positioned himself on the route where van Heeck habitually passed and attacked him while he was alone. Van Heeck fell from his horse but fended off his attacker with a sword. Still bleeding from his injuries, he was brought before the magistrate. Despite his plea of self-defense, he was imprisoned. The apothecary later died of his wounds, and van Heeck would have been left to rot in prison if he had not been released through the intervention of Prince Federico Cesi, who sent Francesco Stelluti to get him out of prison and then invited him to his house in Rome. The period when Cesi, van Heeck and Stelluti lived together after van Heeck's release from prison was one of an intense exchange of ideas and the shaping of plans, which led to the idea of forming a mutual-instruction society. Accademia dei Lincei This close partnership between Cesi, van Heeck and Stelluti soon led to their founding the Accademia dei Lincei, together with Anastasio de Filiis, on 17 August 1603. There is no doubt that van Heeck played a key role in the conception and organization of the academy. He was the most experienced, educated and famous member of the group, and he clearly took the lead in many of its ventures, though he was the second youngest among them. Like all its members, he adopted a pseudonym ("Illuminato"), an emblem (a quarter-moon illuminated by a triangle from the sun) and the motto "A Patre luminum" ('from the father of lights'). It was van Heeck who chose as the academy's patron saint John the Baptist, the apostle of arcane visions. He also drafted its articles of association and devised its ceremonial. Van Heeck referred to the Accademia as 'the most sagacious investigators of the secrets of nature, and dedicated to the Paracelsan disciplines' – indicating thereby that like the Swiss physician, they believed that empirical observation was essential for developing an understanding of the world, rather than reliance on established scholarly authorities. There has been speculation that the connections between the Accademia's members were not confined to the intellectual sphere, and, specifically in the case of the relationship between Federico Cesi and Johannes van Heeck, that they were probably sexual in nature. Travels in Europe In the spring of 1604, Prince Cesi's father the Duke of Acquasparta was so concerned about the activities of the Accademia dei Lincei and what he