The Curious Case of Jan Torrentius
Raphus Press:
Brasilia: 2022
Hardcover, Limited edition, New sans dust jacket as issued,
233 pp.
We’ve always loved Raphus Press and very much approve of their editorial policy. They’ve done a bunch of great stuff. Now, with this book, the production becomes markedly better as well. Sure, they’ve done some very nice books in the past but, this new Brian Howell is a hardcover with headbands and footbands and all the attendant qualities of a thriving small press. So cool! Anyhow, about the book itself: “In 1619, on the cusp of The Thirty Years War, the world-wide movement known as The Rosy Cross is approaching its goal of replacing the established religion of Europe. Frederick V of the Palatinate and Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, are set to become the leaders of this movement, but face strong resistance from both Catholic, Protestant, and national powers. The libertine painter Torrentius, who has become known to Frederick and Elizabeth as the inventor of a device that has military and mystical applications, finds himself pursued on both sides of the religious divide as a result of the clues he has left in one particularly mysterious painting, known to today’s public as Still Life with a Bridle, and his only extant work. By 1629, Torrentius is languishing in prison. Once fêted in the highest social and artistic circles of Hague society for his unusual ability to depict real objects with uncommon accuracy, he is now suspected of belonging to, if not being the head of, a secret society known as the Rosy Cross, having been found guilty of atheism, blasphemy, and heresy. Are his intentions good or is he a threat to civilised society? The story of his pursuit and persecution is told by five voices: diplomat and polymath Constantijn Huygens; inventor and ‘artificer’ Cornelis Drebbel; ambassador and royal agent Dudley Carleton; Elizabeth of Bohemia; and the poet and preacher John Donne. Torrentius’s own contribution is found many years later when Huygens’s famous son, the physicist and astronomer Christiaan Huygens, brings all these accounts together. The Curious Case of Jan Torrentius, hardcover edition limited to 100 copies.” #70424
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