Tycho and Kepler (32 page)

Twenty-two years earlier, when he had attended Rudolph’s coronation as King of the Romans in the lead-up to becoming Holy Roman Emperor, Tycho had made a friend of Thaddeus Hagecius, Rudolph’s personal physician. They had continued to correspond over the years during which Hagecius had become one of Rudolph’s most trusted advisors. Hagecius
was one of the men to whom Tycho had written about his Mars parallax observations. Now, by letter, Tycho consulted Hagecius about whom to approach at the court in Prague and how to go about it. Tycho had additional contacts there as well, including the imperial librarian (an acquaintance since student days in Basel) and several Austrian noblemen who had visited Uraniborg. There were
others
not
powerful enough to influence imperial decisions who nevertheless were useful in keeping Tycho well informed.

As the elegant pages of his new
Mechanica
came off the press in the spring of 1598, Tycho had the books bound differently depending on where he planned to send them, some in leather, others in vellum or fine silk with metal clasps. Perspective drawings that painstakingly copied nature
and drew the viewer deep into the picture were the height of artistic fashion in the late sixteenth century, and the thirty-one woodcuts and engravings in Tycho’s book—quite apart from their value in documenting and showing off the wonders of his instruments—were superb examples of this “mannerist” style. Far more than a scientific treatise,
Mechanica
was intended to be the equivalent of a coffee-table
book for the palaces of Europe.

Former assistants who were noblemen were soon carrying opulent copies of
Mechanica
and the star catalog to princes, bishops, archbishops, and other rulers who had valuable contacts in Denmark and Prague. Tycho’s carefully chosen couriers had access to the courts of Europe and could converse comfortably with princes and other rulers about Tycho’s achievements
and stir them to outrage concerning his current tribulations. Franz Tengnagel, the Westphalian nobleman who at the age of nineteen had joined Tycho at Hven in 1595 and remained with him until the day before Tycho left Copenhagen, had rejoined him in exile. Though now only twenty-two years old, Tengnagel was an extraordinarily effective courier. Tycho sent him to Archbishop Elector Ernest of Cologne,
whom Rantzau knew to be a particularly influential cousin of Emperor Rudolph. Not only did Tengnagel win the archbishop’s deepest sympathy and generous promises of assistance for Tycho, but he came away with a gold medallion and a fine riding horse for himself as well.

The archbishop, true to his word, wrote two letters—one addressed to Rudolph, assuring him that “the whole German fatherland”
⁸
would bless him if he granted generous patronage to Tycho Brahe, the “unique and most laudable restorer of the sciences”; the
second
to the emperor’s closest adviser, Johannes Barvitius, pressing Barvitius to facilitate Tycho Brahe’s case. These letters were put into Tycho’s hands so that he could present them himself. Tycho, meanwhile, covered his bases by sending gift books to other parts of
his network. Prince Maurice of Orange promised to try to arrange public support for Tycho in Holland.

At the same time, Tycho was rebuilding his staff. He had kept in touch with many other former assistants besides those he was using as noble couriers, and he wrote to some of these at German universities, inviting them to join him. Wandsburg was on one of the most direct routes from Denmark
to the rest of Europe, and as word spread of Tycho’s new address, many young Danish scholars stopped by for visits. They gave him repeated boosts for his ego and another means of keeping abreast of what was happening all over the Continent, not only in politics but also in the scholarly world.

In early March one such visitor arrived, bringing Tycho two books and a letter. One of the books
raised Tycho’s hackles the moment he saw the author’s name: Ursus, none other than the Nicolaus Reimers Bär who had been such an obnoxious visitor at Uraniborg in 1584 and had caused Tycho so much worry and grief since. Though Ursus had never again been a presence at Tycho’s table or nosing about in his library, he had made a habit of surfacing now and again, claiming Tycho’s planetary system as his
own and referring to Tycho as more astrologer than astronomer and not likely to achieve anything important. Since the scholarly world was well monitored by Tycho’s network of former students and colleagues, none of these incidents escaped Tycho’s ears.

