Abstract

The paper documents the situation of Early Modern scholarship in the Czech Lands through a study of the relatively unknown correspondence of the Breslau physician, member of the Academia naturae curiosorum and chief editor of its journal Miscellanea curiosa Philipp Jakob Sachs von Lewenheimb and the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher with correspondents in the Czech Lands.The intersections of the predominantly Catholic correspondence network of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher with the mainly Protestant specialist correspondence network of the physician Philipp Jakob Sachs von Lewenheimb appear exceptionally interesting and provide information about often less well-known personalities and practices which facilitated the fl ow of information between individual parts of Europe, denominations and social groups around the middle of the seventeenth century.The article also illustrates how the genre of “observationes” and the emergence of scientific journals generally propelled scholarly correspondence not only in the Central European area, and what role was played by professional groups, whether of physicians, printers or others, in mediating information between the Catholic and Protestant parts of Europe.