HERMETIC AND ROSICRUCIAN CHRONOLOGY by Paul Smith

c308
The Christian poet Lactantius wrote of Hermes Trismegistus as a veritable prophet of Christ. In his Divine Institutes he wrote: "Trismegistus, who by some means or other searched into almost all truth, often described the excellence and the majesty of the Word".
1460
Brother Leonardo of Pistoia brings the Greek Manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum from Macedonia to the ruler of Florence, Cosimo de Medici, knowing that he was a serious collector of Greek Manuscripts.
1463
Marsilio Ficino of the Florence Academy translates into Latin the newly discovered Corpus Hermeticum at the insistence of Cosimo de Medici – fourteen tracts which he entitled Pimander (from the Greek, possibly meaning "Shepherd of Men"). This was responsible for the revival of Neoplatonism in Renaissance Europe. Hermes Trismegistus was identical to the Egyptian Deity Thoth, the god of learning, medicine and the revealer of Divine Will to men.
1471
Ficino’s Pimander published for the first time – going through sixteen editions during the 16^th century.
1486 
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola writes his Oration On The Dignity Of Man as an introduction to 900 Theses to be debated in Florence (inspired by the Hermetic text Asclepius, available throughout the Middle Ages in Latin and attributed to Apuleius of Madaura before the arrival of the Greek Pimander).
1505
Lefevre d’Etapes brought out in France for the first time in one volume Ficino’s Pimander, and the Asclepius, which also included Ludovico Lazarelli’s Crater Hermetis (written before 1494 and modelled upon Corpus Hermeticum IV, which describes the passing on of divine knowledge from Master to Disciple).
1517
Martin Luther published in Latin 95 propositions against the sale of indulgencies by the Dominican Johann Tetzel, nailed to the church door at Wittenberg Castle. Luther’s Heraldic Device contained the Rose and the Cross. In his Table Talk, "Mysterium Sigilli D(octors) M(artini) L(utheri)" is the following:

1520
Martin Luther published three works attacking the supremacy of the Pope and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, calling for a reformation, later publicly burning the Pope’s response.
1521
Martin Luther excommunicated.
1521
Henry VIII gains the title ‘Defender of the Faith’ from the Pope following his authorship of the pamphlet The Defence Of The Seven Sacraments, attacking Martin Luther.
1530
Henry VIII declared himself ‘Protector and Only Supreme Head of the English Church’.
1536-1539…
Dissolution of the Monasteries – Henry VIII burnt both Protestants and Catholics who refused to take the Oath of Supremacy.
1549
French translation of the Corpus Hermeticum dedicated to Cardinal Charles de Lorraine.
1554
Turnebus, the French Catholic scholar, first published the Greek edition of the Corpus Hermeticum in France, including Ficino’s Latin translation, with a Preface by Vergerius, which emphasised the resemblance between Hermetism and Christianity, stating that Hermes the Egyptian lived before Pharaoh and Moses (that the writings of Hermes Trismegistus were considered to be more ancient than Plato or Moses can be demonstrated by the pavement in Siena Cathedral, which depicts Moses standing before the figure of Hermes Trismegistus).
1563
The Thirty-Nine Articles – basis for the creation of the Church of England: turning Catholics into traitors and radical Protestants into Puritans.
1564
Dr John Dee, Astrologer Royal to Queen Elizabeth I, published his Monas Hieroglyphica in Antwerp, dedicated to the Emperor Maximilian II. Reportedly to have been written in 13 days between 13^th January to 25^th January,1564.
* Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor (from 1564), King of Bohemia (1562) and Hungary (1563) had a liberal attitude towards religion and permitted an interval of peace between Catholics and Protestants in Germany following the first struggles of the Reformation. A Humanist and sympathiser of Lutheranism, his brother was Archduke Charles of Austria, who had planned to marry Queen Elizabeth I.
1569
Henry of Navarre, brought up a strict Protestant, recognised as the Huguenot leader of France. Later to be regarded as the Messiah of the Protestant and Lutheran mystics.
1581
Philippe Du Plessis Mornay (surnamed the Pope of the Huguenots), De La Verite De La Religion Chretienne, dedicated to Henry of Navarre, reflecting Protestant interest in Hermetism. Mornay, attached to the King of Navarre, was dispatched by him with most important missions to England, being successful when sent as ambassador to Queen Elizabeth I. Mornay was Sir Philip Sidney’s favoured theologian, and he translated most of Mornay’s book into English prior to his death, it being completed by Arthur Golding, published in 1587 as a Worke Concerning The Trewnesse Of The Christian Religion, dedicated to the Earl of Leicester.
1583
Dr John Dee and his associate Edward Kelley in Prague, in the company of the Emperor Rudolph II (the son of Maximilian II).
1586
Birth of Johann Valentin Andreae at Wurttemberg, a state that closely adjoined the Palatine, coming from a very distinguished Swabian family. The Andreae Coat-of-Arms includes a St Andrews Cross and Roses.
1586
Alleged meeting at Luneburg (Hanover) between the representatives of the King of Navarre, the King of Denmark and the Queen of England, on 27^th July, intending to form a Protestant League of Defence against the Catholic League, which was working at preventing the accession of Henry of Navarre to the Throne of France, calling itself the ‘Confederation Militiae Evangelicae’, according to Simon Studion’s Naometria (1604).
1586-1588
Giordano Bruno University Teacher at Wittenberg, preaching the coming of a magical reform movement politically associated with Henry of Navarre. Bruno described German scholars as being the builders of the Temple of Wisdom, eulogising Martin Luther at his former University. The Inquisition claimed at Bruno’s Trial, that he intended to form a new sect under the name of "Giordanisti", appealing particularly to the Lutherans in Germany (Bruno was burnt at the stake as a heretic in 1660).
1589
Dr John Dee meets H. Khunrath at Bremen in Germany.
1593
The former Henry of Navarre (1572-89), now Henry IV, the first Bourbon King of France (1589-1610), permanently renounced Protestantism and entered the Roman Catholic Church.
1597
According to Robert Naunton, writing to the Earl of Sussex, Henry IV celebrated the Eleusinian mysteries under the name of "Vitellus" that Easter, and further commenting "But these Eleusina Sacra are nowe growen to be miseries not to be told in Gath no wise".
1597
Passages from a diary by Martin Crusius (the Preceptor of Simon Studion at Tubingen University), hinting at the origins of Rosicrucian ideology.
1598
Edict of Nantes: granting of tolerance to the Huguenots by Henry IV of France.
1601
Johann Valentin Andreae enters Tubingen University, where he meets the following personalities:
Christoph Besold (1577-1638):
Professor of Law. Had detailed knowledge of Islamic culture and Philosophy. Read Arabic and Hebrew. Also had knowledge of the Humanists and Neoplatonists of the Renaissance period. Author of Signs of the Times (1614).
Martin Crusius (1526-1607):
Professor of Greek. Wrote on Byzantine History. Translated Homer into Latin. Wrote a Latin treatise on the Heavenly Jerusalem. Connected with a Historical Calendar of Wurttemberg. His Turco-Graeca was published in 1584 and his Swabian Chronicle in 1733.
1603
Coronation of James I of England, who derived his royal descent from Brute, King of all Britons, and as such founder of a pedigree more ancient to that offered by the Tudors or Stuarts. The Irish author Walter Quin, referring to James I, wrote the following lines:

"…Arthur I am, of Britain King,

Come by good right to claim my seat and throne,

My kingdom severed to rejoin in one,

To mend what is amiss in everything".

