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Authors: Peter Demetz
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The scholar Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, most knowledgeable about Rudolfine arts, provides rich evidence that the emperor’s court painters did not merely concentrate on images of imperial power or mannered erotic scenes. Those who preferred to paint
naer het leven,
or “close to life,” possibly anticipated more of the future than the masters of courtly allegory. Hans Hoffmann, Georg Hoefnagel, Roelandt Savery, and Pieter Stevens were painters of “nature and landscapes” in the understanding of their age. Hoffmann adored Dürer (particularly dear to Rudolf), and the emperor was fascinated by the precision and neatness of Hoefnagel’s flowers, insects, and traditional ornaments. Savery walked through Prague and Bohemia; Rudolf sent him off to the Tyrol in 1607 to bring back sketches of Alpine scenes; though some of them are peopled by peasants in distinctly Bohemian costumes remembered from earlier travels, these forest and mountain scenes show he was impressed by the ordered confusion of broken trees and new vegetative life, by dramatic rocks and magnificent mountain vistas, and they offer a first glimpse of the romantic sublime. Savery and his colleague Pieter Stevens sketched many corners of Rudolfine Prague too, decrepit homes and approaches to Charles’s great stone bridge. Savery was a sharp and untiring observer: when he attended religious services at the Old New Synagogue, he sketched a group of elderly men and explained, in marginal notes in Dutch, what clothes they wore and in what color.
naer het leven,
or “close to life,” possibly anticipated more of the future than the masters of courtly allegory. Hans Hoffmann, Georg Hoefnagel, Roelandt Savery, and Pieter Stevens were painters of “nature and landscapes” in the understanding of their age. Hoffmann adored Dürer (particularly dear to Rudolf), and the emperor was fascinated by the precision and neatness of Hoefnagel’s flowers, insects, and traditional ornaments. Savery walked through Prague and Bohemia; Rudolf sent him off to the Tyrol in 1607 to bring back sketches of Alpine scenes; though some of them are peopled by peasants in distinctly Bohemian costumes remembered from earlier travels, these forest and mountain scenes show he was impressed by the ordered confusion of broken trees and new vegetative life, by dramatic rocks and magnificent mountain vistas, and they offer a first glimpse of the romantic sublime. Savery and his colleague Pieter Stevens sketched many corners of Rudolfine Prague too, decrepit homes and approaches to Charles’s great stone bridge. Savery was a sharp and untiring observer: when he attended religious services at the Old New Synagogue, he sketched a group of elderly men and explained, in marginal notes in Dutch, what clothes they wore and in what color.
Later surrealist poets and critics have always loved the idea that Giuseppe Arcimboldo most essentially represents the mystical world of Rudolf II, as if Joseph Arcimboldus Midiolanus, as he officially called
himself, was not just one among many interesting court painters. Arcimboldo, born in 1527, worked first under the supervision of his father at Milan Cathedral doing minor ornamentation and stained-glass windows; he was attracted to Vienna by Ferdinand I, Rudolf’s grandfather, and was appointed
Hof-Conterfetter
(court portraitist) by Maximilian II, to whom he devoted his famous allegories of the four elements and the four seasons, made up of their vegetative symbols. He was also active in Vienna and, occasionally, in Prague as a
maître de plaisirs
and fashion designer of inventive costumes for balls, banquets, masks, and tournaments. Arcimboldo was among the Italian group that Rudolf continued to employ; in 1582, Rudolf sent him to Germany to buy antiques and rare animals; but in 1587, when Rudolf consolidated his German and Dutch team in Prague, Arcimboldo asked for and received permission to return to his native Milan, whence he continued to send paintings and sketches to Rudolf, who made him count palatine two years before his death in 1593; Rudolf perhaps remembered that Emperor Charles IV had awarded a similar, largely symbolic, title to Petrarch. More recently, Oskar Kokoschka, Roland Barthes, and Salvador Dali have come to admire Arcimboldo, and his popular fame largely rests on his portrait of Rudolf as the ancient god Vertumnus, a witty montage of fruits, flowers, and vegetables of all seasons (the hair of millet, grapes, and sheaves of wheat; the nose a pear; his forehead a melon; and his beard consisting of nuts and chestnuts), done in the same
ghiribizzate
(curlicue), or rather wittily allegorical, style in which he had done his “Jurist” with law books in his stomach and his “Librarian,” entirely consisting of closed and open books, many years earlier. The surrealists’ glorification of Rudolf as Vertumnus must take into account that the painting, showing the royal magnificence by other means, was inspired by the Latin poet Propertius celebrating Vertumnus as a god of change and permanence, done in a manner that Arcimboldo developed long before he entered the service of the melancholy emperor, and was not even painted in Prague but in Milan, Arcimboldo’s true home.
