Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

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Elias Ashmole’s collections and views about John Dee

Vittoria FeolaDepartment and Collections, Medical University of Vienna, Waehringerstrasse 25, 1090 Vienna, Austria

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Available online 20 January 2012

Keywords:Elias AshmoleCollectionsAntiquarianismNatural historyAshmolean MuseumBaconianism

0039-3681/$ - see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. Adoi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2011.12.011

E-mail address: vittoria.feola@meduniwien.ac.at1 In 1687 Ashmole wrote a catalogue of 23 of Dee’s m2 They are MSS Ashmole 1819, 1459, 424, 1486, 487

174, 440, 369, 1426, 580, 1492, 1471430–432. For fullAshmole’s printed books in the Bodleian Library).

3 They are London, British Library MSS Sloane 3822,

a b s t r a c t

In this paper I discuss Elias Ashmole’s collections and views about John Dee. I consider Dee as an object ofcollection against the broader background of Ashmole’s collecting practices. I also look at the uses towhich Ashmole put some of his collections relating to Dee, as well as those which he envisaged for pos-terity. I argue that Ashmole’s interest in Dee stemmed from his ideas about the uses of antiquity in thereconstruction and transmission of knowledge. They partly reflected Ashmole’s interpretation of FrancisBacon’s Advancement of learning as well as the influence of William Backhouse and William Oughtred’sideas about publishing natural philosophy in English.

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1. Introduction

In 1692, the Ashmolean Museum in the University of Oxford ac-quired an oil portrait and forty-two volumes of material by andabout John Dee, which Elias Ashmole (1617–1692) had spent hislife collecting.1 It was the largest collection of ‘Dee-ana’ since thedispersal of the mathematician’s library following his death in1609. Of Ashmole’s original Dee collections, thirty-four volumesare kept today in the Bodleian Library.2 Eight volumes have mysteri-ously found their way into the British Library: seven into the collec-tions of Sir Hans Sloane and one among the Additional manuscripts.3

Even if more Dee material has resurfaced since the seventeenth cen-tury, Ashmole’s collections continue to provide the basis for any re-search into Dee to this day. Yet neither Ashmole’s collections nor hisviews about Dee have been properly assessed. Conversely, Dee as anobject of seventeenth-century collecting has not been considered.This article aims to fill such gaps.

I will argue that Ashmole’s interest in Dee stemmed from hisideas about antiquity and natural philosophy, which in turn re-flected his reading of Francis Bacon. Moreover, the printed uses

ll rights reserved.

anuscripts which he had collected, 423, 1423, 1442, 1492, 972, 356, 1descriptions, see Black, 1845; also

3188, 3189, 3191, 78, 2599, 3678;

to which Ashmole put his Dee-related collections reflected his be-lief that English should replace Latin as a scholarly language. Ash-mole viewed his collections of Dee material as useful sources forthe pursuit of three projects to be carried out, either by himselfor by posterity, in the vernacular. These were, first, the productionof lives of English worthies; second, data for the history of the Eng-lish weather; and third, magical experiments. Dee’s angelic manu-scripts had special significance for Ashmole because he regardedthem both as evidence of the possibility for the elect to communi-cate with angels, and as sources for the history of magic.

This article supports Mordechai Feingold’s observation (2005, pp.555–558) that seventeenth-century antiquaries such as Ashmole, aswell as his friends John Aubrey and Anthony Wood, were interestedin Dee for his universal learning and not only for his ‘occult’ leanings.Further, this article complements past scholarship on Dee’s libraryby considering him as the object of collecting practices (Roberts &Watson, 1990). Elias Ashmole’s collections and views about JohnDee offer a window into the mind of a seventeenth-century Englishantiquary, and thereby concern historians of science as well asintellectual historians, and historians of the book.

thus far, now Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 1790, Part III, item 13, fols. 52–53.788, 1789, 1440, 1488, 204, 1506, 488, 422, 1131, 242, 1790, 1446, 1451, 1457, 1142,MSS Ashmole 133, 153, 580 (for full descriptions, there is an anonymous handlist of

Add. MS 36674.

V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538 531

2. Ashmole’s milieu of vernacular natural philosophy

Elias Ashmole was born on 23 May 1617 in Lichfield, Stafford-shire, the only son of an impoverished saddler.4 His mother becamea widower when Elias was just a child, and it was only thanks to thehelp of a wealthy relative that Ashmole was able to study law at theTemple and become a barrister. His legal career was soon inter-rupted when the Civil War broke out. Ashmole fought for Charles Iat Worcester and Oxford, where he also began to study mathematics,astrology, botany, medicine and English history.

In the early 1640s, Ashmole began to attend public lectures atGresham College, following the advice of his tutor William Ough-tred (1674–1660).5 It was through Oughtred’s contacts at the Collegethat Ashmole become a member of the Society of Astrologers of Lon-don by the end of the 1640s.6 Two of the Fellows of the College wereOughtred’s former pupils: the mathematician Jonas Moore (1617–1679) and Charles Scarborough (1616–1694), editor of Oughtred’sOpuscula mathematica (London, 1634). Ashmole, Moore and Scarbor-ough participated in the meetings at Wadham College, Oxford, to-gether with Seth Ward (1617–1689), John Wallis (1616–1703), andseveral other former students of Oughtred’s, that eventually led tothe foundation of the Royal Society (Hunter, 1995, passim).

The late 1640s marked a significant period in Ashmole’s life. 8July 1648 marks his earliest recorded acquisition of an alchemi-co-medical manuscript (MS Ashmole 1459, fols. 3v–26v). His firstrecorded attendance at the annual dinner of the Society of Astrol-ogers was on 1 August 1649, and he attended his first anatomicaldissection later in the same year (MS Ashmole 1136, fol. 22). It ap-pears that Ashmole’s mathematical and medical interests weredeveloping in a congenial milieu.

Around this time Ashmole also acquired Francis Bacon’sAdvancement of learning in the Oxford English translation of1640, which would shape much of his thinking, as well as his col-lecting practices. In 1649 he married the wealthy Lady Mary For-ster, twenty years his senior. The marriage granted Ashmole theleisure to pursue his two main interests: English antiquity and nat-ural philosophy. Following his move to Swallowfield, Berkshire, in1650, he joined the circle of his new neighbour, the Oxford-edu-cated antiquary and natural philosopher, William Backhouse(1593–1662).7

Backhouse organised a workshop in his house, where Ashmoleand other members of the Society of Astrologers, including Nicho-las Fiske, Richard Saunders and George Wharton, translated Latinand French texts into English, and then published them in London.8

Backhouse’s circle was also linked to Gresham College and SamuelHartlib’s network, and shared their goal of propagating useful exper-imental knowledge in the vernacular.9 Backhouse and his friends

4 This biographical account is based on Josten (1966).5 Ashmole’s natural philosophical milieu is discussed in more detail in Feola (2008, pp

Ashmole’s earliest evidence of his acquaintance with Oughtred is recorded in MS Ashmoactually knew Oughtred before 1657, when they became neighbours: Josten (1966), 345. It sastronomical and mathematical information with Ashmole’s London group, the Society ocontains Ashmole’s notes on Oughtred’s works. MS Ashmole 342 (Part V, item 3, fols. 138–8is a treatise in his hand from the early 1650s on the mathematical part of astrology.

