Kepler's Witch (20 page)

Once in Prague, the Jesuits founded a new university, the Clementinum, which, like all Jesuit schools, grew quickly and attracted political influence. The already existing university, the Carolinum, founded in 1348 by the emperor Charles IV, had become the seat of Utraquist doctrine, and from there it had opened to all the other new theologies, and so the Catholics needed a university of their own. After the arrival of the Jesuits, however, the initiative that had once belonged to the Protestants shifted to the Catholics. Meanwhile, the Habsburgs battled one another over the question. Maximilian II, Rudolf's father, like Rudolf himself, was a Renaissance man. Theological niceties bored him, and what he wanted most was peace, so he oscillated between one stand and the next. When Rudolf II became emperor in 1576, he followed his father's example, but under pressure from the growing Catholic faction, led by his mother, he invited the Capuchins into the city to join the Jesuits, and so the Counter-Reformation began to grow. Suddenly, new antagonisms gestated between the emperor and his people, just as they had done in Graz while Kepler was there.

In 1602, two years after Kepler arrived, the emperor declared that only Catholics and Utraquists could live in the land of Bohemia. What was Kepler to do? Was his position once again in jeopardy? Would he be forced out, as had happened in Graz? None of these things happened, however. The hammer never fell. Partly, this was because Kepler had grown in stature. Where he was once a simple teacher in a Lutheran school, now he was the imperial mathematician. That, along with the personality of the emperor himself, made the difference. Although Rudolf's cousin Ferdinand and his younger brother Matthias were both devoted to the Catholic faith, Rudolf was much more open. Although Ferdinand was a zealous torch, ready to set the world on fire, dogmatic in his beliefs, and intolerant of anyone who was not in direct communion with Rome, Rudolf was too busy trying to solve the problem of himself. He was an eccentric and suffered from profound depression. Reclusive, he abandoned much of the business of the empire to his corrupt and treacherous court and hid himself in the labyrinth of his
Kunstkammer,
his personal imperial museum. Weighed down by sadness, he grew more introverted with each year and eventually suffered a breakdown, tormented by hallucinations. Fearful that he was bewitched, he gathered around himself astrologers and alchemists, mathematicians and astronomers, practitioners of magic high and low, and even a few mystical rabbis.

 

R
UDOLF
II
WAS AN INTERESTING MAN
. King of Bohemia and Hungary, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, he was a collector of oddities, antiquities, and wonders. His family, especially his ambitious younger brother Matthias, thought he was too soft on Protestants and should be replaced by, well, Matthias. Although Rudolf was a strong Catholic and promoted the works of the Jesuits and the Capuchins in his kingdom, he preferred peace and was at heart more concerned with the occult, with piercing the veil of the mystery of life. His grandmother, Juana “the Mad” of Castile, had died howling with insanity, and his mother, Maria of Spain, was a cold, difficult woman who had never wanted to leave Spain and wanted
everyone around her to be as Spanish as possible. She gave birth to Rudolf on a summer evening in July—July 18, 1552. His father, Maximilian II of Austria, was a different sort, an openhearted, friendly man, unlike his mother, who like her grandmother suffered from chronic melancholy. All her life, she remained cool and distanced from her sixteen children, as if she were living in a high, dark room.

Madness permeated both branches of the of the Habsburg line—the Spanish and the Austrian. Both of Rudolf's parents, who were cousins, were the grandchildren of Mad Juana of Castile, who lived from 1479 to 1555. According to the story, after her husband, Philip the Handsome, died on September 25, 1506, Juana kept his body beside her bed for the next nineteen years in the belief that on the anniversary of his death he would come back to life. Supposedly, she took his casket along whenever she traveled about Spain, and now and then, perhaps wondering if he were still dead or perhaps desiring to look one more time on his moldering face, she would open the lid and look inside. An odd connection: as a young man before his conversion, Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, would accompany the royal treasurer to the royal villa at Tordesillas, where Juana lived with her youngest daughter, Catherine. For several years, Ignatius held a secret crush on the young Infanta, “the secret of his heart.”