himself, was not just one among many interesting court painters. Arcimboldo, born in 1527, worked first under the supervision of his father at Milan Cathedral doing minor ornamentation and stained-glass windows; he was attracted to Vienna by Ferdinand I, Rudolf’s grandfather, and was appointed
Hof-Conterfetter
(court portraitist) by Maximilian II, to whom he devoted his famous allegories of the four elements and the four seasons, made up of their vegetative symbols. He was also active in Vienna and, occasionally, in Prague as a
maître de plaisirs
and fashion designer of inventive costumes for balls, banquets, masks, and tournaments. Arcimboldo was among the Italian group that Rudolf continued to employ; in 1582, Rudolf sent him to Germany to buy antiques and rare animals; but in 1587, when Rudolf consolidated his German and Dutch team in Prague, Arcimboldo asked for and received permission to return to his native Milan, whence he continued to send paintings and sketches to Rudolf, who made him count palatine two years before his death in 1593; Rudolf perhaps remembered that Emperor Charles IV had awarded a similar, largely symbolic, title to Petrarch. More recently, Oskar Kokoschka, Roland Barthes, and Salvador Dali have come to admire Arcimboldo, and his popular fame largely rests on his portrait of Rudolf as the ancient god Vertumnus, a witty montage of fruits, flowers, and vegetables of all seasons (the hair of millet, grapes, and sheaves of wheat; the nose a pear; his forehead a melon; and his beard consisting of nuts and chestnuts), done in the same
ghiribizzate
(curlicue), or rather wittily allegorical, style in which he had done his “Jurist” with law books in his stomach and his “Librarian,” entirely consisting of closed and open books, many years earlier. The surrealists’ glorification of Rudolf as Vertumnus must take into account that the painting, showing the royal magnificence by other means, was inspired by the Latin poet Propertius celebrating Vertumnus as a god of change and permanence, done in a manner that Arcimboldo developed long before he entered the service of the melancholy emperor, and was not even painted in Prague but in Milan, Arcimboldo’s true home.
Rudolf spared no expense to attract famous jewelers and stonecutters to his Prague court and to provide them with the gold, the silver, the diamonds, and other precious stones they needed for compositions they created solely to please his lonely sensibilities. It is an open question whether painters or goldsmiths were closer to his heart. Goldsmithing had flourished in Renaissance Augsburg, Nuremberg, Milan, and Florence, but Rudolf was not content to place his orders there; in the late 1580s, he invited to Prague several masters whom he chose with a supreme
understanding of their craft, above all Anton Schweinberger Augsburg, Jan Vermeyen from Brussels, his disciple Andreas Osenbruck, and the Dutch Paulus van Vianen, who had had difficulties with the Inquisition when he was trained in Rome. The imperial and royal crown, created by Jan Vermeyen (never actually used by the emperor and now in Vienna) is the most perfect, most cryptic, and most valuable work of art ever made at the Rudolfine court. Each of its traditional components—coronet, miter, and arch—symbolized complex meanings of dominance, power, and magnificence, as did the eight big and the one hundred and eighty-six small diamonds (bought all over Europe by Rudolf’s special agents), the strings of pearls, the rubies, and the large and luminous sapphire on top, imported from far Kashmir. The art of cutting stones, or glyptics, had been traditionally cultivated in Milan; Rudolf succeeded in bringing from Milan to Prague Ottavio Miseroni and his brothers, and from Florence Cosimo Castrucci, who excelled in
commessi in pietre dure
, or the art of creating pictures from finely polished jasper, agate, and carnelian, a kind of stone intarsia. Italian and German tourists who now line up every day in Prague to buy crystal glass probably do not know that it was one Caspar Lehmann from Westphalia, a talented stonecutter, who in 1601 was appointed stonecutter of the royal chamber
(Kammeredelstein
schneider) and in royal service shifted his attention from working with mountain crystals to high-quality glass, perfecting his personal technique to an incredible finesse that became fundamental to an entire Bohemian industry.