6 The account that follows is based on Curry (1989, pp. 40–91) and Feola (2005a, 2005b7 Josten (1966, Vol. 1, pp. 76–77). On Backhouse, see Josten (1949).8 Ashmole owned two copies of Fiske’s translation of Heydon, An astrological discourse: M

Ashmole 297, published more modestly in 12�. Ashmole also owned the original manuscripnote on fol. 61r). Wharton’s Keiromantia is MS Ashmole 120, which Ashmole received as a gipublisher Nathaniel Brook. On Fiske, Saunders and Lilly: Capp (2004), Curry (2004),overwhelmingly concerned with the 1650s. The result is an unconvincingly ‘Puritan’ Lilly,Saunders, Wharton and Lilly are all in Ashmole’s manuscripts: see Black (1845), especial(Saunders), 339, 137, 423, 242, 1445, 1420, 186 (Wharton), 186, 290, 121, 241, 1501, 240

9 Josten (1966, pp. 565, 576, 643, 671, 684).10 For the biographies of Arthur Dee and Thomas Browne: Appleby (2004) and Robbins11 Northampton Record Office, Isham Family Letters 1563–1669, I. C., fol. 272r. From a le

and meant for Ashmole. Ashmole never received the catalogue mentioned by Arthur Dee,claimed to be unable to find the catalogue he had been given: Josten (1966, p. 662).

pursued experimental knowledge in all fields, putting their pridein being English to the service of vernacular scientific translations.By entering Backhouse’s circle, Ashmole found himself among con-genial colleagues who gave him his first manuscripts to collect,and stimulated him to cultivate, among other subjects, mathematics,astrology, alchemical medicine and natural magic. It was in this mili-eu of vernacular editions of natural philosophical texts that Ashmolebecame a collector and an editor himself.

3. Early collections and views about Dee: the Fasciculuschemicus

Ashmole became interested in Dee at the end of the 1640s,while he was beginning to collect manuscripts about alchemyand heraldry, and studying mathematics and alchemy with Ough-tred and Backhouse. During this period Ashmole acquired all thepapers that now comprise MS Ashmole 1459. This manuscript con-tains his earliest alchemical collections, including Thomas Tym-me’s preface to his English translation of John Dee’s Monashieroglyphica, which Ashmole used to extract information aboutthe alchemist Geber (MS Ashmole 1440, fols. 170–171). Ashmoleacquired it in 1648 from a ‘chirurgeon from Reading’, probablyan acquaintance of Oughtred’s. In 1649, Ashmole came across ananonymous Latin collection of alchemical aphorisms entitled Fas-ciculus chemicus, and the Latin text of the anonymous Arcanum Her-meticae philosophiae (actually written by the French lawyer andamateur natural philosopher, Jean d’Espagnet).10 He translatedboth into English, and was about to publish them when he learnedthat the author of the Fasciculus was Arthur Dee, the son of JohnDee. Hastily Ashmole wrote to him to ask for permission to printhis work, adding:

My search into the Mathematicks first brought me to vnder-stand, the worth of Doctor John Dee, by his Preface to Euclid,&c; & you would much pleasure me, might I also know whatrelation you had to him, or what else you think fitt for me tosay. (MS Ashmole 1790, fol. 68r)

Arthur Dee obliged Ashmole with a polite letter full of biographicalinformation about his father, in addition to a

Catalogue of the bookes he wrot, I have sent you hereinenclosed, whereof I was totally depriued hee dying at his houseat Mortlak when I was beyond sea Ao. 1609.11

This is the earliest evidence of Ashmole’s interest in Dee, though atthis stage he had not yet conceived of actively researching him. Inthe Prolegomena to the Fasciculus, Ashmole praised Dee as,

. 322–325). On William Oughtred, see Willmoth (2004), Clark (1898, pp. 227–231).le, 242, fol. 125r and dates from 22 May 1643. Josten is uncertain whether Ashmoleeems certain that he did, however, because by 1652 Oughtred was already exchangingf Astrologers (MS Ashmole, 394, fols. 56r–57r). Moreover, MS Ashmole 826, fol. 4r3) is a De arte arithmetica which Ashmole studied in 1649. MS Ashmole 371, fols. 2–39

, pp. 123–159).

S Ashmole 242, a grand copy that was Saunders’s gift to his patron Ashmole, and MSt by Christopher Heydon (MS Ashmole 242), which he obtained in 1657 (see marginalft from the astrologer William Lilly who in turn had obtained it as a free copy from thePorter (2004). Ann Geneva (1995) has written Lilly’s biography, although this iseven though he spent twice as long working for Charles II. Primary sources on Fiske,ly on MSS Ashmole 339, 421, 391, 394 (Fiske), 176, 240, 423, 350, 242, 1443, 1489, 241, 243 (Lilly).

(2004). On Browne, see Schnapp (1993, p. 198) and Cunningham & Grell (1996).tter of Arthur Dee to an unidentified ‘Mr Aldrich’, dated ‘Norwich this 15 Decb. 1649’,whose letter to Aldrich ended up with his neighbour Sir Thomas Browne, who later

532 V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538

that excellent Physitian, Doctor John Dee (whose fame survivesfor his many learned and precious Works, but chiefly celebratedamongst us for that his incomparable Mathematical Preface toEuclid’s Elements. (Ashmole, 1650, p. 26)

However, he did not include any of the other information suppliedby Arthur Dee. Dee was not yet an object of Ashmole’s collectingendeavours.

