Tradycja rękopiśmienna przepowiedni elekcyjnej Jerzego Joachima Retyka. Analiza przekazów i edycja

Abstract

The paper aims to organise the issues concerning the great variety of manuscripts jointly described as the “election prophecy,” supposedly made by Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514–1574), an astronomer, astrologer, and the student of Nicolaus Copernicus. The study contains a proposal of a model showing how the original Latin text of the “prophecy,” the autograph of which has not been preserved to this day and which had the form of a horoscope diagram with commentary by Rheticus, underwent contamination and interpolation, while at the same time serving as the basis for the creation of two vernacular traditions of the text – Polish and German. The analysis of the preserved copies consists of the description of the most reliable witness of the “prophecy” tradition – the copy made in the 18th century by Wrocław-based Enlightenment historian Samuel Beniamin Klose on the basis of the available documents of Andrzej Dudycz, which introduced the text into wider circulation – and of the discussion of other accounts which can be found in European libraries. The transformations undergone by the text of the prophecy between late 16th century and early 18th century are depicted in source materials annexed to the paper, containing the editions of several Latin and Polish versions of the text, as well as its German version.