I'm starting to go through the Peter Keith essay looking for places where I still need to add a source and page number, and wow is this harder than I expected.
1. selenak, do you remember where we can find FW's "Teach him to fear his mother, but never me?"
2. We had said that Guy-Dickens was wrong about Fritz's beard growing, because FW had specified that a servant was to shave him. All I can find is this:
Meanwhile, his lackey should be allowed with him; that person should sleep in the city, and food should be gotten for him out of the garrison kitchen for 6 groschen at noon and 4 groschen in the evening.
and
A servant from the guard should bring the prisoner a basin, also a glass of water, to clean himself, and should also carry the waste out of the room, this must not last longer than half a quarter of an hour
Are we sure that's enough time to shave? It's possible, but it's not my first reading. Later on in the second letter, he says the door will be unlocked 3 times a day, and each time it's not to be left unlocked longer than 4 minutes:
Every morning at 8 am it should be unlocked, at which point 2 officers should go in to make sure everything is in order; A servant/lackey ("calfactor") from the guard should bring the prisoner a basin, also a glass of water, to clean himself, and should also carry the waste out of the room, this must not last longer than half a quarter of an hour, then the officers go out, and everything must be locked up again. At noon will food be sent in, as already ordered, and the door be closed up again; in the evening at 6 pm it shall be unlocked again, and something to eat brought in; the dirty spoon and plate will be taken away and again everything locked up; the next morning, when water is brought in, shall the dirty spoon and plate be taken away again, thus the door is unlocked 3 times a day, and each time must last no longer than 4 minutes.
I'm actually thinking that Fritz was allowed his lackey between the time when the first letter was sent (Sep 7) and the second (Sep 19), and the lackey probably shaved him then, but after that, no lackey and no shaving between Sep 19 and the mid-November pardon.
So maybe Guy-Dickens was onto something there?
Second, I see nothing about when his candle should be extinguished each night, here or elsewhere in this set of Küstrin-related documents Preuss prints. Remember the famous story of Fritz's candle being extinguished and then relit by a sympathetic authority figure? There are different variants on what time of night the candle was supposed to be extinguished by FW's order, but all 8 pm or 9 pm that I can remember. (9 pm according to König in 1740, which I consider the most reliable account.) However, FW's instructions to Lepel say the door should be kept well-locked day and night, and the last time it opens is 6 pm. There's nothing about anyone entering at 8 pm or 9 pm; in fact, it's strictly forbidden. So far, the only order about candles I've seen is that they should stop paying for wax candles and only give him tallow candles. Lepel did ask how much light Fritz should be allowed per day, but either FW didn't answer, or Preuss left that part out.
Ugh. Preuss, I am not in a position to go to Berlin and inspect the original order to see if you printed the whole thing or not! And I think it's part of a huge collection of documents that would be much too expensive to order.
3. selenak, can you think of any example of an 18th century kid getting in trouble with their parents for ~not~ learning Latin? It's not necessary, but it would be nice as an example to illustrate just *how* out of step with his times FW was. (I know he was supposed to learn Latin, but by the time he was 10 and could barely read or count, I think his parents had bigger problems than "can't read Latin".)
I'll be back with more questions as I work my way through this insanely long list of claims that need citing!
1.) It's in his letters to Fritz' governors, and yes, you say, "obviously, but where exactly" - don't know by heart, but would advise to check out either Eva Ziebura's books or Christian von Krockow, because I seem to recall they both quote from those FW letters as an example of how his paternal mind worked. (No, I can't check myself right now.)
2.) Shaving: If you're FW or most 18th century noblemen, I'd say "shaving" is included in cleaning your face. I mean, I could be wrong, but this was not a beard friendly era, the occasional moustache not withstanding, and FW was a hygiene partisan who hated Fritz looking sloppy. My instinct is to assume that lackey did shave him.
Candle: Lehndorff tells the story when he visits Küstrin, I think, as he's heard it (i.e. as a urban legend by then). However, Fritz when he writes to Wilhelmine when they're discussing ghosts mentions reading late into the night in candle light and hearing something that turned out to be a rat. Also, while Fritz wasn't allowed to read anything he actually enjoyed, he was allowed and encouraged to read the bible. For which you need artificial light, especially in winter time.