The Spanish king, Philip II of Spain, joined with his sister, Rudolf's mother, Maria, in lobbying for a Spanish education for all of Maximilian's children. Maria feared that her children would come under the sway of the Protestants, for Protestant ideas floated through Vienna like a morning mist, but not so in Madrid, which remained Catholic, austere, proud, and gloomy. Maximilian, who never liked the Spanish, put off his sons' departure year after year, until the pressure from the Spanish faction became overwhelming, and he gave his permission.

Rudolf arrived in Spain in 1564 with his younger brother Ernest and two friends, Wolfgang von Rumpf and Count Adam von Dietrichstein. Even by that time, his personality had begun to form, and he showed the first symptoms of his mother's melancholy. He was also probably bisexual. A serious boy, Rudolf was reserved but deeply intelligent and often
given to flights of fancy and bouts of sadness. Eventually, he would prove to be a great linguist, able to speak, read, and write Latin, Spanish, German, and eventually a little Czech. He also developed a taste for art and loved mathematics and science. All his life, the natural world held him spellbound, and he wanted to know all he could about it.

Life in Spain was difficult for young Rudolf and his brother. Philip II's court was a cold place, mannerly, bigoted, and often ruthless. Spanish manners seemed to infect him, playing on his natural melancholy. While in Spain, he met Don Carlos, the insane son of the King Philip II. He stood by watching in January 1568 as the king ordered his own son locked into a room and then forbade everyone in the court to mention the boy's name, even in conversation and even in prayers. Don Carlos died in July that year, followed by the queen, his mother, in October.

A pall hung over the court after that; Rudolf and young Ernest hid behind their studies, the classics, Latin prose, fencing, and theology. On Sunday, they served as altar boys at Mass. In early 1570, Philip II married Rudolf's youngest sister, Anna, making her his fourth wife. Finally, the following spring, the king gave Rudolf and Ernest permission to return to Vienna. Rudolf later remarked that he had spent the next night so filled with joy that he couldn't sleep. Their years in Spain had been a difficult time for them, scarring them deeply. Once they were back in Vienna, their father, Emperor Maximilian, did not approve of the changes and commanded them to rid themselves of their “Spanish humors.” He disapproved of the penitential gravity and prideful distance he found they had acquired. “Change your bearing!” Maximilian told them, but they could not; Spanish manners had become too solid a part of them. Soon after they returned, Maximilian's health began to fail. He suffered from numerous health problems—heart attacks, gout, and something called “kidney colic,” all of which might have had their roots in syphilis.

Maximilian, knowing that his time on earth was coming to a close, arranged to have Rudolf, his oldest son, crowned king of Bohemia and king of Hungary. Soon after, the Imperial Diet met in Regensburg, so that Rudolf could be crowned king of the Romans, a necessary prerequisite to the imperial throne, as well. On Maximilian's way to Regensburg, his
health collapsed. Though he seemed to rally for a short while, his health faded, and he grew weaker every day. Rudolf rushed to his bedside. His daughter Anna rode quickly from Bavaria in order to join the family. Both Anna and Queen Maria urged him to receive the last rites. The Spanish faction gathered, until finally the Spanish ambassador said: “I see from your condition, Your Majesty, that it would be time…” Maximilian, however, cut him off. “You are right, Mr. Marquis. I have not slept well and would like to rest a little.” Finally, on October 12 Emperor Maximilian died, with his entire family gathered around.

Wasting little time, the German electors voted Rudolf the new emperor and crowned him on November 1. As with his mother and Mad Juana of Castile, Rudolf suffered from bouts of melancholy. These would only get worse in his life, as the troubles of his times encompassed him. Those were troubled times, indeed. Catholics and Protestants were at war all across his kingdom. An earthquake rocked Vienna, and local epidemics of plague flashed into and out of existence like brush fires. In 1577, the year that Johannes Kepler stood upon the hill outside of Leonberg holding his mother's hand watching the great comet, Rudolf II, king of Bohemia and Hungary, king of the Romans and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, suffered an emotional breakdown. From that time on he almost never left the castle; he became so sick over the next four years and lost so much weight that people feared for his life. The responsibilities of power were too much for him. The threats of the Turks were constant. The struggles between Catholics and Protestants were endless.