understanding of their craft, above all Anton Schweinberger Augsburg, Jan Vermeyen from Brussels, his disciple Andreas Osenbruck, and the Dutch Paulus van Vianen, who had had difficulties with the Inquisition when he was trained in Rome. The imperial and royal crown, created by Jan Vermeyen (never actually used by the emperor and now in Vienna) is the most perfect, most cryptic, and most valuable work of art ever made at the Rudolfine court. Each of its traditional components—coronet, miter, and arch—symbolized complex meanings of dominance, power, and magnificence, as did the eight big and the one hundred and eighty-six small diamonds (bought all over Europe by Rudolf’s special agents), the strings of pearls, the rubies, and the large and luminous sapphire on top, imported from far Kashmir. The art of cutting stones, or glyptics, had been traditionally cultivated in Milan; Rudolf succeeded in bringing from Milan to Prague Ottavio Miseroni and his brothers, and from Florence Cosimo Castrucci, who excelled in
commessi in pietre dure
, or the art of creating pictures from finely polished jasper, agate, and carnelian, a kind of stone intarsia. Italian and German tourists who now line up every day in Prague to buy crystal glass probably do not know that it was one Caspar Lehmann from Westphalia, a talented stonecutter, who in 1601 was appointed stonecutter of the royal chamber
(Kammeredelstein
schneider) and in royal service shifted his attention from working with mountain crystals to high-quality glass, perfecting his personal technique to an incredible finesse that became fundamental to an entire Bohemian industry.
It cannot be said that the emperor did not support court architects who were kept busy building magnificent halls for his collections and stables for his Spanish stallions, but it would be difficult to show that he was as obsessively committed to their art as he was to painting, jewelry, and glyptics. For reasons of ceremony, he also continued to employ distinguished musicians and singers, among them two castrati, to perform at the cathedral and at Hrad
any at state banquets and dances. He was proud to be the patron of Philippe de Monte, a Neapolitan from Holland (Rudolf never permitted him to return home and he died in Prague), Jacques Renart, and Camillo Zanotti, noted and much admired composers of motets and villanelles (their music often printed in Prague).
any at state banquets and dances. He was proud to be the patron of Philippe de Monte, a Neapolitan from Holland (Rudolf never permitted him to return home and he died in Prague), Jacques Renart, and Camillo Zanotti, noted and much admired composers of motets and villanelles (their music often printed in Prague).The most remarkable cavalier involved in composing and performing at the court at that time was Kryštof Harant of Polžice and Bezdražice, who came from the provincial Catholic gentry. He had been educated at the court of Archduke Ferdinand in the Tyrol, fought in the Turkish wars for four years, and later gone out with another Czech noble on a voyage
to the Holy Land and the Near East. He described his experience in Jerusalem (where he wrote a motet, “They who trust the Lord”) and Egypt in a highly interesting report written in Czech in 1608, and he was welcomed home by the emperor, who bestowed on him the honorific title of chamberlain, or imperial valet. He was one of the few Czechs active in the arts at Rudolf’s court. His later life was of more political than artistic importance: he was one of the generals of the rebellious Estates who fought the Hapsburg regime (artillery being his specialty) after 1618 and was put to death in Prague when the victorious dynasty took its revenge in 1621.
to the Holy Land and the Near East. He described his experience in Jerusalem (where he wrote a motet, “They who trust the Lord”) and Egypt in a highly interesting report written in Czech in 1608, and he was welcomed home by the emperor, who bestowed on him the honorific title of chamberlain, or imperial valet. He was one of the few Czechs active in the arts at Rudolf’s court. His later life was of more political than artistic importance: he was one of the generals of the rebellious Estates who fought the Hapsburg regime (artillery being his specialty) after 1618 and was put to death in Prague when the victorious dynasty took its revenge in 1621.
Poets and writers have always done a good deal for Rudolf, telling entertaining stories about him, but he did not do much for them. He had little interest in contemporary poetry. He did not show any commitment to the remarkable German poetry written by Theobald von Höck (who was employed by a southern Bohemian baron), remained insensitive to the new strength and purity of the Czech literature emerging in the many activities of Daniel Adam of Veleslavín, who owned the famous Melantrich printing press, and showed no interest in the inspired philological work of the Brethren, who translated the Bible in a six-volume edition (1579-94) that remained the standard of language in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia for centuries to come.