3.) Not in trouble exactly (at least not that Roberts mentions), but young future G3, otherwise a good student, did not like learning Latin and said so. (Or rather wrote so in his notebook, I think.) Of course, he's a generation removed, and it might be worth checking whether there's anything from G2's or Fritz of Wales' school days available. Two generations above Fritz, there is Grandpa F1 who was humiliated by his teacher Danckelmann, having to write "Fritz will always remain an ass" in Latin and German as an exercise and/or punishment for not being good enough in Latin, I have the exact quote in my write up on the F1 biographies at Rheinsberg.
It's in his letters to Fritz' governors, and yes, you say, "obviously, but where exactly"
Well, yes. :)
I will check, thank you. Ziebura is not always great about citing sources precisely, though, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. I haven't found it in the primary source collections I've been looking through, though I haven't checked them all.
2.) Shaving: If you're FW or most 18th century noblemen, I'd say "shaving" is included in cleaning your face. I mean, I could be wrong, but this was not a beard friendly era, the occasional moustache not withstanding, and FW was a hygiene partisan who hated Fritz looking sloppy. My instinct is to assume that lackey did shave him.
True, but...4 minutes max! FW was also super into religion, but when Fritz wanted to attend communion, FW said no, he had to wait. So I'm not 100% sure.
Candle: Lehndorff tells the story when he visits Küstrin, I think, as he's heard it (i.e. as a urban legend by then). However, Fritz when he writes to Wilhelmine when they're discussing ghosts mentions reading late into the night in candle light and hearing something that turned out to be a rat. Also, while Fritz wasn't allowed to read anything he actually enjoyed, he was allowed and encouraged to read the bible. For which you need artificial light, especially in winter time.
I agree he had artificial light, precisely because of the rats at Küstrin story! My question is: was having a candle at 9 pm actually forbidden? To the point where Captain Graurock would have needed to find a loophole to leave him a lit candle after lights-out time? I'm not seeing an order to that effect, so I'm wondering if that story was urban legend already by 1740, as opposed to König getting a more or less accurate version that goes back to Graurock himself.
Two generations above Fritz, there is Grandpa F1 who was humiliated by his teacher Danckelmann, having to write "Fritz will always remain an ass" in Latin and German as an exercise and/or punishment for not being good enough in Latin, I have the exact quote in my write up on the F1 biographies at Rheinsberg.
Good one, thank you! It's two generations earlier, but the culture is similar enough, and F1 related to Fritz closely enough, that it makes sense to include.
I agree he had artificial light, precisely because of the rats at Küstrin story! My question is: was having a candle at 9 pm actually forbidden? To the point where Captain Graurock would have needed to find a loophole to leave him a lit candle after lights-out time? I'm not seeing an order to that effect, so I'm wondering if that story was urban legend already by 1740, as opposed to König getting a more or less accurate version that goes back to Graurock himself.
I had forgotten this story was in Stratemann already, in October 1730! I kind of wonder if there's something about candles in FW's instructions that I either didn't find, or that Preuss isn't telling us.
2.) Shaving: If you're FW or most 18th century noblemen, I'd say "shaving" is included in cleaning your face. I mean, I could be wrong, but this was not a beard friendly era, the occasional moustache not withstanding, and FW was a hygiene partisan who hated Fritz looking sloppy. My instinct is to assume that lackey did shave him.
I have a possible theory to reconcile your excellent points with the fact that FW only allowed 4 minutes max per day to attend to hygiene matters: we're only talking about 6 weeks, Fritz was only 18, and the age at which men need to shave varies widely. And the internet is telling me that some fair-haired men can get away with not shaving much, if at all, until they're 20.
In other words, Fritz may have been at a stage in his life when he wasn't shaving more than once a month anyway, meaning FW may have not had to account for that when dictating the daily regimen.
And you could see how shaving not being part of the regimen could then evolve into rumors about the prisoner's beard growing wildly (coupled with the trope of the wildly bearded prisoner).
I, otoh, have never heard the gloves in winter story. Also as I recall - and of course I could be wrong - it they weren‘t kid cadets but actual soldiers. I think that might be from Seckendorff‘s letter to Eugene about Fritz‘ daily schedule and how he looks like an old man at 12.
