Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 A Noble Humanist
- 2 The New Star
- 3 Becoming a Professional
- 4 The First Years on Hven: 1576–1579
- 5 Urania's Castle
- 6 The Flowering of Uraniborg
- 7 First Renovations: The Solar Theory
- 8 The Tychonic System of the World
- 9 High Tide: 1586–1591
- 10 The Theory of the Motion of the Moon
- 11 The Last Years at Uraniborg
- 12 Exile
- 13 A Home Away from Home?
- Epilogue
- Appendix 1 Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Sources
- Appendix 2 Glossary of Technical Terms
- Appendix 3 The Tychonic Lunar Theory
- Appendix 4 Figures for Footnotes
- Appendix 5 Tycho's Dwellings in Exile
- Appendix 6 Letters, 1599–1601
- Author Index
- Subject Index
6 - The Flowering of Uraniborg
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 A Noble Humanist
- 2 The New Star
- 3 Becoming a Professional
- 4 The First Years on Hven: 1576–1579
- 5 Urania's Castle
- 6 The Flowering of Uraniborg
- 7 First Renovations: The Solar Theory
- 8 The Tychonic System of the World
- 9 High Tide: 1586–1591
- 10 The Theory of the Motion of the Moon
- 11 The Last Years at Uraniborg
- 12 Exile
- 13 A Home Away from Home?
- Epilogue
- Appendix 1 Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Sources
- Appendix 2 Glossary of Technical Terms
- Appendix 3 The Tychonic Lunar Theory
- Appendix 4 Figures for Footnotes
- Appendix 5 Tycho's Dwellings in Exile
- Appendix 6 Letters, 1599–1601
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Toward the end of the summer of 1581 as the finishing touches were being applied to Uraniborg, Kirsten gave birth to a son. In a family that to that point consisted solely of daughters, it must have been a great occasion, no matter how elevated the rights and status of Danish women may have been relative to those in other contemporary cultures. After having disposed of his father's name (Otte) and used his maternal grandfather's name (Claus), Tycho now baptized his third son Tyge, after his paternal grandfather. When another son was born in 1583, he was named Jørgen, presumably after Tycho's uncle and stepfather but perhaps after Kirsten's father as well.
Tycho's sons were only the vanguard of a considerable increase in the Brahe household. From at least as early as the planning of the eight-room garret on the top floor of Uraniborg, Tycho had envisioned having a significant number of assistants to work with him. As space, instruments, and time became available to Tycho in the early 1580s, therefore, he began to select collaborators until he accumulated a group of eight to twelve members of varying degrees of permanence and competence. Thanks to the curiosity of an anonymous inmate who compiled a fragmentary list of his fellows toward the end of the 1580s, we can obtain a glimpse of at least the upper half of the spectrum of Tycho's assistants.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Lord of UraniborgA Biography of Tycho Brahe, pp. 192 - 219Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991