In the ‘Prolegomena’ to the Fasciculus, Ashmole explained thathe intended it as a ‘Catalogue of Authors that have treated of thissacred Learning’ (ibid., sig. ⁄⁄1v), and gave his own definition ofnatural philosophy as encompassing:

the concatenation of Spirits, their working without a Body, theWeapon Salve, the Sympathetic Powder, the Vertues of the Load-stone, the wonderful and never to be enough admired Secrets ofMagnetick Philosophy, and Natural Magick: As also what Art itself is able to perform, by the power of Mathematical conclusions,in Geometry, Numbers, both mysterious and vulgar, PerspectiveOpticks, &c. What famous and accurate Works, industriousArtists have furnished these latter Ages with, and by Weighs,Wheels, Springs or Strings, have imitated lively Motion as Regio-montanus his Eagle, and Fly, Drebler’s perpetual Motion, theSpring in a Watch, and such like Self-Movers. . . .The Arts of Nav-igation, Printing, and making of Gunpowder. . . . (Ibid., sig. ⁄⁄2 r–v)

Not all of Ashmole’s contemporaries would have agreed to list al-chemy and natural magic alongside navigation and printing. If weconsider the publications of all the seventeenth-century Savilianprofessors of astronomy and geometry at Oxford, for instance, wefind that they reflected a particular Oxford tradition of thinkingabout mathematical subjects, which was spelt out in the SavilianStatutes and which excluded alchemy, astrology and magic fromits definition. Sir Henry Savile and subsequent Savilians remainedfaithful to their understanding of mathematical subjects as strictlyincluding those which could be worked out mathematically, andwhich had first developed above all by ancient Greek scholars (Feola,in press-a, passim). In contrast, in Ashmole’s definition we see Back-house’s influence on Ashmole’s definition of natural philosophy,which we need to bear in mind if we are to get to grips with his viewsabout Dee. Ashmole and Backhouse had a very special intellectualrelationship: at thirty minutes past midnight, on 3 April 1651, Back-house adopted Ashmole as his alchemical son (Josten, 1966, p. 567).From then on, Ashmole could consider himself as the elected son of amaster who would teach him the secrets of nature.

In the Fasciculus, Ashmole pleaded for the importance of publish-ing works of natural philosophy in the vernacular, thus echoing theinsistence of his tutor, Oughtred, on the utility of vernacular works:

It is no disparagement to the Subject that it appears in an Eng-lish dress, no more then it was when habited in Greek, Latin,Arabick, &c. among the ancient Grecians, Romans, and Arabians,for to each of them it was their vulgar Tongue: And had notthose Nations, to whom Learning (in her progress through theworld) came, taken the pains of Translation, and so communi-cated to their own Countries the benefit of several Faculties;we had yet lived in much ignorance of Divinity, Philosophy,Physick, History, and all other Arts. (Ashmole, 1650, p. 28)

Stressing the importance of his own work as a collector, translator,editor and, as such, preserver of useful natural philosophical texts,Ashmole observed,

12 British Library MS Harley 2407 includes the original Testament in Dee’s hand, entitledalso used this manuscript as the source for the engravings in the Theatrum, and even refersRampling for drawing these references to my attention and suggesting that, since Dee ofcontributing to this genre as well.

We are not a little beholding to the industry of our Ancestors,for collecting into Books this Elemental Water falling from Hea-ven, as into so many several Vessels or Cisterns. (Ibid., sig. A4v)

This is a paraphrase of Bacon’s Advancement of learning, where Ba-con maintained that,

For as water, whether it be the dewe of heaven, or the springs ofthe earth, doth scatter and leese it selfe in the ground, except itbe collected into some Receptacle, where it may by union, com-fort and sustaine it selfe: And for that cause the Industry of Manhath made & framed Spring-heads, Conduits, Cesterns, and Poo-les. . . .So this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descendfrom diuine inspiration, or spring from human sense, wouldsoon perishe and vanishe to oblivion, if it were not preservedin Bookes, Traditions, Conferences and Places appoynted.(Bacon, 1640, sig. 2A2r)

Ashmole’s reading of Bacon can also be detected in a passagewhere he argued against natural philosophical ‘Fictions’, as op-posed to the reality of the work which he had edited, in whichhe paraphrased Bacon’s metaphor of Pygmalion (Ashmole, 1650,sig. ⁄⁄2r; cf. Bacon, 1640, p. 28). Ashmole’s ideas about knowledge,its utility, its means of acquisition and transmission, were shapedby his own reflections on the teachings of Backhouse, Oughtredand Bacon. Ashmole’s collections and views about John Dee arebest understood if viewed in relation to his ideas about knowledge.

4. First (and only) biography: the Theatrum chemicumBritannicum

Soon after the publication of the Fasciculus, Ashmole developedthe idea of a much grander enterprise, namely, the first volume of aBritish counterpart to the Theatrum chemicum, which was beingpublished in Strasbourg by Lazarus Zetzner (1601–1661). Thanksto the help of Backhouse’s circle and of several members of theSociety of Astrologers whom he now actively patronised, includingWharton, Lilly, and Fiske, Ashmole acquired all the texts whichformed his Theatrum chemicum Britannicum, published in Londonin 1652. As we might expect given Ashmole’s interest in publishingnatural philosophical texts in the vernacular, the Theatrum con-tained thirty-nine alchemical poems in English. Among these, Ash-mole included a short poem by Dee, Dee’s so-called ‘Alchemicaltestament’ (MS Ashmole 1442, Part I, p. 37). This qualified forinclusion because it was in English: unusual for Dee, who hadmostly published in Latin.12 Unlike the Fasciculus, in which Ash-mole’s role had been primarily that of translator (although he had al-ready put forward the importance of his role as a collector andeditor), the Theatrum was Ashmole’s first properly antiquarianundertaking. He actually called the alchemical poems ‘collectedantiquities’ (Ashmole, 1652, sig. A4v). He collected, where possible,several copies of the same texts, collated them one against another,amended them, and wrote a critical apparatus in the twofold form ofa fourteen-page Prolegomena and a substantially longer essay, enti-tled ‘Final Annotations’ (sixty-three pages).