The Rudolfine Prague elite—Czech, German, Italian, Silesian, and Dutch—swarmed with educated people writing in late humanist Latin, and even those who were made
laureati
(the nice title did not carry any emoluments) are largely forgotten today. Jakob Typotius (Dutch) was employed as court historiographer; Jan Campanus (Czech) taught at the university and converted to Catholicism in 1622; and Michael Maier, a court physician and student of the Rosicrucians, wrote a funny ornithological poem—each speaker, or rather bird, uses different meters or forms, the cuckoo staying phonetically close to his nest ( …
sum cuculus cuculi cu
culo
…) while geese prefer clumsy hexameters. Visiting British writers, intellectuals, and diplomats, Catholic or Protestant, came and went. The English poet Edmund Campion, who, after a novitiate in Brno was ordained in Prague in 1578, taught for six years at the Jesuit school (he was later hanged and quartered in England), and Sir Philip Sidney came to Prague twice, once in 1575 on a grand tour and again in 1577 to offer to the new emperor Queen Elizabeth’s condolences upon the demise of his father, Maximilian; his report about Rudolf was not very friendly, saying that the new ruler was “extremely spaniolated.” Among the English in Rudolfine Prague, young Jane Elizabeth Weston, who wrote in Latin too,
was encouraged by the imperial councillors rather than by Rudolf himself (she may have been fortunate, considering the rumors about his disorderly affairs); born in Sussex in 1582 she had left her native country together with her Catholic parents and came via France and Italy to northern Bohemia, where her father suddenly died and left the fate of his family in the hands of his Catholic friends. Miss Weston’s poems, printed in Frankfurt in 1602 and Prague in 1606, were praised by such European luminaries and influential critics as Heinsius and Scultetus. By 1598 she was settled in Prague, where she married John Leon of Eisenach, agent of the duke of Brunswick at the imperial court, gave birth to two daughters, and died at the early age of thirty. She was buried in the cloister of St. Thomas, in the Minor Town, where thousands of foreign visitors, among them many English, now quaff the famous dark beer oblivious to historical reminiscences.
laureati
(the nice title did not carry any emoluments) are largely forgotten today. Jakob Typotius (Dutch) was employed as court historiographer; Jan Campanus (Czech) taught at the university and converted to Catholicism in 1622; and Michael Maier, a court physician and student of the Rosicrucians, wrote a funny ornithological poem—each speaker, or rather bird, uses different meters or forms, the cuckoo staying phonetically close to his nest ( …
sum cuculus cuculi cu
culo
…) while geese prefer clumsy hexameters. Visiting British writers, intellectuals, and diplomats, Catholic or Protestant, came and went. The English poet Edmund Campion, who, after a novitiate in Brno was ordained in Prague in 1578, taught for six years at the Jesuit school (he was later hanged and quartered in England), and Sir Philip Sidney came to Prague twice, once in 1575 on a grand tour and again in 1577 to offer to the new emperor Queen Elizabeth’s condolences upon the demise of his father, Maximilian; his report about Rudolf was not very friendly, saying that the new ruler was “extremely spaniolated.” Among the English in Rudolfine Prague, young Jane Elizabeth Weston, who wrote in Latin too,
was encouraged by the imperial councillors rather than by Rudolf himself (she may have been fortunate, considering the rumors about his disorderly affairs); born in Sussex in 1582 she had left her native country together with her Catholic parents and came via France and Italy to northern Bohemia, where her father suddenly died and left the fate of his family in the hands of his Catholic friends. Miss Weston’s poems, printed in Frankfurt in 1602 and Prague in 1606, were praised by such European luminaries and influential critics as Heinsius and Scultetus. By 1598 she was settled in Prague, where she married John Leon of Eisenach, agent of the duke of Brunswick at the imperial court, gave birth to two daughters, and died at the early age of thirty. She was buried in the cloister of St. Thomas, in the Minor Town, where thousands of foreign visitors, among them many English, now quaff the famous dark beer oblivious to historical reminiscences.
