Tycho Brahe and the Measure of the Heavens, Hardcover

The Danish aristocrat and astronomer Tycho Brahe personified the inventive vitality of Renaissance life in the sixteenth century. Brahe lost his nose in a student duel, wrote Latin poetry, and built one of the most astonishing villas of the late Renaissance, while virtually inventing team research and establishing the fundamental rules of empirical science. His observatory at Uraniborg functioned as a satellite to Hamlet's castle of Kronborg until Tycho abandoned it to end his days at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. This illustrated biography presents a new and dynamic view of Tycho's life, reassessing his gradual separation of astrology from astronomy and his key relationships with Johannes Kepler, his sister Sophie, and his kinsmen at the court of King Frederick II.

John Robert Christianson is professor emeritus of history at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and was made Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit by King Harald V in 1995. He is the author of On Tycho's Island and coeditor of Tycho Brahe and Prague: Crossroads of European Science.