The latter was a catalogue of lives of eminent English naturalphilosophers, and reflected Ashmole’s will to contribute to the virisillustribus tradition in his own distinctive way (Eichel-Lojkine,2001, pp. 64–69). Starting with the Italian Renaissance, a prosopo-graphical tradition of lives of eminent men had become well rooted

, in Latin, ‘Joannis Dee Testamentum, ad Jo.Gwynn transmissum, anno1568.’ Ashmoleto it in his notes at the end: Corbett (1983, pp. 326–336). I am very grateful to Jenniferten transcribed alchemical works in English, he might have viewed the Testament as

V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538 533

in Western European literary production. The recovery of ancienttexts, such as Plutarch’s Lives, had triggered a renewed interest inthe biographical genre. Those men were considered eminent whohad ornamented their country through either military or scholarlyachievement. Models from antiquity, like Alexander the Great andAristotle (already a medieval topos stemming from the ‘arms vs.letters’ debate) were soon to be flanked by a wealth of illustriouscontemporaries (Cole, 1995, passim; Cerquiglini-Toulet, 2010, pp.1–12). Scholars and even learned artisans figured increasingly incatalogues of illustrious men. Ashmole deliberately chose to con-tribute to this genre, citing sixteenth-century scholars such as Le-land, Bale and Pitts as his sources for British catalogues of learnedmen (Ashmole, 1652, sig. A2v). Ashmole’s decision to make onesuch catalogue out of the lives of writers of alchemical poems,however, was rather peculiar. It was both a consequence of thistradition on which he built, and a novelty which he added to it.Among the authors of his poems he included Chaucer, Gower andLydgate, whose positions as eminent English scholars none wouldhave disputed, together with alchemists such as John Dee, GeorgeRipley (d. c. 1490) and Thomas Norton (c. 1433–c. 1513). Ashmole’sclaim for grouping them all together was that they had all writ-ten—in English—about alchemy, a branch of natural philosophyas already explained in the Fasciculus (ibid., sigs. A2v–A3r). Ash-mole was the first English writer to consider authors of alchemicalpoems as eminent men. In fact, in this way he innovated the virisillustribus tradition. One might suggest that mid-seventeenth cen-tury natural philosophy was developing, also thanks to Ashmole,an awareness of its own history. I discuss elsewhere the choro-graphical, heraldic, and philological work which Ashmole under-took in order to write the lives in his ‘Final Annotations’ (Feola,in press-b, Forthcoming). What interests me here is Ashmole’s lifeof Dee.

Just before publishing the Theatrum, Ashmole had found Dee’sjournal of alchemical experiments performed at Mortlake be-tween 4 December 1607 and 21 January 1608 (MS Ashmole1486, Part V). Moreover, through Arthur Dee he had acquiredDee’s so-called diaries (MSS Ashmole 487–488): the ephemeridesof Stadius for 1554–1600 (Cologne, 1570) and those of Maginusfor 1581–1620 (Venice, 1582). These were annotated by Dee, intypically early modern fashion, and contain much biographicalinformation from January 1577 until December 1600, and fromSeptember 1586 until April 1601. Ashmole transcribed all of Dee’snotes into MS Ashmole 423, Art. 22, which would serve him as aworking tool (and sole source) for the life of Dee that he pub-lished in the Theatrum.

Of all the poems, Dee’s very short Testament is one of the leastsignificant ones as a piece of either scientific poetry or properlyalchemical verses.13 Yet Ashmole still devoted the longest biographyto Dee: simply due to the fact that he had much more informationabout Dee from his diaries than about any other author of his poems.In fact, one must bear in mind that Ashmole only owned a handful ofalchemical manuscripts when he published the Theatrum; he ac-quired the vast majority of his alchemical material much later, inthe 1670s and 1680s, primarily thanks to the acquisitions of librariesof his protégés from the Society of Astrologers. As we shall see, thesame chronology is true of the bulk of Ashmole’s collections relatedto Dee.

In his life of Dee, Ashmole stated:

he chiefly bent his Studies to the Mathematicks; in all parts ofwhich he was an absolute and perfect Master. Witness hisMathematicall Preface to Euclids Elements, wherein are enu-merated many Arts of him wholly Invented. . . .more theneither the Grecian or Romane Mathematicians have left to

13 On the poetry of the Theatrum chemicum Britannicum, see Feola (2008). Schuler has ca

our knowledge: with divers and many Annotations, and Inven-tions, Mathematicall, added in sundry places of the said Booke:Together with severall Pieces of Navigation, Perspective, andother Mathematicall works of his in Manuscript. (Ashmole,1652, p. 480)

This passage presents Dee as an accomplished mathematician.It also points to the importance of Dee’s works which he has leftin manuscripts—manuscripts, therefore, which must be worth col-lecting and preserving, as Ashmole was beginning to do himself.Indeed, Ashmole’s life of Dee in the Theatrum served partly as anexample to illustrate the importance of book collections and theirtoo often unsafe repositories. Ashmole noted that Dee could not

enjoy Tranquillity in his Studies, but was oftentimes disquietedand vexed with the sower dispositions of such as most Injouri-ously Scandalized both him and them, insomuch that the yearhe went beyond Sea his Library was seized on, wherein was4000 Books and 700 of them Manuscripts (a Caveat for all Inge-nious and eminent Philosophers to be more wise then to keepany dear or Excellent Books in their own Houses.). (Ibid.)

Here, as elsewhere in the Theatrum, Ashmole deprecated theravages of libraries by mobs, during both the turbulent Henricianyears and the recent Civil War. Although Roberts and Watson aresceptical about the myth of a mob breaking into Dee’s library(1990, p. 52), we should bear in mind the rhetorical effect thatAshmole sought to convey by citing this episode from Dee’s life.If the lives of eminent men were worth reading for the examplesthat posterity could draw from them, Dee’s life thus provided anexample for all those great collectors who kept their valuable col-lections at the mercy of fate. This is an early hint of Ashmole’sideas about safekeeping of books, which would later materialisein his foundation of the Ashmolean Museum, with its secure anti-quarian and scientific library in which Ashmole’s collections con-cerning Dee would eventually find a haven (Feola, 2005a, 2005b,passim).

Concerning Dee’s alchemy, Ashmole stated: ‘Some time He be-stowed in vulgar Chemistry, and was therein Master of divers Se-crets’ (Ashmole, 1652, p. 480). And,

’Tis generally reported that Doctor Dee, and Sir Edward Kellywere so strangely fortunate, as to finde a very large quantityof the Elixir in some part of the Ruines of Glastenbury-Abbey,which was so incredibly Rich in vertue. . . . that they lost muchin making Triall; before they found out the true height of theMedicine. (Ibid., p. 481)

He continued: ‘During their abode at Trebona, they tried manyChemicall Experiments. . . .yet I cannot heare that ever they accom-plished any thing.’ Nevertheless, Dee’s expressions of joy in his‘diaries’ convinced Ashmole that he had indeed managed to findthe stone (ibid., p. 482).

Ashmole was perhaps not the best person to assess Dee’s abili-ties as a practising alchemist, given that in the Theatrum he admit-ted, ‘I have not yet set myself onto the Manuall Practice’ (ibid., sig.B2v). Although this sentence might be read as indicating his inten-tion to do so, there is little evidence that he ever practised. AmongAshmole’s c. 300 volumes of alchemical manuscripts we find a fewpractical recipes for making the philosophers’ stone and severalpoems on the same topic. There is very little evidence that he usedthose recipes for his own alchemical experiments, nor is there anyrecipe written by him. The only possible evidence for any actualpractice of alchemy is found in Ashmole’s own interleaved copyof his third alchemical edition, The way to bliss (1658), where henoted the effects of some alchemical experiments suggested by

lled the Theatrum poems ‘scientific poetry’: Schuler (1980, pp. 293–318).