Emperor Rudolf gathered distinguished people and preciosities of art and nature around himself to create a
cordon sanitaire,
or, rather,
esthestique,
to protect his sensibilities against the treacherous world. In the sciences at least, perhaps in alchemy as well, local scholars and faculty members of the Carolinum were important in linking the artifice of the court with the rapid and contradictory developments downtown. One Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek, called Hegecius in the scholarly parlance of the time, brought to the emperor’s attention what was going on in the Utraquist Carolinum (the emperor did not show much interest in the doings of its Catholic counterinstitution), was responsible for convincing him to bring to Prague the Danish mathematician Tycho Brahe, considered the most outstanding astronomer of the age, and personally intervened in the ever renewed quarrels between Tycho Brahe and his younger assistant, Johannes Kepler, who fully agreed on the importance of a systematic observation of the heavens but, unfortunately, on little else.
cordon sanitaire,
or, rather,
esthestique,
to protect his sensibilities against the treacherous world. In the sciences at least, perhaps in alchemy as well, local scholars and faculty members of the Carolinum were important in linking the artifice of the court with the rapid and contradictory developments downtown. One Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek, called Hegecius in the scholarly parlance of the time, brought to the emperor’s attention what was going on in the Utraquist Carolinum (the emperor did not show much interest in the doings of its Catholic counterinstitution), was responsible for convincing him to bring to Prague the Danish mathematician Tycho Brahe, considered the most outstanding astronomer of the age, and personally intervened in the ever renewed quarrels between Tycho Brahe and his younger assistant, Johannes Kepler, who fully agreed on the importance of a systematic observation of the heavens but, unfortunately, on little else.
Tadeáš Hájek came from an old Czech family that resided near the Bethlehem chapel; his father, Simon, a Prague B.A. of 1509, collected rare manuscripts, wrote a treatise on correct Czech usage, and kept his library and the house open to traveling intellectuals, including a few disreputable alchemists. Tadeáš first went to Vienna to study music and astronomy, received his Prague B.A. and M.A. in the 1550s, and immediately went
again to Vienna, then Bologna and Milan, to continue his studies. He was not a sedate scholar, at least not in his early years; in 1555 he taught mathematics for a while at the Carolinum and in the 1560s joined the imperial armies, fighting the sultan on the Hungarian front as a military doctor. As personal physician to Maximilian II and Rudolf II, he traveled a good deal between Vienna and Prague before settling in his father’s house, U Hájk
. He certainly was not the comic busybody of wrinkled face who appears in Max Brod’s novel
Tycho Brahe’s Path to God (Tycho Brahes Weg zu Gott
, 1915), which though based on legitimate source materials is all too eager to cook up melodramatic scenes.
again to Vienna, then Bologna and Milan, to continue his studies. He was not a sedate scholar, at least not in his early years; in 1555 he taught mathematics for a while at the Carolinum and in the 1560s joined the imperial armies, fighting the sultan on the Hungarian front as a military doctor. As personal physician to Maximilian II and Rudolf II, he traveled a good deal between Vienna and Prague before settling in his father’s house, U Hájk
. He certainly was not the comic busybody of wrinkled face who appears in Max Brod’s novelTycho Brahe’s Path to God (Tycho Brahes Weg zu Gott
, 1915), which though based on legitimate source materials is all too eager to cook up melodramatic scenes.
Tadeáš Hájek was the most eminent Prague scholar and scientist of the 1570s and 1580s, but since professors were still supposed to be celibate he did not really aim at an academic career and, indeed, married three times. The emperor assigned him to examine all the alchemists wanting to work in Prague, and, as a noted astronomer of European rank, he developed his own theory of the comets. He was also an expert in land surveying, much needed by the Bohemian mining industry (Kafka’s learned land surveyor in
The Castle
comes from good Bohemian stock), began to work on a topography of the Prague region, and walked through the countryside studying plants and flowers with a botanist’s eye. A true citizen of Prague, he also wrote a scientific treatise De cervecia (On Beer, published in 1564) and developed an early theory of oxidation. When he attended Rudolf’s coronation at Regensburg in 1576, he met there the young Danish aristocrat Tycho Brahe, who had not wanted to miss that chic event either, and gave him a folio of Copernicus’s
Little Commentary,
copied from a manuscript in his father’s Prague library. It was the beginning of a long friendship that, by 1600, made Rudolf’s Prague the world’s center of scientific astronomy.
