Tycho and Kepler (29 page)

Kepler continued his letter to Mästlin in a vein that indicates how ambivalent he was about the marriage plans. Barbara’s father and Barbara herself were wealthy. The alliance gave Kepler financial security and brighter prospects. It also chained him to
Graz. He wrote,

It is certain
²³
that I am tied and fettered to this place no matter what becomes of our school. For my bride has properties, friends, and a wealthy father here. It seems that I would not, after a few years, need any salary, if that would suit me. However, I could not leave the land unless a public or private misfortune befell. A public one if the land were no longer safe for
a Lutheran or if it were further pressed by the Turk . . . a personal misfortune if my wife were to die. Thus a shadow hovers over me. Yet I dare not ask more of God than He in these days allots to me.

Kepler reported that the wedding would take place under ominous constellations. The best that could be said was that the stars predicted “a more agreeable than happy marriage, in which, however,
there was love and dignity.”

13

D
IVINE
R
IGHT AND
E
ARTHLY
M
ACHINATION

August 1596–June 1597

THE PREVIOUS AUGUST
, while Johannes Kepler stretched his stay in Germany into its sixth month, Tycho Brahe went to Roskilde Cathedral, location of the belatedly repaired chapel, for the coronation of Christian IV of Denmark. The child whose wishes Tycho had taken too lightly had come of age and was now king. Tycho had
suffered recent social embarrassment over Magdalene’s ill-fated betrothal, but he nevertheless made a splendid showing at the festivities. He wore the golden chains of the Order of the Elephant (a symbol that was prominent in the Chapel of the Magi) and medallions with portraits of two kings. The Brahe family was much in evidence. Tycho’s brother Steen bore the royal orb. All the members of the Rigsraad
held the crown to place it on Christian’s head, symbolizing that the highest power lay not with the king but with the aristocratic oligarchy.

In truth, the old symbolism had almost run its course. A new age was dawning, and it would not benefit Tycho’s relatives or other great noble families. The coronation oration, delivered by Bishop Peter Winstrup, celebrated a philosophy of government
favored by the new king and his closest advisers, that kings rule not by the election or consent of any oligarchy but by divine right. So far that could be
dismissed
as only coronation rhetoric. In the days following the coronation Uraniborg seemed like its old magnificent self again and likely to endure forever, as numerous foreign guests who had come for the festivities visited Tycho. He played
the magnanimous noble host and showed off the splendors of his home. Nevertheless, he and his relatives were watching the new regime with trepidation, braced for possible trouble ahead.

Scarcely a month after the coronation, the ax began to fall. Christian, conflicting philosophies of government notwithstanding, did not have complete power that could be exercised without consulting the Rigsraad,
but one thing that
was
in his power was the transfer of fiefs from one noble to another. As part of a general reorganization, he took the Norwegian fief of Nordfjord from Tycho and gave it to the lord-lieutenant of Bergen.

Several times in the past that same fief had passed out of Tycho’s hands and then been restored to him when he petitioned the crown. He did so now, using the opportunity
to send along a summary of his accomplishments at Uraniborg, a copy of his published astronomical correspondence, and a pamphlet with woodcuts of his instruments. Tycho’s petition spoke of the unfailing support King Frederick II had given this work and mentioned that the old king had intended to endow Uraniborg as a permanent research institute but was prevented by his death from doing so. Tycho
even enclosed a copy of the declaration signed by the Rigsraad promising to advise Christian when he came of age to carry out his father’s will, placing Uraniborg eventually under the leadership of Tycho’s descendants.

In spite of the unsettled political climate, Tycho had good reason to hope that Christian would honor the old king’s wishes and endow Uraniborg permanently. The chancellor to
whom Tycho wrote had paid a pleasant visit to Hven, and his wife was a distant relative. Christian had clearly fallen in love with Uraniborg during his childhood visit. Tycho had, finally, repaired the chapel roof.

However, the nineteen-year-old king was strong-willed, eager to
exercise
his own divine right, and in no mood to respect an expensive promise made so long ago by a father he had
hardly known. He chose to regard Uraniborg as a relic of the past, run by an aging aristocrat who had become too proud and powerful to respond promptly to royal commands, who had too long treated regents and rulers as his equals, who had forgotten how to be adequately deferential.

Christian’s shattering reply came to Tycho through the chancellor in January 1597: Tycho had to surrender the
fief of Nordfjord, and that surrender could not be postponed. The king also did not choose to endow Uraniborg permanently. Though the letter ended politely with the promise that future requests would be received with pleasure, its message was clear. All Tycho’s efforts over many years to secure the future of Uraniborg and his children had come to naught. The documents and assurances he had collected
were as worthless as his peasants’ old claim to own their land on Hven. It counted for nothing with Christian that Tycho had fulfilled his promise to Frederick to bring glory to Denmark, so that people of other nations would come there to “see and learn
¹
that which they could hardly acquire knowledge of in any other place.” Christian’s father had treated Tycho like a well-loved younger brother.
The son regarded him as a wearisome elderly petitioner.

Tycho was not alone in his chagrin. The king and his ministers, to weaken the Rigsraad, used the transfer of fiefs to create animosities among its members and erode the power of the noble families. Tycho’s cousin lost Kronborg Castle and was moved to a castle on the fringe of the kingdom. Erik Lange lost Bygholm, which had already fallen
to ruin because of his insatiable alchemical lust. Tycho’s brother Steen lost Munkeliv Abbey, St. Hans Cloister, and Saebygård, and his income and influence were severely reduced.

On Hven, nothing was as it had been. Two fires broke out in the house, though they were extinguished before doing great damage. The peasants were even more restless and uncooperative than usual. Tycho was short of
assistants. A set of expensive medallions with his portrait
and
the Brahe arms and motto that he had commissioned and intended as gifts to friends turned out to be of inferior quality—a seemingly small matter, but they had been part of his plan to restore his honor.