534 V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538

an unidentified French practitioner in his manuscript work.14 Noris there any evidence of his having owned a laboratory for the per-formance of alchemical experiments. Significantly, Ashmole did notadd a single annotation to any of Dee’s alchemical papers.15 The factthat Ashmole may never have performed an alchemical experimentdoes not mean, however, that he did not value them as means to im-prove chemical knowledge. On the contrary, in the Theatrum he citedFrancis Bacon on the importance of experiments:

It has proved a great Errour in some Practitioners, who (tum-bling up and downe their owne Speculations) seek out for Truthin the Little world, and withdrawing themselves from the Con-templation of Experimentall Naturall Observations, neglect tolook for it in the great and common World.16

Three decades down the line, the Ashmolean Museum—which Ben-nett, Johnson, and Simcock (2000) have rightly dubbed ‘Solomon’sHouse in Oxford’, emphasising the Baconian nature of Ashmole’sinstitution—would furnish the University of Oxford with its firstlaboratory for the performance of alchemical experiments, althoughit was Ashmole’s contemporary fellow of the Royal Society, RobertBoyle, who designed its apparatus, rather than Ashmole himself.

It appears, however, that Ashmole’s early collections and viewsabout Dee had little to do with experiments. They were meagre,like all other alchemical collections in Ashmole’s hand by 1652,and Ashmole only really exploited one item of them, Dee’s ‘diaries’,when writing Dee’s life in the Theatrum. There he expressed hisviews, which described Dee as an accomplished mathematician, agreat book collector, and a successful alchemist. The next waveof collections concerning Dee, which shaped Ashmole’s later viewsabout him, would take place twenty years later.

5. Ashmole’s renewed interest in Dee: 1672–1680s

In March 1654, Ashmole received a letter from his regular cor-respondent and lender of alchemical manuscripts, Sir ThomasBrowne (1605–1682), the Norwich antiquary and natural philoso-pher, and author of the successful Religio medici (London, 1644)(Josten, 1966, p. 661–662). He related the life of his late neighbour,Dr Arthur Dee, and informed Ashmole of a few episodes of JohnDee’s life. Apart from this, there is no other evidence of Ashmole’sresearch on Dee until 1672. For the remainder of the 1650s, Ash-mole was involved in time-consuming legal suits with his wife,which forced him to abandon his project of issuing further volumesof the Theatrum chemicum Britannicum. From the Restoration until1672, his appointments as Controller of the Excise and WindsorHerald allowed him very little free time. When available, he usedit to research the legal, ceremonial, and historical past of the Orderof the Garter, studies which culminated in his Institution, laws andceremonies of the most noble Order of the Garter (London, 1672). Justafter the publication of his magnum opus in May, Ashmole acquireda colleague with whom to share the burden of his post at the Exciseoffice. This was more than welcome, because it coincided with aclassic example of how serendipitous circumstances can rekindlea dormant interest.

14 Ashmole’s notes on practical alchemy are in MS Ashmole 537, interleaved pages beParacelsus, (pseudo) Llull, Morienus and Flamel, whose works were available in print and inwho do not appear to have ever published. One of these, ‘H.R. de Linthout sieur de Montelyby Ashmole in French. However, even these passages on practical alchemy (which mentionwould produce, and so on) leave open the possibility that Ashmole was in fact just checkingthe production of the red stone. This scant evidence may therefore merely reflect Ashmole

15 MS Ashmole 1492, Part I contains Dee’s handwritten Latin notes: Ashmole has onlymanuscript which Dee annotated throughout with comments about alchemical operationalchemical drugs written by Dee, but no notes by Ashmole. MS Ashmole 1486, Part V con

16 Ashmole (1652, p. 462); the quote corresponds to Bacon (1640, p. 37).

In a manuscript now in the British Library, Ashmole wrote:

Be it remembered that the 20th of August 1672. I received bythe hande of my Servant Story, a parcel of Dr: Dees Manuscripts,all written with his own hand; vizt: his Conferences withangels, which first began the 22th of dec: an�: 1581. & contin-ued to the end of May an�: 1583. where the printed Booke ofthe remaining Conferences (published by Dr: Casaubon)begins. . . . (British Library MS Sloane 3188, fol. 2r)

Overleaf, Ashmole explained that he had obtained the manuscripts,

by my good friend Mr. Thomas Wale, one of his Ma:ties War-dens in the Tower of London. . . . for a coppy of my’ History ofthe Order of the Garter. (Ibid., fol. 2v)

Wale had found that his servant was using Dee’s papers to line piedishes and for other domestic activities, so he rescued them andgave them to the man who, from then on, would become the greatestcollector of materials related to Dee. By 1687, Ashmole had amassed:

1. Mysteriorum Liber primus. 1581 & 1582.

2. Mysteriorum Liber secundus.3. Mysteriorum Liber tertius.4. Liber Mysteriorum quarto5. Liber Mysteriorum quintus.6. Quinti Libri Mysteriorum Appendix

Note that some other of his Bookes were set forth by Dr: Casaubon

1659. & the first Action of the aforesaid Appendix, vizt: 28 May1583. which are these that follow.

7. Liber Sexti Mysteriorum (&Sancti) parallelus Novalisq8. Liber peregrinationis primae (Sexte Mystici prodromus)9. Mensio Mysticus Saobaticus.

10. Liber Mystici Apertorij Cracoviensis Sabbatici. 1584 But inDr: Dee MS (from which it was printed) it hath this Title

Libri Septimi Apertorij Cracoviensis, Mystici Sabbatici, pars tertia a

1584

11. Libri Septimi Apertorij Cracoviensis Mystici Sabbatici p.

quarta

12. Libri Cracoviensis Mysticus Apertorius.13. Mysteriorum Pragensium Liber prim Caesaresq14. Mysteriorum Pragensium Confermatio.15. Mysteriorum Pragensium Confermatorum Liber.16. Vnica Actio; quae Pucciana vocetur (A. 1585. Aug: 6)17. Liber Resurrectionis18. Mysteriorum divinorum memorabilia

Thus far from the printed books. Other Manuscripts.

19. 48 Claves Angelicae. This booke is written in the Angelick

Language. Interlened with an English translation. Cracoviae,ab Aprilis 13. ad July 13.