Maybe so, but that's not what many of his biographers say:
Asprey:
He put his son into uniform at the age of five. Characteristically, in a day when other princelings wore colonel's rank in the cradle, the Crown Prince of Prussia became a non-commissioned officer charged with drilling a group of nobles his own age.
MacDonogh:
At the age of six, Frederick had his own company of cadets to drill: 131 boys to command at will.
Schieder:
When the Prince was only six years old, the king created a "Crown Prince Cadet Company" for him of a hundred and thirty boys. ("Knaben")
Goldsmith:
When he was five years old a miniature cadet corps was organized for his benefit.
Abbott:
When the child was but six years of age his father organized a miniature soldiers’ company for him, consisting of one hundred lads.
Oster:
When his son was five years old, he named him the colonel of a cadet regiment that consisted of 131 boys. ("Jungen")
Now, the regiment Fritz had that was given to AW in 1730, that was a real regiment. But the one he was given when he was five or six, I haven't found anyone saying that. Blanning doesn't specify the age, but he cites Schieder as his source, so presumably he also means boys.
I'll check Seckendorff when I get the chance, but I don't remember it being in there, and that letter was written 8 years later (at which point I think Fritz had a real regiment).
As for gloves...
Blanning:
It was in 1724 that foreign diplomats began to report incidents of paternal disapproval of what was judged to be "effeminacy"— the wearing of gloves when hunting on a cold day, for example, or the use of a silver three-pronged fork rather than the steel two-pronged implement favored by soldiers.
Lavisse:
He had a terrible scene with his son for wearing gloves at the hunt on a bitter cold day.
Mitford:
He was always in trouble: was beaten for wearing gloves in cold weather.
Oster:
Friedrich Wilhelm needed no great excuse to get physical...It sufficed if the crown prince dared to put on gloves on an ice cold day in the middle of winter.
I suspect the reason you've never encountered the glove story is I suspect 20th and 21st century references go back to Lavisse (Blanning is the only one who gives a citation, and his is Lavisse), and I suspect Lavisse gets it from a French envoy report (probably Rottembourg). As you can see from Oster, the story has entered German scholarship, but I suspect only recently.
I will do some more digging into primary sources as I get the chance. If I could kick this insomnia, it would help! (If not for the insomnia, Fredersdorf would be freaking done by now.)
I don't recall having read either of these in a primary source.
(Blanning mentions the glove thing - hunting trip winter 1724, "disapproval" instead of out-right beating - and sources it to foreign diplomat reports via Lavisse. p. 130 ... checking Lavisse, it's actually page 129/130, and he has one footnote for a whole bunch of anecdotes, which goes back to Seckendorff (via Förster) and Rottenburg. See page 432 in Lavisse, footnote 80. No idea if those actually mention ALL of the anecdotes he recounts (I didn't check Förster).)
... okay, while I was checking that, you already found it yourself - except maybe for Lavisse's footnote?
I'm skipping the soldiers then, the only thing I knew was what Blanning says about the tin soldiers anecdote at exactly that age, not the bit about actual soldiers.
(By the way, in case you were wondering, I did see and bookmark your question re: French archives, but I really can't promise that I'll have the time or inclination to dive into that any time soon.)
I had found Lavisse's footnote long ago, including the fact that he has one footnote for the whole series of anecdotes, which is why I suspect but cannot prove he got the glove story from Rottembourg. I remember ascertaining recently that the only thing in Seckendorff in Förster is Fritz looking like an old man at the age of 12, but I'll double check, since Selena remembers the soldiers maybe being there. (I just remember Seckendorff talking about Fritz's regimental duties wearing him down, but not that he got his first drilling responsibilities at age 5.)
Yeah, I noticed Blanning says lead soldiers. Maybe it's worth tracking that down, though I see his citation is a 1988 German historian, Venohr. Nobody cites primary sources!
(And I will never publish at this rate, because it takes forever to track down all the primary sources. :P)
(By the way, in case you were wondering, I did see and bookmark your question re: French archives, but I really can't promise that I'll have the time or inclination to dive into that any time soon.)
Not to worry! A few days ago, I remembered that the friend I've recently been in touch with speaks better French than I do, and does 17th century French genealogical research (she's Canadian). I asked her to look into it for me (you know me, I'm shameless about asking for favors!), and she confirmed a couple days ago that she couldn't find an online catalogue or even much information. She gave me a very general email address for all correspondence to the archive she *thinks* is the right archive and suggested emailing them. She also thought it was weird that there was so little info and no catalogue in sight, and said some national stereotypes have a kernel of truth!
