Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History's Greatest Scientific Discoveries - Hardcover

Gilder, Joshua; Gilder, Anne-Lee

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385508441 ISBN 13: 9780385508445

Publisher: Doubleday, 2004

Synopsis

A real-life Amadeus: Set against the backdrop of the Counter-Reformation, this is the story of the stormy collaboration between two revolutionary astronomers, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. That collaboration would mark the dawn of modern science . . . and end in murder.

Johannes Kepler changed forever our understanding of the universe with his three laws of planetary motion. He demolished the ancient model of planets moving in circular orbits and laid the foundation for the universal law of gravitation, setting physics on the course of revelation it follows to this day. Kepler was one of the greatest astronomers of all time. Yet if it hadn't been for the now lesser-known Tycho Brahe, the man for whom Kepler apprenticed, Kepler would be a mere footnote in today's science books. Brahe was the Imperial Mathematician at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague and the most famous astronomer of his era. He was one of the first great systematic empirical scientists and one of the earliest founders of the modern scientific method. His forty years of planetary observations—an unparalleled treasure of empirical data—contained the key to Kepler's historic breakthrough. But those observations would become available to Kepler only after Brahe's death. This groundbreaking history portrays the turbulent collaboration between these two astronomers at the turn of the seventeenth century and their shattering discoveries that would mark the transition from medieval to modern science.

But that is only half the story. Based on recent forensic evidence (analyzed here for the first time) and original research into medieval and Renaissance alchemy—all buttressed by in-depth interviews with leading historians, scientists, and medical specialists—the authors have put together shocking and compelling evidence that Tycho Brahe did not die of natural causes, as has been believed for four hundred years. He was systematically poisoned—most likely by his assistant, Johannes Kepler.

An epic tale of murder and scientific discovery, Heavenly Intrigue reveals the dark side of one of history’s most brilliant minds and tells the story of court politics, personal intrigue, and superstition that surrounded the protean invention of two great astronomers and their quest to find truth and beauty in the heavens above.

About this title

About the Author

Joshua Gilder has worked as a magazine editor, White House speechwriter, and State Department official and is the author, most recently, of the novel Ghost Image. Anne-Lee Gilder was formerly a producer and investigative reporter for German television. They live outside Washington, D.C.

From the Inside Flap

A real-life Amadeus: Set against the backdrop of the Counter-Reformation, this is the story of the stormy collaboration between two revolutionary astronomers, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. That collaboration would mark the dawn of modern science . . . and end in murder.

Johannes Kepler changed forever our understanding of the universe with his three laws of planetary motion. He demolished the ancient model of planets moving in circular orbits and laid the foundation for the universal law of gravitation, setting physics on the course of revelation it follows to this day. Kepler was one of the greatest astronomers of all time. Yet if it hadn't been for the now lesser-known Tycho Brahe, the man for whom Kepler apprenticed, Kepler would be a mere footnote in today's science books. Brahe was the Imperial Mathematician at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in Prague and the most famous astronomer of his era. He was one of the first great systematic empirical scientists and one of the earliest founders of the modern scientific method. His forty years of planetary observations an unparalleled treasure of empirical data contained the key to Kepler's historic breakthrough. But those observations would become available to Kepler only after Brahe's death. This groundbreaking history portrays the turbulent collaboration between these two astronomers at the turn of the seventeenth century and their shattering discoveries that would mark the transition from medieval to modern science.

But that is only half the story. Based on recent forensic evidence (analyzed here for the first time) and original research into medieval and Renaissance alchemy all buttressed by in-depth interviews with leading historians, scientists, and medical specialists the authors have put together shocking and compelling evidence that Tycho Brahe did not die of natural causes, as has been believed for four hundred years. He was systematically poisoned most likely by his assistant, Johannes Kepler.

An epic tale of murder and scientific discovery, Heavenly Intrigue reveals the dark side of one of history s most brilliant minds and tells the story of court politics, personal intrigue, and superstition that surrounded the protean invention of two great astronomers and their quest to find truth and beauty in the heavens above.

Reviews

One of the delights of reviewing is to have your expectations overturned. I was doubly lucky with these two books. When I first looked at them, I anticipated that Kepler's Witch would be an intriguing account of one of the more obscure events in the life of the great astronomer Johannes Kepler but that Heavenly Intrigue, which suggests that Kepler murdered his patron Tycho Brahe, would be the work of cranks with no real understanding of history. I was wrong on both counts.