20. Liber Scientiae, Auxilij et Victoriae Terestris.21. De Heptarchia Mystica Collectaneorum, Lib: primus

tween pp. 192 and 219. Ashmole quoted from various known alchemists, such asmanuscript, both in Latin and in English, and from two unidentified French alchemists

on’ and ‘Jehan Luoge de Baur en Languedoc’ (interleaved page before p. 219), was citedthe operations needed to obtain the stone, the chemicals needed, what reactions theythe textual accuracy of these passages, which all refer to the same operation, namely

’s intellectual interest in alchemy, rather than any concern with trying it out himself.numbered the first seven pages. MS Ashmole 1451 is a fifteenth-century alchemicals: Ashmole did not write anything on it. MS Ashmole 204, Part 18 contains a list oftains Dee’s laboratory notes, which Ashmole did not annotate.

V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538 535

22. Liber Enoch. I suppose Liber Logaeth & this are also in theMS: I copied from (which I borrowed from Sir John Cotton)it hath this Title. Liber Mysteriorum, Sextus & Sanctus.

23. A Book of Supplications, & Invitations.

(MS Ashmole 1790, Part III, Item 13, fols. 52–53)

Interestingly, Ashmole entitled this list ‘A Catalogue of Dr: DeesM.S: as are come to my handes.’ However, he had collected far morethan just this, both in manuscript and in print. In addition to thematerial Ashmole had acquired in the early 1650s, for instance, hisprotégé Saunders gave him a fourteenth-century Albertus Magnuson vellum.17 His friend and protégé Lilly gave him Dee’s Propaedeu-mata aphoristica (London, 1558) (MS Ashmole 153). Of a completelydifferent nature was Dee’s ‘Supplicacion to Q: Mary’, copied by Ash-mole with the ‘Articles concerning the recovery and preservation ofthe ancient Monuments & old excellente writers, & also concerningthe erecting of a Library.’18 He even copied Dee’s classification schemeof books, and his Mortlake library catalogue.19 The latter two itemstestified to Ashmole’s lifelong interest in the cataloguing and safe-keeping of books, which we find reflected even in his Dee collections.However, Ashmole’s list really focused on the kind of material whichespecially interested him, namely the angelic works.

In the previous section, I noted that Ashmole was probably not apractising alchemist, although he appreciated the importance ofexperiments. Now we turn to those experiments which Ashmoledid perform, and which bear some resemblance to Dee’s crystallo-mancy. The evidence for Ashmole’s magical experiments, which in-volved casting sigils and talismans, dates back to his entry intoBackhouse’s circle. For instance, as early as 1649 Ashmole copiedDr Roger French’s English translation of Cornelius Agrippa’s De occ-ulta philosophia, which was published in London in 1651 and dedi-cated to another acquaintance of Backhouse’s, the Hartlibianreformer Dr Robert Childe (British Library MS Sloane 3824). The1651 edition, moreover, contained a poem written by Ashmole’sprotégé John Booker (just before Ch. I, Book I). In the Sloane manu-script, Ashmole transcribed a section on crystallomancy (MS Sloane3824, fols. 54v–70r), while the subsequent folios are devoted to sig-ils. In the Theatrum, Ashmole had quoted extensively from Agrippato explain his ideas about magic (Ashmole, 1652, esp. 443–449).

The evidence for Ashmole’s casting of sigils runs continuouslyfrom the late 1640s until his death in 1692 (Black, 1845, passim).For example, in his copy of French’s Agrippa, Ashmole drew severalsigils (MS Sloane 3824, fols. 100v–117r) and wrote next to two ofthem, ‘by me’ (the seals of the spirits ‘Vassago’ and ‘Agares’, at fols.111v and 112v respectively). In order for a sigil (usually a piece oflead) to become infused with magical powers—for instance, to heala wound, or to bind someone to behave in a certain way—Ashmole,like all good natural magicians of his time (and of the past) had toconduct several operations. These could vary, from brandishing asword, wearing a priest’s garments and sprinkling the lead withbaptismal holy water, to invoking supernatural creatures, such asangels and demons (and sometimes even invoking Adam, the firstman) to intercede with God; that God might elect the conjurer tobe a magician, thus infusing his lead with magical powers. Invoca-tions and prayers might vary, but the help of angels was alwaysrequired.

Ashmole studied Dee’s angelic manuscripts closely, and hisannotations show that he trusted Dee’s accounts of angelic inter-

17 MS Ashmole 1471 bears Dee’s, Saunders’s and Ashmole’s possession signatures.18 MS Ashmole 1788, fols. 80–82. Quotation from fol. 81r, dated 15 January 1556.19 Ibid., fol. 134; MS Ashmole 1142, fols. 1–74.20 MS Ashmole 422, Ashmole’s transcript of the Liber Mysteriorum Sextus et Sanctus. On f21 For instance, MS Ashmole 971–972 is Ashmole’s interleaved copy of the Theatrum. It co

1680s. I give a fuller treatment of Ashmole’s philological work in Feola (in press-b).

course. For example, he added a lengthy note to his copy of Casau-bon’s edition of Dee’s angelic dealings:

In these 5 Bookes the Angells tought them how to make ye holyTable, the Sigillum dei (which in all Actions lay vnder theShew-stone) how to Governe themselues, to obteyne Confer-ence, & many other things. (‘Preface’, MS Ashmole 580, p. 43)

In a cipher note which he added to Lilly’s autobiography, Ashmolerecorded,

What were the reasons why the Angells were not obedient ordid not willing declare their answers to kellys questions/ForMr. Lilly saith/I could give another reason beside his viscious-ness but they are not for paper. (Cited in Josten, 1966, p. 1114)

There is also ample evidence that Ashmole successfully found thekey to reading Dee’s tables, with angels’ names hidden among let-ters and numbers.20 In the Theatrum he spoke of the possibility ofattaining direct contact with God through angelic mediation: the

Angelicall Stone. . . .endowes the possessor with Divine Gifts. Itaffords the Apparition of Angells, and gives a power of convers-ing with them, by Dreames and Revelations. (Ashmole, 1652,sigs. A4v–B1v)

It is uncertain whether Ashmole ever attempted to conjure an-gels on the basis of Dee’s manuscripts. Although Ashmole collectedDee’s prayers under the heading ‘Notes for Practise’ (MS Ashmole1790, fol. 39r), this heading may simply refer to Dee’s own practice.All that can be safely said is that he managed to collect a great dealof Dee’s angelic material, and that he studied it at least from a phil-ological point of view.