I've been meaning to mention this.
I'm going to email them and see what happens. Not expecting much other than "If you come to France, you can review the documents in the reading room" or possibly "Yes, we do charge 50 euros a page to scan them for you." But we'll see.
I also remembered that my wife speaks enough Italian to get around Italy, and if after some more dedicated poking at the Florence and Turin archives than my previous half-hearted effort, I can't figure out how to order scans, I've already threatened to enlist her in my shameless asking of favors. :P I would love to see if Karl von Keith's duel is on record with more details, not to mention the other side of the story!
Also, thanks for checking and thanks for your help! I was feeling rather discouraged that of the first 4 Peter Keith citations I grabbed at random from my list of hundreds, 3 I couldn't find. When you pointed me to Kramer, things started looking up again!
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timeasmymeasure
Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-11 01:02 pm (UTC)1.
2. We had said that Guy-Dickens was wrong about Fritz's beard growing, because FW had specified that a servant was to shave him. All I can find is this:
Meanwhile, his lackey should be allowed with him; that person should sleep in the city, and food should be gotten for him out of the garrison kitchen for 6 groschen at noon and 4 groschen in the evening.
and
A servant from the guard should bring the prisoner a basin, also a glass of water, to clean himself, and should also carry the waste out of the room, this must not last longer than half a quarter of an hour
Are we sure that's enough time to shave? It's possible, but it's not my first reading. Later on in the second letter, he says the door will be unlocked 3 times a day, and each time it's not to be left unlocked longer than 4 minutes:
Every morning at 8 am it should be unlocked, at which point 2 officers should go in to make sure everything is in order; A servant/lackey ("calfactor") from the guard should bring the prisoner a basin, also a glass of water, to clean himself, and should also carry the waste out of the room, this must not last longer than half a quarter of an hour, then the officers go out, and everything must be locked up again. At noon will food be sent in, as already ordered, and the door be closed up again; in the evening at 6 pm it shall be unlocked again, and something to eat brought in; the dirty spoon and plate will be taken away and again everything locked up; the next morning, when water is brought in, shall the dirty spoon and plate be taken away again, thus the door is unlocked 3 times a day, and each time must last no longer than 4 minutes.
I'm actually thinking that Fritz was allowed his lackey between the time when the first letter was sent (Sep 7) and the second (Sep 19), and the lackey probably shaved him then, but after that, no lackey and no shaving between Sep 19 and the mid-November pardon.
So maybe Guy-Dickens was onto something there?
Second, I see nothing about when his candle should be extinguished each night, here or elsewhere in this set of Küstrin-related documents Preuss prints. Remember the famous story of Fritz's candle being extinguished and then relit by a sympathetic authority figure? There are different variants on what time of night the candle was supposed to be extinguished by FW's order, but all 8 pm or 9 pm that I can remember. (9 pm according to König in 1740, which I consider the most reliable account.) However, FW's instructions to Lepel say the door should be kept well-locked day and night, and the last time it opens is 6 pm. There's nothing about anyone entering at 8 pm or 9 pm; in fact, it's strictly forbidden. So far, the only order about candles I've seen is that they should stop paying for wax candles and only give him tallow candles. Lepel did ask how much light Fritz should be allowed per day, but either FW didn't answer, or Preuss left that part out.
Ugh. Preuss, I am not in a position to go to Berlin and inspect the original order to see if you printed the whole thing or not! And I think it's part of a huge collection of documents that would be much too expensive to order.
3.
I'll be back with more questions as I work my way through this insanely long list of claims that need citing!
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-11 04:40 pm (UTC)2.) Shaving: If you're FW or most 18th century noblemen, I'd say "shaving" is included in cleaning your face. I mean, I could be wrong, but this was not a beard friendly era, the occasional moustache not withstanding, and FW was a hygiene partisan who hated Fritz looking sloppy. My instinct is to assume that lackey did shave him.
Candle: Lehndorff tells the story when he visits Küstrin, I think, as he's heard it (i.e. as a urban legend by then). However, Fritz when he writes to Wilhelmine when they're discussing ghosts mentions reading late into the night in candle light and hearing something that turned out to be a rat. Also, while Fritz wasn't allowed to read anything he actually enjoyed, he was allowed and encouraged to read the bible. For which you need artificial light, especially in winter time.