The Castle
comes from good Bohemian stock), began to work on a topography of the Prague region, and walked through the countryside studying plants and flowers with a botanist’s eye. A true citizen of Prague, he also wrote a scientific treatise De cervecia (On Beer, published in 1564) and developed an early theory of oxidation. When he attended Rudolf’s coronation at Regensburg in 1576, he met there the young Danish aristocrat Tycho Brahe, who had not wanted to miss that chic event either, and gave him a folio of Copernicus’s
Little Commentary,
copied from a manuscript in his father’s Prague library. It was the beginning of a long friendship that, by 1600, made Rudolf’s Prague the world’s center of scientific astronomy.
Tycho Brahe came to Prague because he had decided to leave his native Denmark in protest against king, church, and society and was happy to accept the emperor’s invitation, ingeniously managed by Hájek through the chancellery. A scion of one of the most prominent families of the Danish kingdom, Tycho, haughty, condescending, and rich, was used to doing whatever he was doing in grand style; he once fought a duel with a fellow student (later Denmark’s royal chancellor) who had doubted his mathematical skills, and when part of his nose was cut off during the fight, in darkness and close to a cemetery, he had the missing part restored in gold and silver and attached to his face with a salve, which he always carried in a little pouch (that valuable part of his nose was missing when a scholarly commission opened his Prague tomb in 1901). He gave
a brilliant account of the new star appearing in 1572, and the king of Denmark, who wanted to keep the famous man at home, in a magnificent gesture gave him the island of Hveen and ample subsidies to build a castle there—the Uraniborg Astronomical Institute—in which Tycho housed his growing family, his fool Jepp, his assistants, library, laboratory, a printing press, and his famous instruments, big and small, made by the best craftsmen of Europe. In Hveen, he devoted himself for twenty years to a continuous and surprisingly precise observation of the stellar skies, the last prince of astronomy without a telescope.
a brilliant account of the new star appearing in 1572, and the king of Denmark, who wanted to keep the famous man at home, in a magnificent gesture gave him the island of Hveen and ample subsidies to build a castle there—the Uraniborg Astronomical Institute—in which Tycho housed his growing family, his fool Jepp, his assistants, library, laboratory, a printing press, and his famous instruments, big and small, made by the best craftsmen of Europe. In Hveen, he devoted himself for twenty years to a continuous and surprisingly precise observation of the stellar skies, the last prince of astronomy without a telescope.
Tycho Brahe’s downfall was mostly of his own making; he had provoked the nobility by marrying a poor peasant woman named Kirstine, who bore him eight children and was to die in Prague; he never attended church services and dealt with his parsons as if they were his chattel; when the Hveen peasants, mistreated by him and sometimes put in chains, publicly protested, a court of nobles sided with the peasants and against him. Young King Christian IV, strapped for money and offended by his manners, canceled some of his privileges and substantially reduced his subsidies to Uraniborg; Tycho responded in an arrogant letter and the king never forgave him. In a fit of rage, Tycho packed a cumbersome wagon train with his family, friends, smaller instruments, books, and paraphernalia and, on April 9, 1597, left Hveen forever. He went into exile in Germany and then to Prague.
Tycho arrived in Prague in June 1599 and was lodged in the house of the vice-chancellor near Hrad
any Castle. Rudolf, not exactly known to be easily accessible, immediately received him and offered him a salary far in excess of what artists and other scientists received, along with a choice of three Bohemian castles to substitute for Uraniborg. Tycho selected Benátky, on the Jizera River northeast of Prague, which was well fitted, at least potentially, to serve as a new astronomical institute. Tycho praised the splendid and comfortable building, but it had to be altered, of course, to his scientific specifications, and he found himself promptly embroiled in a protracted conflict with the imperial administrator, who absolutely refused to spend money on the costly alterations; Tycho had to learn the difficult way that funds promised by the emperor were not automatically disbursed by the bureaucracy. His most important instruments, large and fragile, were still at Hveen, and not all the assistants showed up in time.