The book that Tycho now held in his hands was even more disturbing. Not only did it attack Tycho as an astronomer and plagiarize his work,
it was also a scurrilous personal assault on him and his family. According to Ursus, Tycho had been forced to leave Denmark because he had committed an atrocious crime. Ursus mocked Tycho’s disfigurement, commenting that Tycho could “discern double-stars
⁹
through
the triple holes in his nose.” Of Tycho’s wife and eldest daughter, Ursus wrote “the daughter . . . was not yet nubile at the time I
was there and so not of much use to me for the usual purpose. But I don’t know whether or not the merry crew of friends who were with me had dealings with Tycho’s concubine or his kitchen-maid.” If there had previously been any question whether Ursus had actually plagiarized Tycho’s system, this book made it clear he had. “Let it be theft,” Ursus jeered, “but it was intellectual. Learn to safeguard
your possessions hereafter.” The book also brought Tycho the chilling news that Ursus was now Rudolph II’s imperial mathematician. Though Tycho could never hold that title himself, because it was too lowly for a nobleman, Ursus clearly stood in his way.

As Tycho leafed through Ursus’s book, he saw that Ursus had included a reprint of a letter from a young scholar in Graz. The name, Johannes
Kepler, meant nothing to Tycho, but the tone of his letter—Kepler had written to Ursus, “The bright glory
¹⁰
of thy fame . . . makes thee rank first among the
mathematici
of our time like the sun among the minor stars”—was enough to ensure eternal enmity between Tycho and this fawning young idiot.

When Tycho put aside Ursus’s book and picked up the second book he had received that day, he found
that by astounding coincidence it was from this same Kepler. The book introduced a new scheme for explaining the planetary orbits using the Platonic solids. The third item Tycho received, the letter, was also from Johannes Kepler, asking Tycho to give his opinion of his book. There were only two possibilities: Either this Kepler lacked the wits to foresee that Ursus’s book would inevitably come
to Tycho’s attention, or else Ursus had published the letter without Kepler’s knowledge or permission.

Tycho did not react by tossing Johannes Kepler’s book into the fire. Instead he looked carefully at the little volume. Tycho disagreed with its espousal of Copernican theory, but the book gave clear evidence of a brilliant mind entirely out of sync with a mind such as Ursus’s. Tycho had experience
judging young talent and knew it when he saw it. He must also have recognized a fellow master of adulatory and not necessarily sincere rhetoric. Here, side by side, were Kepler’s letter in Ursus’s book that praised Ursus as “first among the
mathematici
of our time like the sun among the minor stars,” and Kepler’s letter that called Tycho “the prince of mathematicians
¹¹
not only of our time but
of all times.” Perhaps Tycho was wryly amused that this ranking did, in fact, place him somewhat above Ursus.

The title page of Ursus’s scurrilous book
On Astronomical Hypotheses
.

Tycho concluded that a campaign to discredit and destroy Ursus could no longer be postponed. He wrote to Longomontanus, asking him to try to remember everything he could about Ursus’s visit to Uraniborg and to come to Wandsburg as soon as possible to discuss the matter. He also began to round up copies of Ursus’s book
to burn them. Finally, he set in motion a plan to turn Johannes Kepler’s blunder to his own advantage.

Due to lack of dependable mail or courier service in late-sixteenth-century Europe, though Kepler had sent his book off to Tycho in the late winter of 1598, no news from or concerning Tycho would reach Kepler until the following late autumn. During those beleaguered
months
, when Kepler was
twenty-six, he had many other concerns in addition to who was reading and reacting to his book, but he found the time to pen a whimsical description of himself, in the third person, as a “house dog”:

That man [Kepler] has in every way
¹²
a dog-like nature. His appearance is that of a little house dog. His body is agile, wiry, and well-proportioned. Even his appetites were the same: he liked
gnawing bones and dry crusts of bread, and was so greedy that whatever his eyes chanced on he grabbed; yet, like a dog, he drinks little and is content with the simplest food. His habits were also like a house dog. He continually sought the goodwill of others, was dependent on others for everything, ministered to their wishes, never got angry when they reproved him and was anxious to get back into
their favor. He was constantly on the move, ferreting among the sciences, politics, and private affairs, including the most trivial kind; always following someone else, and imitating his thoughts and actions. He is impatient with conversation but greets visitors just like a dog; yet when the smallest thing is snatched away from him he flares up and growls. He tenaciously persecutes wrong-doers—that
is, he barks at them. He is malicious and bites people with his sarcasms. He hates many people exceedingly and they avoid him, but his masters are fond of him. He has a dog-like horror of baths, tinctures, and lotions. His recklessness knows no limits; yet he takes good care of his life.

Kepler’s relationship with his father-in-law was not going well. “He hurt me with his contempt
¹³
and mocking,”
Kepler wrote, “though my imagination made this problem worse than it was in reality. He wanted to take away or alienate my stepdaughter. I provoked him [all the more] through the intensity of my anger.”

Kepler and Barbara’s first child, Heinrich, had been born on
February 2
. The horoscope Kepler had cast for him promised a life far happier than those of the two previous Heinrich Keplers, Johannes’s
father and brother. The stars suggested that he would be like his father, “only better
¹⁴
, with charm, nobility of character, nimbleness of body and mind, and mathematical and mechanical aptitude.” None of that was to be, for the baby Heinrich lived only two months.

In June Kepler wrote to Mästlin, who had also recently lost his own little son, “Time does not lessen
¹⁵
my wife’s grief, and this
passage [from Ecclesiastes] strikes at my heart: ‘O vanity of vanities, and all is vanity.’” In the same letter Kepler spoke of his increasingly serious misgivings about the religious situation in Graz. The tension between Catholics and Lutherans had been worsening from year to year and was beginning to erupt in open hostility. The present escalation dated from December 1596, the December after
Kepler’s return from his leave in Germany. Archduke Ferdinand II had come of age and assumed rule over Inner Austria, including Styria and Graz. Ferdinand’s father had tolerated Protestants in his lands, but his wife, Ferdinand’s mother, was a fervent Catholic who was appalled by this tolerance, and Ferdinand himself had grown up in Catholic Bavaria and been educated by Jesuits. Protestants feared
that Ferdinand would enforce his rights under the Peace of Augsburg and compel all his subjects to convert to Catholicism.

For the first few months after Ferdinand’s coming of age, those fears began to seem unfounded. However, in the summer of 1598, when Kepler brought the matter up in his letter to Mästlin, Ferdinand was meeting Pope Clement VIII in Rome, and the citizens of Graz were waiting
with trepidation to see what changes might follow. They were right to worry: The Counter-Reformation in Graz was about to begin in earnest.

Kepler watched in despair as his fellow Protestants—buoyed by false confidence because they had so long held the balance of power in their hands—invited their own disaster, openly taunting Catholics, circulating vulgar caricatures of the pope, even mocking
the worship
of
Mary with an obscene gesture from the pulpit. The Catholics retaliated. In the hospitals for the poor, Protestant patients were passed by without treatment. There were new high taxes for Protestant burials. Finally, the Catholic archpresbyter forbade every Lutheran sacrament, including marriage and Communion.

The Lutherans appealed to Archduke Ferdinand, but on September 13
Ferdinand responded with even harsher measures, and this time they affected the Keplers directly. The Lutheran college and all Lutheran church and school ministries would be closed within fourteen days. Ten days later the archbishop banished all Protestant ministers and teachers. They had to be gone from the city before the week was up, on penalty of death.

Again the Lutherans protested and
summoned the assembly of the Estates of Styria. The counselors begged the archduke to repeal his decree. Instead, Ferdinand ordered that all collegiate preachers, rectors, and school employees must not only be out of Styria within the previous deadline, but they must depart Graz and its environs
by nightfall
. Anyone failing to obey would face “the loss of life and limb.” Kepler and the rest of
the faculty at his school hastily packed a few essentials and fled into the country outside the city, leaving their families behind and hoping the archduke would relent. Not one of them other than Kepler was allowed to return.