This approach can be identified elsewhere: for instance, in Ash-mole’s note, ‘obserue whether Annael, which is praepositus orbisveneris, be not there written with a double n page 4’ (MS Ashmole1790, fol. 54b). MS Ashmole 580 contains his corrections to hiscopy of Meric Casaubon’s Faithful relation. In fact, as I show else-where, Ashmole applied this kind of philological work to most ofhis alchemical, astrological, magical, medical, heraldic, historical,and legal papers.21 Ashmole’s approach to his manuscripts wasmore philological than practical. In other words, he collated andamended manuscripts, rather than using them in the laboratory orin front of a crystal ball, for experiments. The only documentedexperiments which he carried out, as noted above, were thoseinvolving sigils. Even these triggered his antiquarian curiosity somuch so that he corresponded with the orientalist Thomas Hyde,Bodley’s librarian, in order to obtain English translations of medievalArabic and Persian works on sigils (MSS Ashmole 430–432, fols.154–186). Lauren Kassell (2005, p. 48, 2006, p. 122) hypothesisesthat Ashmole, like his fellow antiquary John Aubrey, who helpedAshmole in his quest for Dee’s manuscripts (Clark, 1898, Vol. I, pp.210–214), might have been collecting sources for a history of magic.This seems plausible, at least in view of one of the letters whichHyde wrote to Ashmole: ‘When I met with any more Bookes whichmay probably contain any things to your purpose, I will endeavour tosearch out what may be found’ (MSS Ashmole 430–432, fol. 187r; myemphasis). Was that purpose a history of magical experimentsinvolving sigils and angel conjuring?

Ashmole collected other documents concerning sigils and mag-ical operations involving angels, such as the manuscripts of SimonForman and Richard Napier. He both repeated Forman’s experi-

ol. 15r, Ashmole has written: ‘from Dr Dees transcript.’ntains his philological marginalia which he kept adding to it since 1652 until the late

536 V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538

ments involving sigils, and annotated his manuscripts (MS Ashmole421, fol. 171r–v). Even here, however, Ashmole’s observations areprimarily philological. For example, MS Ashmole 244 containsForman’s ‘Boke of giantes and huge and monstrose formes’, a workon ‘Adam and Eve’, Napier’s prayers for conjuring angels, and For-man’s book of Cabala ‘and names of Angels and evil Spirits.’ Onfol. 33v, Forman recorded the age of the world according to his cal-culation. Ashmole noted alongside that another computation wasalso possible, and gave a different result. On fol. 50r, Ashmole sup-plemented Forman’s astrological explanation of a horoscope withan alternative way of casting it, while Ashmole’s annotations to For-man’s angelic papers recall those he added to Dee’s. In each case,Ashmole used the manuscripts both as a basis for experiments of si-gil-making, and as texts with antiquarian value.

6. Beyond the angels

In 1685, Ashmole wrote to his fellow antiquary, the Oxfordscholar Anthony Wood, that

’Tis probable I may say something of Doctor Arthur Dee, in thelyfe of his Father, because it will fall in proper enough; but whatthat will be, I cannot yet determine. Neuertheless I would haueyou to make as much use of my papers, as will serue yourTourne. (‘28. Mar. 1685’, MS Wood F. 39, fols. 85–86v)

By then Ashmole had sufficient material to provide the basis for abook-length biography of Dee, although his chronic lack of timewould eventually prevent him from achieving this goal. This majorproject, a life of Dee, can be related to other developments in Ash-mole’s collecting habits. In another letter to Wood, dated ‘Jan. 16.1685/6’, Ashmole explained, ‘what great use you could make ofthe Accidents relating to the Nativities of Persons, where they arecollected together; which is seldome done’ (cited in Josten, 1966,p. 1810). Ashmole had been painstakingly collecting nativities—astrological schemes in which biographical data of an individualsare recorded (Curry, 1989, pp. 8–13)—since the 1640s. But it wasonly in the 1670s and early 1680s that he acquired a treasure troveof nativities, thanks to the legacies of his astrologer-protégés. Theseincluded Dee’s own nativity, obtained from Thomas Browne.22

Moreover, in 1676 he received several volumes of astrological manu-scripts from Thomas Napier, containing biographical data on hun-dreds of seventeenth-century Englishmen and women (Black,1845). Ashmole bound them with other nativities, and in 1681 al-lowed Aubrey to work on them in order to extract biographical dataon behalf of Anthony Wood (Josten, 1966, p. 1697). Aubrey also usedinformation that he found in Ashmole’s manuscripts for his ownprosopographical work, Brief lives.23 Ashmole planned to compile acatalogue of biographies of Knights of the Garter, and collected awealth of biographical data about them (in MSS Ashmole 1097–1135). It is possible that he intended to write a prosopography ofeminent loyal subjects of English monarchs, since Knights of the Gar-ter were assumed to be the most loyal of subjects (Begent, 1999, pas-sim). He also collected, but managed to print only an abridgedversion through lack of time, the lives of all the Garter Kings of Arms(cf. MSS Ashmole 1097–1135). The astrological nativities section ofAshmole’s library testifies to his efforts to collect material for a studyof England’s most illustrious men, and his own collection of materialon John Dee, must, therefore, be considered as an example of this

22 MS Ashmole 1788, fols. 136a and 137a contain two horoscopes set on Dee’s nativity, pLilly. MS Ashmole 1790, Part III, item 19. MS Ashmole 1788, fol. 140a is Kelly’s nativity, whp. 479).

23 Clark (1898). Aubrey acknowledged Ashmole’s help in Vol. I of his Brief lives, pp. 26, 33, 4attention to the antiquarian uses of astrological material: Grafton (1999), esp. pp. 56–70.

24 On early modern weather collections, see Golinski (2007).25 MS Ashmole 1788, fol. 10b. Ashmole had obtained another copy of Dee’s ‘diary’, Stoff

interest. It seems that this interest only really manifested as an ac-tive collecting policy years later, as we have already seen in the caseof Ashmole’s Theatrum.

