Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2007, Page 134

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5 Historical and philological institutions
only a short time (1687-88; Storm 1873: 208, note 1). The most pro-
ductive amanuensis, and also the one who stayed longest with Torfæus
(1688-1704, apart from a period in 1697/98), was Åsgeir Jonsson. He
had also done some copying for Arni Magnusson before he came to
Stangeland (see Loth 1960b: 210, 212).
From 1688 a personal ffiendship developed between Arni Magnus-
son and Torfæus, and along with it scholarly exchanges which were
of pleasure and value to them both. They wrote to each other fre-
quently,59 and Årni Magnusson also visited Torfæus twice at Stange-
land, in the autumn of 1689 and the winter of 1712/13. Affer Torfæus
died a large number of his hooks and manuscripts ended up with Arni.
Another Icelander who held office in Denmark with responsibility
for Icelandic manuscripts was Hannes Porleifsson, who was appointed
antiquarian in Copenhagen in June 1681. Unfortunately he was not
able to achieve much in this office, because the very summer after he
was appointed he travelled to Iceland to collect manuscripts, but suf-
fered shipwreck on the way back and drowned along with his precious
cargo (see p. 123, note 82).
It is, moreover, known that Danish researchers made use of Icelandic
students in Copenhagen for help with transcription, excerpting and
translation. These positions were not formal ones, and it is therefore
more or less a matter of chance whether they can be documented or not,
but several are known. It was in this way, as assistant to the historian
Thomas Bartholin (1659-1690), that Arni Magnusson discovered his
philological calling.
Private collectors also employed Icelanders. It is known, for exam-
ple, that the important book-collector and member of the Rigsråd, Jør-
gen Seefeld of Ringsted (1594-1662), had an Icelandic amanuensis for
a while (Påll Hallsson).
59 This correspondence has been published by Kr. Kålund, Copenhagen 1916.