3.) Not in trouble exactly (at least not that Roberts mentions), but young future G3, otherwise a good student, did not like learning Latin and said so. (Or rather wrote so in his notebook, I think.) Of course, he's a generation removed, and it might be worth checking whether there's anything from G2's or Fritz of Wales' school days available.
Two generations above Fritz, there is Grandpa F1 who was humiliated by his teacher Danckelmann, having to write "Fritz will always remain an ass" in Latin and German as an exercise and/or punishment for not being good enough in Latin, I have the exact quote in my write up on the F1 biographies at Rheinsberg.
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-11 04:51 pm (UTC)Well, yes. :)
I will check, thank you. Ziebura is not always great about citing sources precisely, though, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. I haven't found it in the primary source collections I've been looking through, though I haven't checked them all.
2.) Shaving: If you're FW or most 18th century noblemen, I'd say "shaving" is included in cleaning your face. I mean, I could be wrong, but this was not a beard friendly era, the occasional moustache not withstanding, and FW was a hygiene partisan who hated Fritz looking sloppy. My instinct is to assume that lackey did shave him.
True, but...4 minutes max! FW was also super into religion, but when Fritz wanted to attend communion, FW said no, he had to wait. So I'm not 100% sure.
Candle: Lehndorff tells the story when he visits Küstrin, I think, as he's heard it (i.e. as a urban legend by then). However, Fritz when he writes to Wilhelmine when they're discussing ghosts mentions reading late into the night in candle light and hearing something that turned out to be a rat. Also, while Fritz wasn't allowed to read anything he actually enjoyed, he was allowed and encouraged to read the bible. For which you need artificial light, especially in winter time.
I agree he had artificial light, precisely because of the rats at Küstrin story! My question is: was having a candle at 9 pm actually forbidden? To the point where Captain Graurock would have needed to find a loophole to leave him a lit candle after lights-out time? I'm not seeing an order to that effect, so I'm wondering if that story was urban legend already by 1740, as opposed to König getting a more or less accurate version that goes back to Graurock himself.
Two generations above Fritz, there is Grandpa F1 who was humiliated by his teacher Danckelmann, having to write "Fritz will always remain an ass" in Latin and German as an exercise and/or punishment for not being good enough in Latin, I have the exact quote in my write up on the F1 biographies at Rheinsberg.
Good one, thank you! It's two generations earlier, but the culture is similar enough, and F1 related to Fritz closely enough, that it makes sense to include.
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-16 10:46 pm (UTC)I had forgotten this story was in Stratemann already, in October 1730! I kind of wonder if there's something about candles in FW's instructions that I either didn't find, or that Preuss isn't telling us.
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-03-27 11:59 am (UTC)I have a possible theory to reconcile your excellent points with the fact that FW only allowed 4 minutes max per day to attend to hygiene matters: we're only talking about 6 weeks, Fritz was only 18, and the age at which men need to shave varies widely. And the internet is telling me that some fair-haired men can get away with not shaving much, if at all, until they're 20.
In other words, Fritz may have been at a stage in his life when he wasn't shaving more than once a month anyway, meaning FW may have not had to account for that when dictating the daily regimen.
And you could see how shaving not being part of the regimen could then evolve into rumors about the prisoner's beard growing wildly (coupled with the trope of the wildly bearded prisoner).
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-11 05:22 pm (UTC)Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-11 05:48 pm (UTC)Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-12 12:29 am (UTC)* Fritz getting a company of kid cadets to drill at age 5/6
* FW beating Fritz for wearing gloves in winter
?
I've seen these claims a million times, but never with an indication where they're from.
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-12 05:26 am (UTC)Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-12 01:31 pm (UTC)Asprey:
He put his son into uniform at the age of five. Characteristically, in a day when other princelings wore colonel's rank in the cradle, the Crown Prince of Prussia became a non-commissioned officer charged with drilling a group of nobles his own age.
MacDonogh:
At the age of six, Frederick had his own company of cadets to drill: 131 boys to command at will.