1604
Frederick I, Duke of Wurttemberg invested with the Order of the Garter, conferred on him in Stuttgart by a special embassy from James I.
1604
Simon Studion’s unpublished Latin manuscript Naometria ("Measurement of the Temple"), A Naked and Prime Opening of the Book Written – Within and Without – By The Key of David and the Reed Like Unto a Rod (cf. Revelation XI). Divided into 2 parts and 4 sections, consisting of a dialogue between "Nathaniel" and "Cleophas", having a crudely shaped rose design with a cross in the centre, containing 1790 pages with the dedication to the Duke of Wurttemberg adding yet another 205 pages. Its author was particularly interested in the dates in the life of Henry of Navarre, believing that the Prophet of Islam was the spiritual son of the Pope, predicting that the last Pope would be crucified by the Duke of Wurttemberg in 1612 and that the Second Coming would occur in the year 1620.
Simon Studion (1543-1606)
Worked as a Lutheran Pastor at Marbach outside Stuttgart. He attained a reputation as an academic poet, once having written a poem for the funeral of Jacob Brenz, the Lutheran Theologian, in 1570. Studion collected precious stones and monuments, displayed in Stuttgart Library.
1609
Redaction copy in Tubingen University of Cabala Mystica – The Book Of Sacred Magic, attributed to Abraham ben Simeon of Worms, describing a journey undertaken by him in 1397 through Bavaria, Tyrol and Hungary to Constantinople, and from there to kabbalists and magicians in Palestine into Arabia accompanied by a Christian youth, Christoph – possible literary model for the development of the character of Christian Rosencreutz.
1609
H. Khunrath, The Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom (completed by Erasmus Wolfurt), which reproduced Dee’s Monad and emphasised the symbolism of the microcosm and the macrocosm. Containing a correspondence between Jesus Christ and the Philosopher’s Stone, this work by Khunrath was held in high esteem by Lutherans, who referred to him in their writings.
1610
Henry IV of France assassinated by a religious fanatic whilst in the process of planning an invasion into Germany in an attempt to weaken Habsburg power.
1610
Frederick I, Duke of Wurttemberg, died.
1612
King James I of England joins the Union of Protestant Princes.
1613
Trajano Boccalini, great admirer of Henry IV, died.
1613
The devout Calvinist, Frederick V, Elector of Palatine, marries the devout Anglican Elizabeth, daughter of King James I of England.
1614
The philologist Isaac Casaubon accurately dated the Corpus Hermeticum to the 2^nd-3^rd centuries AD, noting that it had been unknown to scholars before that period, in his De Rebus Sacris Et Ecclesiaticis Exercitiones XVI, dedicated to King James I of England.
1614
Universal and General Reformation of the Whole Wide World; Together with the Fama Fraternitatis of the Laudable Fraternity of the Rosy Cross, Written to All the Learned and Rulers of Europe; Also a Short Reply sent by Herr Haselmayer, for which he was seized by the Jesuits and put in Irons on a Galley. Now put forth in Print and Communicated to All True Hearts (in German).
* The Universal and General Reformation was a translation of a chapter from the Ragguagli Di Parnasso (1612) of Trajano Boccalini.
* The Fama told the story of a certain German, Brother RC, who had visited Damcar and travelled many years in Arabia and there learnt all kinds of secrets; and had translated the BOOK M from Arabic into Latin. On his return to Germany, Brother RC founded an Order dedicated to the healing of the sick and to teaching, based at the "House of the Holy Spirit". The author of the Fama claimed that the uncorrupted body of Brother RC had been discovered by a "good architect", beneath a round altar holding a parchment of the BOOK T, within a 7-sided vault illuminated by an inner sun. On the door to the vault was the inscription: "After 120 years I will reappear".
1615
A Brief Consideration of the More Secret Philosophy written by Philip A Gabella, a Student of Philosophy, now Published for the First Time together with the Confession of the RC Fraternity (in Latin).
* A Brief Consideration was based upon Dr John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica (1564). On the verso of the title page was the passage "God give thee of the dew of heaven and of the fatness of the land. Genesis 27", which was also on the title page of Dee’s work.
* The Confessio revealed that Brother RC was born in 1378 and lived for 106 years, meaning that the 7-sided vault was discovered in 1604.
1616
Chemical Wedding Of Christian Rosencreutz. Anno 1459.
* An alchemical romance divided into 7 days where the identity of Brother RC was revealed as Christian Rosencreutz. Dee’s Monad reproduced within its text.  
* In his autobiography Vita Ab Ibso Conscripta, the Lutheran theologian Johann Valentin Andreae wrote: "In contrast (to my writings that perished), the Chemical Wedding survived, with its foetus fruitful of monsters, a fantasy, which you may wonder was evaluated and interpreted with subtle ingenuity by some people, foolishly enough, in demonstration of the inanity of the curious". Andreae claimed to have written it around 1605 when nineteen.
1616
Andreas de Valentina, Turbo: mentions Naometria by name and lampoons its followers (Act Four, Scene Four).
1617
Johann Valentin Andreae, Menippus: attacking the Rosicrucian Fraternity, which was "only a fantasy for the curious, in which those who have tried to follow an artificial and unaccustomed path, instead of the true and simple way of Christ, have been deceived".
1618
Frederick V, Elector of Palatine and Head of the Union of the German Protestant Princes (formed to counteract the League of Catholic Princes), elected King of Bohemia in revolt against the Catholic and Habsburg King, precipitating the Thirty Years War.
1618-1620
Formation of The Christian Society by Johann Valentin Andreae, which was devoid of any esoteric content, disappearing soon afterwards.
1619
Christian Mythology, published anonymously, but the dedication is signed by Andreae, dated 18^th October, 1618.
The work described the Rosicrucians as "an admirable Fraternity which plays comedies throughout Europe". The work also contains a possible reference to Andreae’s early involvement with Rosicrucian ideology in a dialogue between Philalethes ("Lover of Truth") and Alethea ("Truth").
Alethea states:
"I have nothing whatever to do with it (the RC Fraternity). When it came about, not a long time since, that some of the literary stage were arranging a play scene of certain ingenious parties, I stood aside as one looks on, having regard to the fashions of the age which seizes with avidity on new-fangled notions. As spectator, it was not without a certain quality of zest that I beheld the battle of the books and marked subsequently an entire change of actors. But seeing that at present the theatre is filled with altercations, with a great clash of opinions, that the fight is carried on by vague hints and malicious conjectures, I have withdrawn myself utterly that I may not be involved in so dubious and slippery a concern".
1619
Johann Valentin Andreae, Turris Babel Sive Judicorum de Fraternitate Rosaceae Crucis Chaos:
Mentions Naometria and attacked Rosicrucians. Fame personified states:
"Men have been deceived enough and indeed more than enough: it is time now to set free those who are bound, to confirm the wavering and make the sick whole. Woe is me, O Mortals, from this Fraternity there is nothing left to look for. The comedy is played. Fame erected, Fame demolishes; Fame asserted, Fame denies".
1619
Johann Valentin Andreae, Christianopolis:
his Utopia, a city closed to "impostors who falsely call themselves Brothers of the Rose Cross".
1620
Johann Valentin Andreae, De Curiositatis Pernicie Syntagma:
Containing the statement, "unless I am mistaken, the fantasy of the Rosicrucian Fraternity is the heart and the scandal of occultism in our time".
1620
Frederick V totally defeated by the Catholic armies of the Duke of Bavaria at the Battle of the White Mountain, consolidating the Habsburg domination over Europe and annihilating Protestant resistance.
1621
German Print depicting Frederick V on a "Pythagorean Y", with the explanatory verse:

"The round wooden ball (under the "Y") represents the world

To which the Bohemians married the Palatine,

They expected to teach the world,

And to reform all schools, churches, and law courts,

And to bring everything to the state

In which Adam found it

And even to my state, Saturn’s,

And this was called the golden time,

To that end the high society of the Rosicrucians

Wish to turn all the mountains into gold for their own good".

1634
Extract from the Will of Johann Valentin Andreae, dated 23^rd November:
"I never belonged or could belong to any (religion) except the Evangelical-Lutheran faith…I abhore…the spiritual delusions of all fanatics and every sect who, both by way of its meaning and through disputes, distance themselves from the innocence of the Holy Scriptures. In my writings, I reject anything contained therein which smacks of exaggeration emanating from youthful impulsiveness, or anything that is offensive".
False passage attributed to Andreae’s Will:
"Though I now leave the Fraternity itself, I shall never leave the true Christian Fraternity, which, beneath the Cross, smells of the rose, and is quite apart from the filth of this century".

ADDENDUM 
HERALDIC DEVICE OF MARTIN LUTHER

Described by Martin Luther in a letter to M. Spengler dated 8^th July 1530:

"There is first to be a cross, black (and placed) in a heart, which should be of its natural colour, so that I myself would be reminded that faith in the Crucified saves us. Even though it is a black cross, (which) mortifies and (which) also should hurt us, yet it leaves the heart in its (natural) colour (and) does not ruin nature; that is (the cross) does not kill but keeps (man) alive…such a heart is to be in the midst of a white rose, to symbolise that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace; in a word it places the believer into a white joyful rose; for (this faith) does not give peace and joy as the world gives and, therefore, the rose is to be white and not red, for white is the colour of the spirits and of all the angels. Such a rose is to be in a sky-blue field, (symbolising) that such joy in the Spirit and in faith is a beginning of the future heavenly joy; it is already a part (of faith), and is grasped through hope, even though not yet manifest. And around this field is a golden ring, (symbolising) that in heaven such blessedness lasts forever and has no end, and in addition is precious beyond all joy and goods, just as gold is the most valuable and precious metal".