One of the many illustrious people who lived in Prague was the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. He came for the mysteries of alchemy, and he died in Prague because he was too polite. This article details his life in Prague and looks at the rumours behind his death.
Background
Brahe was a Danish nobleman1, astronomer, astrologer and alchemist2. He was the first to realise that more precise data leads to better predictions.
He spent lots of time working on improving the sextant and the quadrant3. These were the only tools he used to observe the heavens. He was one of the last astronomers to use these instruments4. It wasn’t long after his death that Galileo thought pointing a telescope at the night sky would be a good idea.
His calculations were much more accurate than anything else the world had seen till then. Scientists estimate his level of accuracy was 10 times greater than his contemporaries4. As a scientist, he is one of the great astronomers of history2 4.
When Danish King Frederick II died in 1588, Brahe started to lose his influence in the Danish court2. There were many who held grudges against him, and who were suspicious of his Lutheran faith2.
This was immediately before the Thirty Years’ war. Read my article about the war to understand why this was a dangerous time in Europe.
He accepted exile and roamed Northern Europe before settling in Prague under the patronage of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II in 15992. As Imperial Court Astronomer, he also dabbled in astrology and alchemy as well.
Given Prague’s connections to alchemy, he came to the right place.
I’ve written a walking guide to Prague explaining the alchemical symbols on the Royal route.
Life in Prague
Brahe lived in a house close to the Loreto chapel in Prague’s castle district5. In Copenhagen, he had married Kirsten Jørgensdatter who was a commoner2. As a nobleman he would have lost his noble privileges so they had a morganatic marriage. This means his children could not inherit anything from him.
Prague treated Brahe’s family like royalty1, something they never had in Denmark. By 1600, Brahe moved into a house on Novy Svet street (New World)5. Brahe prepared astrological charts and interpreted many astronomical events for his Bohemian patrons. From all this I can conclude he must have had a happier life in Prague than in Copenhagen.
He also worked on a set of the most precise planetary tables in existence. His assistant Johannes Kepler published this work after Brahe’s death2 6. The Rudolphine tables contained detailed positions for 1 005 stars and the planets.
This was the first written catalogue of stars since Ptolemy from Ancient Rome6.
Brahe’s insistence on accuracy was such that the tables contain the most precise figures you can get with the naked eye2. The only way humankind improved on Brahe’s data was by inventing telescopes2.
Death
On 13 October 1601, Brahe was at a banquet hosted by Peter Vok of Rozemburk5. He had drunk copious amounts and needed to relieve himself3. He refused to get up from the table while the Emperor was there because this would be a breach of royal etiquette1. He stayed at the table3, as patiently as one could with a full bladder.
Back home, he was unable to urinate except with great pain1. Over the next 11 days he began to hallucinate and became delirious5. He died on 24 October 1601 at the age of 541 3 5. His physician suspected a kidney stone but an autopsy in 1901 showed this was not the case. He died of nothing more complex than a burst bladder3 5. Urine seeped into his blood and poisoned him till he died.
They held his funeral on 4 November 1601 at the Church of Our Lady before Tyn1 5. Imperial guards holding black and gold damask banners1 5 flanked the gold-decorated casket1. They buried him in this church in Prague’s Old Town Square5. His tombstone is on the floor by the altar5.
Rumours
For centuries urban myths about Brahe’s death were retold. Legend had it that Brahe’s assistant, Kepler, poisoned his master with mercury3 5. Other variations of the story claimed that the Danish King Christian IV wanted revenge after Brahe slept with the Queen mother (This is the story that inspired Hamlet3.) There even are rumours that a plagiarism dispute sent a rival into a murderous frenzy5.
In November 2010 Danish and Czech scientists exhumed Brahe’s remains to study them5. They proved there was not enough mercury in his system to have killed him5. In fact, they also reported that there was no lethal quantity of any poison in his system.
The moral of this story is simple: Even if you’re minding your Ps and Qs, don’t forget to P.
Share this article with people who would put themselves in such uncomfortable situations!
- The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Brahe; Victor E. Thoren, John Robert Christianson; Cambridge; 1990[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Tycho Brahe; Olin Jeuck Eggen; Encyclopedia Britannica; 2019-06-15[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Murder! Intrigue! Astronomers?; John Tierney; New York Times; 2010-11-19[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Medieval & Renaissance Astronomy; Australia Telescope National Facility; (Retrieved 2019-08-28) [↩][↩][↩]
- The death of Tycho Brahe, the astrologer to Rudolf II; Magic Bohemia; 2016-10-14[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Tycho Brahe and Astronomical Tables; Cambridge; (Retrieved 2019-08-28) [↩][↩]