any Castle. Rudolf, not exactly known to be easily accessible, immediately received him and offered him a salary far in excess of what artists and other scientists received, along with a choice of three Bohemian castles to substitute for Uraniborg. Tycho selected Benátky, on the Jizera River northeast of Prague, which was well fitted, at least potentially, to serve as a new astronomical institute. Tycho praised the splendid and comfortable building, but it had to be altered, of course, to his scientific specifications, and he found himself promptly embroiled in a protracted conflict with the imperial administrator, who absolutely refused to spend money on the costly alterations; Tycho had to learn the difficult way that funds promised by the emperor were not automatically disbursed by the bureaucracy. His most important instruments, large and fragile, were still at Hveen, and not all the assistants showed up in time.On a few occasions, Tycho was happy to accept the help of David Gans, a Prague Jewish scholar (who wrote about his visits at Benátky), yet he grievously underrated Gans’s scientific qualifications and thought
he needed the help of a professional astronomer to take over specific tasks, collaborate with a team, and write, on his behalf, a few poisonous pamphlets against his scientific enemies, especially “the Bear,” or Ursus, one Reymers Baer, once a North German swineherd and now a self-taught and eminent scientist who happened to be the emperor’s court mathematician. The only candidate for the position was, in Tycho’s mind, a young Protestant mathematics teacher in Graz in Austria who had impressed the lord of Hveen by sending him an interesting treatise on planetary orbits, written without the use of sophisticated instruments. His name was Johannes Kepler, and when he came to Benátky and met Tycho, he immediately wanted to leave but did not know where to go.
he needed the help of a professional astronomer to take over specific tasks, collaborate with a team, and write, on his behalf, a few poisonous pamphlets against his scientific enemies, especially “the Bear,” or Ursus, one Reymers Baer, once a North German swineherd and now a self-taught and eminent scientist who happened to be the emperor’s court mathematician. The only candidate for the position was, in Tycho’s mind, a young Protestant mathematics teacher in Graz in Austria who had impressed the lord of Hveen by sending him an interesting treatise on planetary orbits, written without the use of sophisticated instruments. His name was Johannes Kepler, and when he came to Benátky and met Tycho, he immediately wanted to leave but did not know where to go.
Kepler was ill fitted to deal with tyrannical colleagues of high birth working in the light of the imperial sun. He was born in 1571 in the small Swabian town of Weil der Stadt (it was saved in May 1945 from Allied artillery fire thanks to the intervention of an erudite French officer who did not want to see Kepler’s birthplace destroyed) to a family that, according to his own views, was an odd bunch of misfits: his vicious father was a mercenary who ultimately left his family in the lurch; and his mother, garrulous and nosy, was, when she was seventy-three years old, accused of being a witch and was barely saved from burning by her son. Frail of health and strikingly intelligent, Kepler received a fellowship to train for the Protestant ministry, first at Maulbronn (like a character from a Hermann Hesse novel) and later at the University of Tübingen, where he studied with Martin Mästlin, who privately introduced him to the heliocentric ideas of Copernicus (Lutherans still violently opposed these, on biblical grounds). He never finished his theological studies, though he remained a theologian or rather a Pythagorean at heart, dreaming of God and the harmony of the universe; instead of becoming a minister he accepted a position as a teacher of mathematics at a Protestant school in Graz, in Catholic Styria. There he married Barbara Mühleck, “simple of mind and fat of body,” as he himself wrote, but well-to-do and of a respected family; though he did not have any students of mathematics, he made himself useful teaching rhetoric and Latin and yearly published popular calendars with meteorological advice for the peasants and a few prophecies about war, conveniently fulfilled by the Turks.
Teaching a class on July 9, 1595, he felt suddenly illuminated about the order of the universe and put down his ideas in a rambling treatise entitled
Cosmic Mystery,
in which he tried to suggest that the arrangement of the five planetary orbits could be explained by inscribing, into the spheres, the three-dimensional shapes of the five regular solids known to
ancient philosophers. He felt so enthusiastic about his discovery that the divine order could be defined in these terms that he sent copies of his book to Galileo Galilei, who did not bother to respond, and to Tycho Brahe, who hastily answered, saying that he hoped to meet the young scientist one day. By 1598, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria decreed that all Protestants in Graz must get out within eight days, and though Kepler won a temporary reprieve, possibly because the Jesuits kept an eye on him as a potential convert of importance, he was happy to be invited to come to Benátky. He joined the retinue of a friendly Bohemian baron, left Graz on January 1, 1600, and, after a few days in Prague, was brought to Benátky by Tycho’s eldest, “not so much as a guest,” as his host wrote, but “as a welcome friend and colleague in the exploration of the skies.”