Kepler lived from 1571 to 1630, making him a contemporary of William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei. The Pilgrims founded the Plymouth colony when Kepler was 49. He was one of the giants on whose work the Scientific Revolution was based, and in particular he worked out the laws of planetary motion, later used by Isaac Newton in developing his theory of gravity. Indeed, it is often wrongly assumed that Newton's famous remark about "standing on the shoulders of giants" refers to people like Kepler and Brahe. In fact, Newton made that remark in the context of his work on light, long before the theory of gravity was developed; but as a metaphor, it is still a good description of the relationship between Kepler and Newton.

Kepler had a tough life, starting out in poverty in the German town of Weil der Statt, with an abusive father. He suffered a childhood attack of smallpox that left him with weak eyesight and later forced him to depend on the observations of other astronomers (notably Brahe) for the data he needed. And he did, indeed, have to witness his elderly mother go on trial for witchcraft.

Kepler's story has all the makings of a gripping biography. But James Connor's book is not that biography. It contains all the facts, but it is a dull read, overlong, and the author wears his learning too self-consciously. In spite of the title, the story of the witchcraft trial is not central to the book, and the treatment given here only serves to highlight how interesting a shorter, more focused account of this aspect of Kepler's life could be.

The most surprising feature of the book, to anyone who has studied Kepler's life, is Connor's claim that his subject went through a serious "embrace of astrology," something that "more than anything else . . . puts Kepler at a distance from our age." Actually, the impoverished Kepler cast horoscopes only to make money, and in his private correspondence referred to his clients as "fatheads" and described astrology as "silly and empty." This makes him much more in tune with modern thinking than most of his contemporaries.

But if Kepler's Witch is disappointing, Heavenly Intrigue is a delight. Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder have produced a much more crisply written chronicle of the colorful world of Kepler and his famous mentor, Brahe. The latter was an aristocratic Dane, who in his youth had fought a duel that resulted in a chunk being cut out of his nose, later protected with a silver covering; he presents a dramatic contrast with the low-born Kepler, always struggling to make ends meet.

The story culminates in their eventual meeting. This took place in Prague, where the aging Brahe (he lived from 1546 to 1601) had a treasure trove of planetary observations, going back decades, but lacked the mathematical skills to use these data to find the exact orbits of the planets. The younger Kepler had the mathematical skills, but not the data.

It should have been a marriage made in heaven, but for reasons that the Gilders make clear, Brahe was reluctant to part with his data, and Kepler was eager to get on with the job. It was only after Brahe died that Kepler, the obvious scientific heir, was able to get hold of the material he needed. Contemporary accounts tell us that Brahe was at a banquet in honor of a distinguished guest, and out of politeness did not leave the table to relieve himself during the extended meal in spite of drinking large quantities of wine. When he eventually tried to pass urine, he failed; and a few days later died in considerable pain, naming Kepler as his scientific heir on his deathbed.

But Brahe's sudden death surely concealed some broader underlying cause of his fatal discomfort -- perhaps an infection. One possibility that would fit the accounts is mercury poisoning, and this is the case that the Gilders make. But unlike other authorities, they suggest that the mercury was ingested not as an accidental consequence of Brahe's alchemy experiments, but through the hand of an enemy -- that is to say, Kepler.

Was Kepler eager enough to get his hands on the data to have poisoned Brahe? I don't think so, but this account of what might have happened is an enthralling read, as a murder mystery being investigated four centuries after the death. Even regarded as science fiction, it is informative and entertaining -- which would be appropriate, since Kepler wrote what many regard as the first science fiction story, an account of a mythical flight to the moon, designed to present some of his astronomical ideas in an accessible form.

Kepler himself would surely have loved the Gilders' book, even as a work of fiction. He would have appreciated the way the authors use the murder mystery as a peg for the science and biography -- though he doubtless would have taken strenuous note of the lack of compelling evidence to support the tale. And he might, from a distance, have appreciated the ironic echo of his mother's misfortunes in this version of the story.
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Novelist Joshua Gilder (Ghost Image) and his wife, former TV producer and investigative reporter Anne-Lee Gilder, offer a startling twist on the story of the troubled relationship of Tycho Brahe and his assistant, Johannes Kepler-who together laid the foundation for modern astronomy-and Brahe's unexpected and suspicious death at age 54 in 1601. The cause of Brahe's death had been debated for 400 years, but in 1991, forensic study of remains of Brahe's hair discovered lethal levels of mercury in his system. Dismissing other medical explanations for the mercury levels, the Gilders conclude that Brahe was murdered by Kepler, whose own work on the three laws of planetary motion-laws that changed human understanding of the universe-would remain incomplete without Brahe's closely guarded observational data. The authors weave together the personal histories of Brahe and Kepler, as well as the political, religious and scientific debates that raged during their lives. They find evidence of Kepler's obsessive desire to obtain Brahe's observations in letters by the young scientist, whom they portray in 20th-century diagnostic terms as a sociopath, permanently scarred by an abusive childhood. The Gilders' portrait of Kepler is interesting, albeit unpleasant; they catalogue his penchant for fallings out, paranoia and scheming in off-putting detail, and the explanations of his early scientific theories, which were wrong and impenetrably dense, will not be of universal interest. The writing is professional but not noteworthy, and the Gilders occasionally stretch the inconclusive evidence into speculations too thin to persuade.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Kepler has always ranked as one of the great geniuses of Renaissance science. But two investigative reporters now wish to place him in a very different pantheon: that of brilliant Renaissance criminals. Interpreting astonishing new forensic evidence in the light of careful archival research, the Gilders allege that Kepler used his powerful mind to plot the perfect murder, secretly poisoning his employer--the astronomer Tycho Brahe--to secure astronomical data he needed to advance his own pioneering work. The authors recount a familiar story in chronicling the improbable events that gave the audacious Kepler his post as a disgruntled assistant to the flamboyant but conceptually cautious Brahe. However, the Gilders depart dramatically from the long-standard history in explaining the death of the Danish astronomer. In new X-ray emission studies of Brahe's remains, the Gilders find proof that the astronomer died of mercury poisoning--not from natural causes, as previously assumed. Through some sharp-eyed sleuthing, the authors then build a strong circumstantial case against Kepler as the cunning culprit. Their remarkable detective work will win praise from mystery buffs and historians alike. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1



