Tycho Brahe Arrives in Prague

JAN 01 1599 · 12:00

Tycho Brahe, Imperial Mathematician from 1599. The brass prosthetic nose, replacing the one he lost in a 1566 duel, is visible in most portraits. Place: Benátky nad Jizerou (briefly), then the Curtius house in Hradčany Figures: Tycho Brahe, Imperial Mathematician · Rudolf II, patron · Franz Tengnagel, son-in-law and assistant Tycho Brahe is fifty-two, the greatest observational astronomer alive, and recently homeless. He has lost Uraniborg, the island observatory on Hven that the late King Frederick II of Denmark built for him, to the new King Christian IV, who does not see why one nobleman should hold a quarter of the royal budget. Tycho leaves with his data, his prosthetic nose (long described as silver and gold, but 2012 chemical analysis showed it was brass; replacement for the original lost in a 1566 duel over a mathematical formula), and three wagonloads of brass instruments. Rudolf II, who collects everything else extraordinary, collects Tycho. He grants him the castle at Benátky nad Jizerou, fifty kilometers northeast of Prague, with an income of three thousand florins and the title Caesarean Mathematician. The instruments are installed by autumn.