Dee’s intellectual abilities and accomplishments carried the endorsement of none other than Jakob Kurz, who described the philosopher as ‘extremely learned in a great number of subjects’.
Dee’s problem was that the nuncio had identified him as a threat to the mission to bring Prague back into the Catholic fold. He might muddle the Emperor’s mind, interpose his spirits between Rudolf’s personal preoccupations and his imperial duties.
In 1585, Bonomo was replaced as nuncio by Germanico Malaspina, Bishop of San Severo who was equally concerned about Dee’s influence. Within weeks of his appointment, Malaspina decided he must deal with this inconvenient foreigner, and set a trap to dispose of Dee and his unruly gang of spirits once and for all.