THE FUNERAL



The crowds of Prague citizens so thronged the streets that it was as if the funeral procession were making its way between two solid walls of humanity. The coffin, cloaked in black velvet upon which the Brahe coat of arms had been lavishly embroidered in gold, was borne aloft by twelve imperial officials, all noblemen. Inside, Tycho Brahe's body was laid out in knightly regalia, his sword at his side.

Three men led the procession, two holding candles high, the third a flowing flag of black damask. They were followed by Brahe's favorite horse, draped from head to tail in black cloth, all emblazoned in golden heraldry. Another flag bearer followed, and a second sepulchral horse, covered in black; then a man carrying a pair of gilt spurs, another carrying Brahe's helmet, festooned with feathers, a third the Brahe shield and escutcheon. Behind the coffin walked Brahe's youngest son, accompanied on either side by Brahe's beloved cousin, Eric Brahe, and Brahe's friend and dinner companion the night he first fell ill, Baron Ernfried von Minckwitz, in long mourning dress. Imperial counselors and Bohemian nobles came next, trailed by Brahe's assistants and servants.

Brahe's wife, Kirsten, followed, escorted by two distinguished royal judges, her three daughters in train, each attended by two noble gentlemen. Bringing up the rear were many "stately women" and after them the most exalted members of Prague's high society.

On November 4, 1601, the line of mourners made its way beneath the imposing black spires of the Teyn Church and through the mass of onlookers who filled the interior. Nobles and commoners alike jostled to catch a last glimpse and pay their respects to the almost mythic figure whose casket lay before them. The family took their seats in chairs draped in black English cloth, and Brahe's close friend Johannes Jessenius of Jessen ascended the steps before them to deliver his funeral oration.

"You see before your eyes," he said, "this great man, the restorer of astronomy, lying dead, indiscriminately cut down by fate." He spoke of Brahe's martial ancestors and noble lineage, the glory of his work and life in Denmark, and the unparalleled patronage of the Danish king Frederick II. He lauded his scientific achievements and, as might be expected in a funeral oration, the excellence of his character: his kindness to strangers, his hospitality and generosity to the poor, and the depth of his religious belief. Jessenius spoke from his own experience when he described his friend as a "man of easy fellowship," someone who "did not hold anger and offense, but was ever ready to forgive."

In the forthright manner of the age, however, Jessenius also made extended reference to more unpleasant occurrences that probably would be passed over in our euphemistic times: the youthful duel that had disfigured Brahe's face, his forced exile from Denmark, and the plagiarism of his Tychonic system of the planets by a man who called himself Ursus. Jessenius described in disconsolate detail the house of mourning he arrived at shortly after Brahe's "sudden and unexpected" death, and took the opportunity, in front of the assembled members of Prague nobility and high society, to clarify the status of Brahe's unparalleled treasure of celestial observations, which he had "earnestly entrusted to his heirs, even while breathing his last," but which were still--Jessenius pointedly remarked--in the possession of "Master John Kepler, within whose hands all these have remained so far." After Brahe's death, Kepler had left the house where he had served the last eighteen months as the famous astronomer's assistant. In Kepler's luggage were Brahe's massive logbooks, the record of forty years of meticulous labor.

