Free Tycho and Kepler by Kitty Ferguson

who was an avid astronomer himself. Wilhelm had commissioned many astronomical instruments, clockworks, and gadgets, and he conducted something like an academy for the advancement of astronomy. Overburdened with affairs of state, he had recently found little opportunity to makeastronomical observations, but when Tycho arrived he set aside all other activities. Wilhelm agreed with Tycho that the nova had been beyond the Moon, though he thought he
had
detected a bit of parallax. He commemorated Tycho’s visit by having a small picture of Tycho painted in the background in his next official portrait.
    From Kassel, Tycho continued to Frankfurt to add to his personal libraryat the famous Frankfurt Book Fair, a long-lived trade fair that was a staple of the medieval intellectual world and still occurs annually. Venturing farther south, he revisited Basel. Peder Oxe, Charles Dançey, Steen Bille, and Johannes Pratensis all had studied at the University of Basel. Tycho was favorably impressed with the mild climate and easy access to scholars in France, Germany, andItaly.
    From Basel Tycho traveled south once again and eventually reached Venice, where more than thirty years later Galileo would astound the Venetian doge and senate with a new invention, a telescope. Tycho was invited to learned gatherings that were part of the lives of rulers of the Venetian republic and which also included scholars from the university in nearby Padua. As both a noblemanand a scholar, he was in his element. In the interest of discovering experts for King Frederick, Tycho probably viewed in person some of the new villas designed by Andrea Palladio in the Veneto, the mainland near Venice. These architectural gems, whether he saw pictures of them or went there himself, made a lasting impression on him.
    When summer ended and before the snows closed the passesthrough the Alps, Tycho journeyed north again to Innsbruck and then to Augsburg, where he had previously spent such enjoyable and profitable months. At Regensburg, not far downriver from Augsburg, he attended the coronation of Rudolph of Hapsburg, a ruler destined to play a significant role in his future. Rudolph was being crowned “King of the Romans,” which made him heir apparent to the Holy RomanEmpire.
    Having considered numerous possibilities during his journey, Tycho decided he would 8 emigrate from Denmark and settle in Basel. On the way home to put his plan in motion, Tycho’s final stop on the Continent was in Wittenberg. There he found university and city astir with news of a religious conflict, an early eruption of a division among Protestants that would later cause great unhappinessfor Johannes Kepler and make working for Tycho Brahe his only option.
    Twenty years earlier, the 1555 Peace of Augsburg had ended a period of widespread religious and political upheaval—or at least much of Europe had hoped it would. According to the treaty, only Catholicism and Lutheranism would be tolerated within the Holy Roman Empire. The present trouble had begun when Augustus, electorof Saxony, discovered that many theologians at Wittenberg were secret followers of another Protestant reformer, John Calvin. Augustus took strong measures. He imprisoned the errant theologians, including Melanchthon’s son-in-law. When Tycho reached Wittenberg, they were still in prison, and friction had developed between Augustus and King Frederick of Denmark.
    Denmark had not been party tothe religious articles of the Peace of Augsburg, and Niels Hemmingsen, the elder scholar who had tipped his hat at Tycho’s lecture, had been instrumental in achieving a consensus in Denmark that made no sharp distinction between Lutheranism and Calvinism. Hemmingsen also had published a work that gave a Calvinist interpretation to the Eucharist, and a similar work had appeared anonymously in Wittenberg.Worse for Denmark, all the imprisoned theologians in Wittenberg admitted that they had obtained their Calvinist ideas from Hemmingsen