Suggestions for playing a "wizardcore" epistolary, academic-research Adventure?

To introduce the situation, a friend and me fell in fascination with Ars Magica, in particular its magic system and, even more, the academical-research aspect. The different rules for writing a thesis, researching a topic, experimenting with the creation of new sorcerous wonders... Therefore, we decided that, if we managed to play it, we would have played it focusing on the "scientific-philosophical" aspect. Basically, as wizards pondering their orbs and their bubbling alembics while muttering formulas around a magic altar, while creating new spells and studying different topics of the universe. Though, reality kicked in, and I personally thought we could... Manage to play if we tried it as an epistolary game. As each of us doing their solo session wandering in a village, observing their problems or spending his season of arcane experiments, then writing a letter to the rest of the coven to narrate how the season went. A series of corrispondences like those between far away monks. Therefore, I am asking ... Did anyone else try an epistolary game? Do you have homebrew rules, suggestions for rules to change-remove, other RPGs you used to complete the system or to simplify it for such a peculiar adventure...?