Jessenius also dwelt at some length on Brahe's fatal illness. On the night of October 13, 1601, Brahe had attended a banquet and, although he had experienced no symptoms beforehand, grew increasingly ill during the course of the evening. By the time he reached home, he collapsed in bed with a raging fever, his body wracked by excruciating pain. For almost a week he endured terrible agony, relieved only intermittently by a light delirium. Toward the end of that time, however, his fabled hardy constitution seemed to have pulled him through the worst. He appeared to be regaining his health. It was then that Brahe had declared that his observations should be entrusted to his family. The morning after this announcement, on October 24, 1601, he was found dead.

Immediately following Brahe's death, rumors flew across Europe that he had been poisoned. Brahe, at fifty-four, was still strong and healthy. There had been no previous symptoms. His death seemed too sudden. The rumors spread across Germany and as far afield as Norway, where the bishop of Bergen, Andreas Foss, wrote to Brahe's old assistant and trusted companion Longomontanus: "I would like to know whether you have particular knowledge about Tycho Brahe, because recently an unpleasant rumor has developed, namely that he died, but not a usual death. . . . Alas, that this rumor may be wrong. God have mercy on us." In a similar vein, the prominent astrologer George Rollenhagen wrote not long after from Germany of his conviction that Brahe had been poisoned, as in so "vigorous a body [as Brahe's] so drastic an effect cannot possibly result from the retention of urine, before a climacteric year." Rollenhagen's reasoning was characteristically astrological, and thus might merit little credence in itself, but Brahe's physical strength--what Jessenius describes in the eulogy as his "firm and virile body"--was well known. The idea that someone so comparatively young and in such good health should suddenly succumb to a seemingly trifling illness no doubt fueled the speculation that he had been killed by an enemy. (While average longevity was comparatively low in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this was in large part due to the appallingly high infant and child mortality rates. Those who lived into adulthood stood reasonably good odds of achieving a ripe old age.)

In time, however, the rumors quieted down, in large part because there was no obvious culprit and because, given the medical knowledge at the time, the diagnosis of his illness appeared plausible: during the banquet, Brahe had held his urine too long, injuring his bladder and making him unable to urinate. Over the next four centuries, different explanations would be advanced. At first it was assumed that he died of a burst bladder; as medical knowledge developed, the more likely diagnosis was that he succumbed to a case of acute uremia--in which the kidneys are no longer able to filter out toxins naturally occurring in the blood--probably brought on by an enlarged prostate or other obstruction of the urinary tract.

In 1991, however, forensic analysis of a hair sample taken from Brahe's disinterred remains yielded a startling result. During the same time period in which the allegedly fatal dinner party took place, Brahe ingested something not on the menu: a massive dose of mercury that left deposits in his hair one hundred times above normal levels--enough to bring even the healthiest individual to death's door, if not all the way through it. Five years after the first hair analysis, a second study showed a dramatic mercury spike occurring thirteen hours before Tycho's death, or about nine o'clock on the evening before.

Two independent analyses leading to a single conclusion: Tycho Brahe died of mercury poisoning. His death was no accident: Tycho Brahe was murdered.



Chapter 2



A TRANSCRIPT OF ANGUISH



My conception was tracked down," the twenty-six-year-old Johannes Kepler noted in his astrological diary: "May 16, 1571, at 4:37 in the afternoon."

Kepler doesn't tell us what astrological calculations he employed to determine the moment of his conception with such precision, but the timing was important. His parents had been wed the day before, May 15, and he wished to allay any suspicion that he had been conceived out of wedlock. Kepler, who came into the world on December 27, 1571, a little over seven months after the wedding, concluded instead that he had been born prematurely, after precisely 224 days and ten hours in the womb, a deduction backed up by the planetary configurations at the time: "With the sun and moon in Gemini, five eastern planets signified a boy," while Mercury ensured that he "might have a weak and speedy birth."

We know these details because they are contained in the yearly horoscopes Kepler began to cast for himself in 1597, at the age of twenty-six, a practice he continued until 1628; two years before his death. His belief in astrology was not unusual for his time; in many universities, astrology was taught in tandem with astronomy as one of the seven classical liberal arts (the others being grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, and music). Throughout much of his career as an astronomer Kepler would supplement his income by drawing up astrological charts for various officials--including, later in life, Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor--that predicted everything from the weather to the outcomes of military campaigns. While he would often voice his skepticism about such detailed prognostications, he never lost his faith in the power of the planetary "aspects"--the planets' geometrical relation to one another against the background constellations--to shape a person's character and fate during crucial life events such as conception, birth, and marriage and even to determine the time of one's death.

In his midtwenties Kepler began a retrospective project to plot the astrological birth charts for himself and immediate relations in an attempt to understand the comingled fates that forged his personality. His often cryptic notes, accompanied by brief thumbnail sketches of his various family members desc...

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385508441
• ISBN 13: 9780385508445
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320