Finally, he moved his court to Prague in Bohemia to get away from the crowds and pressures of Vienna. Almost immediately after moving into Prague Castle, he ordered the construction of a series of great cabinets and long shelves throughout the hallways of the castle, the beginnings of his
Kunstkammer,
his private museum. This museum was never open to the public, and only a few select guests, usually kings and important ambassadors, were ever given a tour. There, he began collecting exotic animals and gathering to himself mountains of art. He also gathered some of the great minds of Europe, not only painters and artists, philosophers and mystics, but scientists such as Tycho and Kepler.

Throughout the long galleries of the Prague Castle, which is actually a small city built on top of a high hill, he housed several thousand paintings (some by Arcimboldo, Breughel, and Correggio), sculptures, coins, gems, natural oddities, medicines, scientific instruments, and clocks as well as books on the occult and other curious matters. On the first floor were the Spanish Room and the New Room, where he placed his art collection. He was fascinated with little machines, which was one of the reasons he had appointed Tycho Brahe as his imperial mathematician.

In July 1599, just after Tycho first arrived in Prague, Barvitius, the emperor's private secretary, drove Tycho up the long hill in a magnificent carriage to a “splendid and magnificent palace in the Italian style, with beautiful private grounds.” There, inside the palace, he waited for the summons, holding three of his books to present to the emperor. A court attendant appeared, calling him forward and leading him to the emperor's audience chamber. Reclusive Rudolf almost never received anyone alone. In a letter to Rosenkrantz, Tycho described the scene: “I saw [the emperor] sitting in the room on a bench with his back against a table, completely alone in the whole chamber without even an attending page. After the customary gestures of civility, he immediately called me over to him with a nod, and when I approached, graciously held out his hand to me. I then drew back a bit and gave a little speech in Latin.” Afterward, Rudolf, trained in Spanish manners, responded graciously to Tycho, “saying, among other things, how agreeable my arrival was and that he promised to support me and my research, all the while smiling in the most kindly way so that his whole face beamed with benevolence. I could not take in everything he said because he by nature speaks very softly.”

After the audience, the emperor called Barvitius into the audience chamber. When Barvitius emerged, he told Tycho that the emperor had been watching his arrival from his window and had seen a mechanical device on his carriage. He wondered what that was. Tycho told Barvitius that it was his odometer and sent his son to remove the device from the carriage and bring it back to give to the emperor. He explained its workings to Barvitius and showed him how it rang out the passing distances by “striking distinct sounds with two little bells.”

Barvitius reentered the audience chamber and after a time emerged once again, saying that the emperor did not wish to accept Tycho's instrument, but wanted to have one built according to its specifications. Tycho happily supplied the design, knowing that the position he sought was his.

From 1605 to 1606, the emperor's artisans finished three different vaulted rooms on the first floor. Here the emperor displayed his vast collection of scientific instruments, some of the best in Europe, his books and manuscripts on scientific and arcane matters as well as his books on history and the great works of literature. In rooms beyond this library, was another library, stretching from the ceiling to the floor, known to writers across Europe as one of the greatest concerning all things scientific and philosophical. Meanwhile, exotic animals meandered through the labyrinth of corridors. In the floors below, the artisans worked in their workshop, where they made all of the wonderful machines and great devices the emperor prized so much. Beside the workshop was the alchemical laboratory, where alchemists from across Europe boiled up vats of unknown potions and experimented with secret elixirs.

The entrance to the museum was through a small antechamber decorated with images of nature, with the four elements and the twelve months of the year, all watched over and supervised by Jupiter, Rudolf's mythological self. In spite of his mythological pretensions, however, throughout the 1590s, the emperor's depression deepened. He suffered from bouts of anxiety and despair, which became worse and more frequent. Visitors noticed how sad he had become and how remote. The golden collection could only keep his madness at bay for a time, however. Suddenly, his melancholy turned to paranoia, and he began to fear his own family, believing that someone in his family would eventually murder him. Once, in a sudden rage, he threatened one of his ministers with a dagger. Fearing theft, he kept most of his golden treasure locked away in wooden chests, which was one of the reasons why Kepler had difficulty obtaining his salary. At times, Rudolf's fears swelled and he held on to his gold so tightly that there was no food in the palace. His greatest enemy, he believed, and not without reason, was his brother Matthias, the man who would eventually take over his throne.