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

Artykuł stanowi propozycję uporządkowania zagadnień związanych z dużym zróżnicowaniem przekazów rękopiśmiennych funkcjonujących razem pod nazwą „przepowiedni elekcyjnej”, przypisywanej Jerzemu Joachimowi Retykowi. Autor proponuje model pokazujący, w jaki sposób oryginalny, niezachowany do dnia dzisiejszego w postaci autografu tekst „przepowiedni”, po wprowadzeniu do obiegu rękopiśmiennego za sprawą korespondencji i wykonywanych licznie odpisów, ulegał procesom kontaminacji i interpolacji, przy jednoczesnym kształtowaniu się tradycji wernakularnych tego tekstu. Procesy te zostały zilustrowane w aneksach źródłowych zawierających edycje przekazów w języku łacińskim, polskim i niemieckim.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. The author proposed to apply a model showing how the original text of the “prophecy,” the autograph of which has not been preserved to this day, underwent contamination and interpolation after being introduced into manuscript circulation through correspondence and numerous copies, while at the same time serving as the basis for the creation of vernacular traditions of the text. These processes are depicted in source materials annexed to the paper, containing editions of accounts in Latin, Polish, and German.

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.