There had been a time when he could have quickly put minor setbacks behind him, but Tycho was an older man now—not so energetic
and resilient, more defensive, overwhelmed. As the weeks passed, it seemed increasingly that everything was falling apart, and he was too tired to pick up all the pieces. He became more and more irritable and short on patience. Even so, with his income and energies severely reduced, Tycho was unwilling to take the sensible move of cutting back on research and publishing projects. If the goals he
had fought for all his life looked less likely ever to be achieved, that was all the more reason not to let anything drop.

By late winter Tycho’s political and financial position was deteriorating rapidly, and it became abundantly clear that time was running out for his work at Uraniborg and Stjerneborg. He put Longomontanus in charge of rushing the star catalog to completion, expanding it
hurriedly from 777 to 1,000 stars and inscribing the positions of all those stars on the great globe. The work was, of necessity, not up to Tycho’s usual standard of precision and verification. Other assistants had the task of taking an inventory and listing all the books in his library. The immediate plan was to close Uraniborg, move to his mansion in Copenhagen, and set up observatory, laboratory,
and printing press there. Tycho used as an excuse the need to be on the spot while the diet of the nobility considered his breach-of-promise case against Gellius, but he suspected there would be no return.

The last observation recorded on Hven was on March 15, 1597, the date on which Tycho’s annual pension from the crown was discontinued. His assistants had completed listing the books. After
that note, the journal, which had recorded events on Hven and faithfully noted daily weather observations with no break since 1582, fell silent.

Before the move could be completed, a royal patent was issued ordering two royal commissioners, one of whom was Tycho’s brother
Axel
, to investigate several complaints against Tycho: that he had mistreated his villagers, allowed the pastor of St.
Ibb’s to violate the church ordinance of 1539, and committed other unnamed injustices.

The two commissioners found the island in a state of confusion and bustling with activity when they arrived there on April 10. The move to Copenhagen was in progress and did not appear to be temporary. Tycho had packed up everything movable, including the books, his laboratory equipment, printing presses,
the great globe, and all the other instruments except the four great Stjerneborg instruments, which could not be disassembled quickly. The packing continued even while Christian Friis and Axel Brahe were meeting the bailiff, alderman, and others assessing the state of Tycho Brahe’s affairs.

April 11 was clear and fair, and it would have been a fine night for viewing the skies, but by dusk
Tycho and Kirsten and their six children, along with his assistants, the housekeeper, cook, butler, maids, and other servants, had turned their backs on the exquisite house, the Renaissance gardens just coming into bud, and the observatory of Stjerneborg with its silent instruments shut beneath the wooden covers. The company made their way by carriage, cart, and foot down to the little harbor and
sailed away from Hven. Tycho would never again see the house he had designed to reflect the harmony of music or set foot on the soil of the beloved island that had been his home for twenty-one years.

I
N
G
RAZ
, later that same month, on April 27, Johannes Kepler and Barbara Müller were wed in a splendid celebration at Barbara’s own residence.
In spite of Kepler’s less than sanguine mood as the date drew near, the days and weeks that followed were happy for them. Barbara was only twenty-three, two years younger than he. A miniature portrait made at the time (
see color plate section
) shows her looking somewhat older than her age, with lovely, intelligent eyes, a sweet mouth, and a prominent nose. Contemporary descriptions
called
her
pretty and plump. Kepler had grown extremely fond of Barbara’s seven-year-old daughter Regina and treated her as his own child. Barbara was soon expecting another baby.

Not long after the wedding, the first copies of Kepler’s book arrived from the printers. It was a slim volume with a long title:
Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum, Continens Mysterium Cosmographicum, de Admirabili Proportione
Orbium Coelestium, deque Causis Coelorum Numeri, Magnitudinis, Motuumque Periodicorum Genuinis & Proprijs, Demonstratum, per Quinque Regularia Corpora Geometrica
(The Introduction to the Cosmographical Essays, Containing the Cosmographical Mystery of the Marvelous Proportion of the Celestial Spheres, and of the True and Particular Causes of the Number, Size, and Periodic Motions of the Heavens,
Demonstrated by Means of the Five Regular Geometric Bodies). For convenience, that title is usually abbreviated to
Mysterium Cosmographicum
, or simply
Mysterium
. Looking back from old age, Kepler commented that this small book was the point of departure for the path his life would take from that time on.
^fn1
He might justifiably have said the same with regard to its watershed significance for all
of science, for though the polyhedral theory was erroneous, Kepler had been the first, and would be the only, scientist until René Descartes (in the 1630s and ’40s) to insist on physical explanations for celestial phenomena. In the words of Owen Gingerich, “Seldom in history
³
has so wrong a book been so seminal in directing the future course of science.”

Kepler hastened to send copies to other
scholars, requesting their opinions. Galileo Galilei, then teaching at the University of Padua, was not yet well known and perhaps not known at all to Kepler, and
Mysterium
probably came into his hands purely by serendipity through a third person. But Galileo wrote to Kepler
⁴
that though he had read only the preface so far, he was looking forward with pleasure to reading
the
rest. He also mentioned
that he had been a Copernican for some years but not admitted it publicly for fear of the ridicule of his colleagues. In a return letter written in his most exuberant style, Kepler urged Galileo to espouse Copernicanism openly, for “would it not be better
⁵
to pull the rolling wagon to its destination with united effort?” He also begged for Galileo’s opinion of
Mysterium:
“You can believe me, I
prefer a criticism even if sharp from a single intelligent man to the ill-considered approval of the great masses.” Galileo did not reply. There would be no further correspondence between them for thirteen years.