Schieder:
When the Prince was only six years old, the king created a "Crown Prince Cadet Company" for him of a hundred and thirty boys. ("Knaben")
Goldsmith:
When he was five years old a miniature cadet corps was organized for his benefit.
Abbott:
When the child was but six years of age his father organized a miniature soldiers’ company for him, consisting of one hundred lads.
Oster:
When his son was five years old, he named him the colonel of a cadet regiment that consisted of 131 boys. ("Jungen")
Now, the regiment Fritz had that was given to AW in 1730, that was a real regiment. But the one he was given when he was five or six, I haven't found anyone saying that. Blanning doesn't specify the age, but he cites Schieder as his source, so presumably he also means boys.
I'll check Seckendorff when I get the chance, but I don't remember it being in there, and that letter was written 8 years later (at which point I think Fritz had a real regiment).
As for gloves...
Blanning:
It was in 1724 that foreign diplomats began to report incidents of paternal disapproval of what was judged to be "effeminacy"— the wearing of gloves when hunting on a cold day, for example, or the use of a silver three-pronged fork rather than the steel two-pronged implement favored by soldiers.
Lavisse:
He had a terrible scene with his son for wearing gloves at the hunt on a bitter cold day.
Mitford:
He was always in trouble: was beaten for wearing gloves in cold weather.
Oster:
Friedrich Wilhelm needed no great excuse to get physical...It sufficed if the crown prince dared to put on gloves on an ice cold day in the middle of winter.
I suspect the reason you've never encountered the glove story is I suspect 20th and 21st century references go back to Lavisse (Blanning is the only one who gives a citation, and his is Lavisse), and I suspect Lavisse gets it from a French envoy report (probably Rottembourg). As you can see from Oster, the story has entered German scholarship, but I suspect only recently.
I will do some more digging into primary sources as I get the chance. If I could kick this insomnia, it would help! (If not for the insomnia, Fredersdorf would be freaking done by now.)
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-12 01:38 pm (UTC)(Blanning mentions the glove thing - hunting trip winter 1724, "disapproval" instead of out-right beating - and sources it to foreign diplomat reports via Lavisse. p. 130 ... checking Lavisse, it's actually page 129/130, and he has one footnote for a whole bunch of anecdotes, which goes back to Seckendorff (via Förster) and Rottenburg. See page 432 in Lavisse, footnote 80. No idea if those actually mention ALL of the anecdotes he recounts (I didn't check Förster).)
... okay, while I was checking that, you already found it yourself - except maybe for Lavisse's footnote?
I'm skipping the soldiers then, the only thing I knew was what Blanning says about the tin soldiers anecdote at exactly that age, not the bit about actual soldiers.
(By the way, in case you were wondering, I did see and bookmark your question re: French archives, but I really can't promise that I'll have the time or inclination to dive into that any time soon.)
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-12 01:59 pm (UTC)Yeah, I noticed Blanning says lead soldiers. Maybe it's worth tracking that down, though I see his citation is a 1988 German historian, Venohr. Nobody cites primary sources!
(And I will never publish at this rate, because it takes forever to track down all the primary sources. :P)
(By the way, in case you were wondering, I did see and bookmark your question re: French archives, but I really can't promise that I'll have the time or inclination to dive into that any time soon.)
Not to worry! A few days ago, I remembered that the friend I've recently been in touch with speaks better French than I do, and does 17th century French genealogical research (she's Canadian). I asked her to look into it for me (you know me, I'm shameless about asking for favors!), and she confirmed a couple days ago that she couldn't find an online catalogue or even much information. She gave me a very general email address for all correspondence to the archive she *thinks* is the right archive and suggested emailing them. She also thought it was weird that there was so little info and no catalogue in sight, and said some national stereotypes have a kernel of truth!
I've been meaning to mention this.
I'm going to email them and see what happens. Not expecting much other than "If you come to France, you can review the documents in the reading room" or possibly "Yes, we do charge 50 euros a page to scan them for you." But we'll see.
I also remembered that my wife speaks enough Italian to get around Italy, and if after some more dedicated poking at the Florence and Turin archives than my previous half-hearted effort, I can't figure out how to order scans, I've already threatened to enlist her in my shameless asking of favors. :P I would love to see if Karl von Keith's duel is on record with more details, not to mention the other side of the story!
Re: Citation questions
Date: 2025-02-12 02:16 pm (UTC)