Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654), main author of the Rosicrucian manifestos and propagator of a “second Christian Reformation,” is a central figure in Lutheran orthodoxy and newer movements of piety. He was a prolific writer throughout his life. His correspondence is an expression of his intellectual relationships as a preacher, author, and advisor of August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1579–1666). Today, more than 5,000 letters from and to Andreae are kept in libraries and archives, mainly from the last third of Andreae's life. A city fire at Calw destroyed a large part of the early letters in 1634, during the course of the Thirty Years’ War. Because research has been focused on the young Andreae—and thus on the productive author—his letters have not been examined closely so far.
His early biographer Wilhelm Hossbach judged the importance of Andreae's correspondence mainly on the basis of famous authors among the correspondents (Johann Valentin Andreä und sein Zeitalter [1819], 220–21)—namely, Johann Michael Moscherosch (1601–69) and Georg Philipp Harsdörffer (1607–58). The recent biography by Martin Brecht depicts the unusual relationship between Andreae and his patron August (J. V. Andreae und Herzog August zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg: Briefwechsel [2002]). Andreae served the duke as a book agent as well as a theological and educational advisor, without ever meeting him in person. He exchanged more than 1,200 letters with August. In his study of their correspondence, Brecht explored the rich materials in the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel.
Other important items in the collection include Andreae's correspondences with the theologians Johannes Saubert from Nuremberg, Johann Schmidt from Strasbourg, Tobias Wagner from Esslingen, and Rupertus Meldenius from Augsburg. Most of these letters have been digitized. Stefania Salvadori has inventoried Andreae's correspondence on the basis of the Wolfenbüttel Collection in a project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. About 500 letters have been added to the repertory from other collections, such as the University Library of Basel, the Francke Foundations in Halle, or the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Salvadori's inventory is comprehensive but not entirely complete. For example, letters to Duke Ernst of Saxe-Gotha (1601–75), which are kept in the Gotha State Archives (QQ XII Nr. 45, Bl. 41r/v), are not included.
Salvadori lists the sender, the recipient, their locations, and the languages used—mostly Latin, about one-third German—for each of the 5,152 letters and describes the accompanying material, such as sketches, engravings, or prints. The register concludes with a list of materials not cataloged, such as notes, family records, occasional poetry, fragments, or book lists, mostly from the Wolfenbüttel Collection. For every letter the persons mentioned are named (about 370 altogether), which allows some insight into their content. Furthermore, the extensive index of names gives a first look into the character of the correspondence as an intellectual network. The length of each lemma illustrates how intense individual correspondences were, or how frequently a person was mentioned. Based on this, many research questions can be drafted. Of course, one cannot draw conclusions about historical importance purely on the basis of counted mentions; for example, the forerunner of Pietism, Johann Arndt, does not appear particularly often in Andreae's letters, with only forty mentions. The prominence of Arndt for Andreae's oeuvre cannot be overestimated, though.
The mapping of Andreae's correspondence should be followed up with intensive investigations, like Martin Brecht's evaluation of the ducal correspondence. Since an edition and translation of the overall correspondence will probably not be possible soon, further explorations would be beneficial, such as the correspondence with other orthodox theologians engaged in the movement of piety that lead to Pietism. Quantitative network investigations, such as those exemplarily presented by Hubert Steinke and Martin Stuber for the letter network of Albrecht von Haller (“Haller und die Gelehrtenrepublik,” in Haller: Leben-Werk-Epoche, ed. Steinke et al. [2008], 381–414), could also inspire new research questions concerning Andreae and his learned circles and show where Andreae served the function of a broker in various intellectual constellations, such as theological, aristocratic, and collectors’ networks. With the exact description of Andreae's correspondence, Salvadori has opened up a lot of new possibilities for research and presented an important research tool and finding aid.