Besides the acquisition of astrological material in manuscriptform, Ashmole simultaneously collected some four hundred vol-umes of English almanacs, dating from the late sixteenth centuryuntil his death in 1692. These illustrate the formation of an Englishastrological printing market in the vernacular—a subject close toAshmole’s heart since his youth. They also contain much informa-tion on the history of the English weather and its astrological prog-nostication.24 Indeed, Ashmole meticulously recorded the weatherevery day for eight and a half years, from 6 July 1677 to 31 December1685. He added a preface, in which he regretted the little time that hecould devote to recording data about the wind, rain, and tempera-tures: ‘nevertheless, for so much as is set downe, I haue endeavouredto render it exact’ (MS Ashmole 438, p. 2). This suggests that he hadcollected those data for others to use: for example, in order to build adatabase for terrestrial astrology. We should note his use of the ther-mometer for this undertaking. Simultaneously, from July 1677 untilSeptember 1689, Ashmole received John Goad’s monthly weatherprognostications (Josten, 1966, p. 220). A later account mentions Ash-mole’s participation in a committee of the Royal Society, ‘for collect-ing all the phenomena of nature hitherto observed, and allexperiments made and recorded’ (Birch, 1756, Vol. I, p. 407). It is pos-sible that the weather data collection related to this. Similarly, Ash-mole copied Napier’s own observations on the weather from 20July 1598 to 16 August 1635 (MS Ashmole 423, fols. 1–25).

Given this interest, we can see why Ashmole welcomed hisacquisition of ‘Dee’s observations of the Weather from May 1547.to 16 Feb. 1551’, noting that ‘they are very exact and particular.’25

Although only a single example, this note on Dee’s weather recordsstill compares favourably with the lack of any annotation by Ash-mole in Dee’s alchemical manuscripts. Ashmole may have collectedDee’s alchemical manuscripts and books—as indeed the rest of hisalchemical works—for posterity, to keep as records of Englishalchemical practice and poetry. On the other hand, Ashmole’s weath-er notes, including his short one on Dee’s observations, indicate thathe actually worked on them.

The natural history of England was certainly one of Ashmole’smain intellectual preoccupations. In the ‘Statutes and Rules’ whichhe wrote for the Ashmolean Museum, he declared:

Because the knowledge of Nature is very necessarie to Humainelife, health, & the conveniences thereof, & because that knowl-edge cannot be soe well & usefully attain’d, except the historyof Nature be knowne & considered; and to this, is requisitethe inspection of Particulars, especially those as are extraordi-nary in their Fabrick, or usefull in Medicine, or applied to Man-ufacture or Trade: I Elias Ashmole, out of my affection to thissort of Learning, wherein my selfe haue taken, & still doe takethe greatest delight. . . . (MS Rawl. D.864, fols. 187v–188r)

We can detect echoes of Francis Bacon’s Advancement once more.

7. Conclusion

I have argued that Ashmole’s collections and views about Deeshould be viewed against the broader background of Ashmole’scollecting activities, and in the context of the uses to which he

artly by Ashmole and partly by his friend, the astrologer and book collector Williamereas MS Ashmole 1790, fol. 59b is also Kelly’s nativity, reproduced in Ashmole (1652,

4, 146, 162, 210, 285, 318; vol. II, pp. 33, 91, 201, and 203. Anthony Grafton has drawn

er’s ephemerides, from a Dr Francis Bernard.

V. Feola / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 530–538 537

wished to put his collections. Material about Dee interestedAshmole because it provided information, first, for an exemplarylife of an eminent Englishman. Second, it constituted evidence forEnglish alchemical and angelological practices. It is indeed possiblethat Ashmole collected alchemical and angelical manuscripts,including Dee’s, in order to document the history of those disci-plines in England. It is also possible that he used Dee’s angelic pa-pers for his own experiments with magical sigils and angelicinvocations. He certainly worked philologically on the angelic pa-pers, whereas Dee’s alchemical ones remained untouched. Finally,Ashmole was pleased to have Dee’s weather records within his col-lections for a natural history of the English weather.

Ashmole’s understanding of Bacon’s empiricism shaped hisideas about experiments, as well as about the importance of theantiquary’s role as a gatherer and preserver of useful evidenceabout natural and political history. However, while Bacon had triedto exclude alchemy, astrology and magic from respectable naturalphilosophical practices, Ashmole argued for their inclusion. Hunterand Hoppen have suggested that there were several different kindsof Baconianism at work among the early fellows of the Royal Soci-ety.26 Ashmole’s collections and views about Dee reflected one suchkind, however unlikely this might appear at first sight.

We might imagine Ashmole at his desk, with all the relevant pa-pers from his Dee collections well arranged in chronological orderbefore him, as he diligently picks out those that he will use to illus-trate the importance of Dee as an English worthy, or to amendCasaubon’s work, or to compare his weather records with thosein the printed almanacs for the same years. Collecting, comparing,translating, working philologically on texts, compiling indexes, andamending erroneous words, dates and calculations: that was thework of Ashmole, the Baconian-bent antiquary. We can also imag-ine another side to Ashmole. In his study, perhaps with his friendLilly, with whom he had tried to conjure fairies in a crystal ball,he may have attempted to reproduce Dee’s angelic invocations,which he had transcribed as ‘Notes for Practise.’ Here, we embarkon speculation. The only safe conclusion regarding Ashmole’s col-lections and views about John Dee is that they reflected Ashmole’spersonal reading of Bacon, as well as the influences of Backhouseand Oughtred’s circles in which natural philosophy very broadlydefined mingled with antiquarian practices.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, to theLightfoot Fund of the History Faculty of Cambridge University, tothe British Federation of Women Graduates, and to the FondationWiener-Anspach, for funding this research, which I mostly carriedout during my doctoral studies at Cambridge University. I thankScott Mandelbrote and John Morrill for their inspiring comments.I thank the staff of Duke Humfrey’s for letting me consult Ash-mole’s material over and over again since 2000. I thank my anon-ymous reviewers and Jennifer Rampling for making many helpfulrecommendations.

References

Manuscripts

Oxford, Bodleian Library MSS Ashmole 174, 204, 242, 488, 356, 369, 422–424, 430–432, 440, 487–580, 972, 1131, 1142, 1423, 1426, 1440, 1442, 1446, 1451, 1457,1459, 1471, 1486, 1488, 1492, 1788–1790, 1506, 1819 (on Dee); MSS Ashmole36, 178, 180, 184, 185, 240, 243, 321, 339, 368, 421, 423, 770, 784, 826, 972,1131, 1139, 1400, 1447, 1457, 1458, 1463, 1489, 1506, 1731, 1788 (on Societyof Astrologers); MSS Ashmole 339, 391, 394, 421 (on Fiske); MSS Ashmole 121,186, 240, 241, 243, 290, 1501 (on Lilly); MSS Ashmole 176, 240, 242, 350, 423,

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1443, 1489 (on Saunders); MSS Ashmole 137, 186, 242, 339, 423, 1420, 1445(on Wharton); MSS Ashmole 242, 297, 342, 371, 394, 423, 438, 826, 537, 971–972, 1097–1135; MS Rawlinson D.864; MS Wood. F.39 (other).

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