Cosmic Mystery,
in which he tried to suggest that the arrangement of the five planetary orbits could be explained by inscribing, into the spheres, the three-dimensional shapes of the five regular solids known to
ancient philosophers. He felt so enthusiastic about his discovery that the divine order could be defined in these terms that he sent copies of his book to Galileo Galilei, who did not bother to respond, and to Tycho Brahe, who hastily answered, saying that he hoped to meet the young scientist one day. By 1598, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria decreed that all Protestants in Graz must get out within eight days, and though Kepler won a temporary reprieve, possibly because the Jesuits kept an eye on him as a potential convert of importance, he was happy to be invited to come to Benátky. He joined the retinue of a friendly Bohemian baron, left Graz on January 1, 1600, and, after a few days in Prague, was brought to Benátky by Tycho’s eldest, “not so much as a guest,” as his host wrote, but “as a welcome friend and colleague in the exploration of the skies.”
On February 3, the two exiles met for the first time face to face at Benátky Castle and, both sensitive to the uncertain circumstances in a foreign country, were immediately irritated by each other, the lord by the self-assurance of the poor colleague and the math teacher by Tycho’s overbearing manner. They both played their own games: Tycho expected to employ a scientist who would help him in his observations, mostly of the planet Mars, and support him in the construction of a geocentric system of his own (modified, of course, with the sun turning around Earth and the planets around the sun); Kepler, hungry for reliable data and the precision instruments dangled by Tycho before his myopic eyes, hoped to be able to show the heliocentric motion of the planets, including Earth, all arranged in harmonic concert by God. After a few days at Benátky, Kepler wrote to a friend that “old age was creeping up on Tycho, enfeebling his spirits and his forces”; he had gathered rich observations but needed “an architect” (namely, Kepler) to make appropriate use of all the materials. Life at the castle was chaotic if not “insane,” Kepler observed: builders were all over the place, the imperial administrator protested, and Tycho’s senior Danish assistants and a young Westphalian nobleman (who was to marry Tycho’s daughter Elizabeth to have a quick career at court) joined forces in an obvious intrigue to get rid of the new man as quickly as possible. The most important instruments were still on their way from Hveen via Hamburg and down the Elbe River to Litom
ice, and Kepler, desperately thinking of returning to Graz or going to Tübingen, wrote himself a little memorandum “on staying in Bohemia” (Tycho ultimately read this document), cataloguing in a rather miserly way what he wanted, paragraph by paragraph—a self-contained apartment, a bath, a kitchen, a chamber for his family, dry wood for the winter, sufficient food including meat, fish, wine, and bread, and permission to go to
Prague whenever necessary, among other things. In early April tempers flared; Kepler raged “with the vehemence of a mad dog,” Tycho reported, and, on April 6, after a new outburst, Kepler returned to Prague to lodge with the friendly baron who had brought him there. However, he soon wrote a letter of apology to Benátky and waited for Tycho, who graciously came to Prague and took him back to the castle. All was forgiven. Kepler liked Prague now, “the eager contact of nations” and a neighborly feeling among people speaking German, “important to his wife.” Yet Prague was too expensive, and it was “impossible to live there.”
ice, and Kepler, desperately thinking of returning to Graz or going to Tübingen, wrote himself a little memorandum “on staying in Bohemia” (Tycho ultimately read this document), cataloguing in a rather miserly way what he wanted, paragraph by paragraph—a self-contained apartment, a bath, a kitchen, a chamber for his family, dry wood for the winter, sufficient food including meat, fish, wine, and bread, and permission to go toPrague whenever necessary, among other things. In early April tempers flared; Kepler raged “with the vehemence of a mad dog,” Tycho reported, and, on April 6, after a new outburst, Kepler returned to Prague to lodge with the friendly baron who had brought him there. However, he soon wrote a letter of apology to Benátky and waited for Tycho, who graciously came to Prague and took him back to the castle. All was forgiven. Kepler liked Prague now, “the eager contact of nations” and a neighborly feeling among people speaking German, “important to his wife.” Yet Prague was too expensive, and it was “impossible to live there.”
BOOK: Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City
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