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ABSTRACT
The astronomical instruments of Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe, were crucial to his intended reform of astronomy in the sixteenth century. Tycho represented these devices in a series of images that were circulated in range of contexts, thereby disseminating information about his technology to a wider audience. Through an analysis of the iconographical content of these images and a consideration of the ways in which they were circulated, this article argues that images of technology were in fact crucial to Tycho’s attempts to establish his authority as an astronomer. Embodying his claims to accuracy and recruiting trust in his innovative instruments, the images reinforced the validity of his astronomy and thereby played a central role in sustaining his reputation as an astronomer.
Graphical Abstract
Acknowledgements
A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the AIP Early-Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences, April 2016; with grateful thanks to participants for their helpful comments. Special thanks also to Liba Taub, Nicholas Jardine, Adam Mosley, Sachiko Kusukawa and Deborah Howard for their expert guidance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In his youth, Tycho had recognised the disparity between celestial events and existing astronomical tables and ephemerides; he thus perceived the need for improved observations to correct these “intolerable errors” and set astronomy upon a more secure foundation. See Brahe, Tycho Brahe’s Description of his Instruments and Scientific Work, 107.
2. On the accuracy of Tycho’s instruments, see Wesley, “The Accuracy of Tycho Brahe’s Instruments,” 42–53; Rosa, “How Really Precise and Accurate are Tycho Brahe’s Data?” 102–113; Maeyama, “Tycho Brahe’s Stellar Observations,” 113–119; Wolfschmidt, “The Observatories and Instruments of Tycho Brahe,” 113–119 and 203–16; Chapman, “Tycho Brahe – Instrument Designer, Observer and Mechanician,” 70–76.
3. See Thoren, The Lord of Uraniborg, 150. Many of Tycho’s later instruments installed in his subterranean observatory, Stjerneborg, are thought to have been constructed by Hans Crol following his arrival on Hven ca. 1584, possibly with the assistance of Rudolphus Groningensis; see Christianson, On Tycho’s Island, 98, 262–3. For the timeline of instrument construction, see Thoren, “New Light on Tycho’s Instruments,” 25–29. For details of Tycho’s activities on Hven, see Christianson, On Tycho’s Island.
4. On Tycho’s early publications at Uraniborg, see Christianson, On Tycho’s Island, 91–8.
5. Mario Biagioli adroitly insists upon the different markets that Galileo attempted to navigate and control throughout his career; we might similarly consider learned scholars and princely patrons as two distinct audiences among whom Tycho attempted to garner authority. What differentiates Tycho from Biagioli’s account of Galileo is the use of the same mechanism (viz. instrument illustrations) to navigate both spheres of influence; clearly technology was deemed of sufficient relevance to both groups to merit a central role in Tycho’s strategies for generating authority. While Tycho made use of his instrument illustrations to address both audiences, it is notable that images proliferated in the context of Tycho’s pursuit of patronage. We might therefore consider the value of these illustrations not only in terms of bestowing credibility upon Tycho’s astronomy but also their cultural currency in the world of courtly display; the aesthetic appeal of his hand-coloured illustrations – and the physical, technologically superior objects they represented – was surely appreciated among princely audiences. It is important to recognise in this respect, however, that Tycho conceived of his instrument illustrations prior to his patronage crisis of the 1590s; their prominent role in Tycho’s patronage strategies only serves to underscore the multifarious appeal and breadth of meaning attributed to instruments in the period. See Biagioli, Galileo’s Instruments of Credit.
6. This use of instrument illustrations to confer authority may translate to other disciplines besides astronomy. Andreas Libavius, for example, provided detailed descriptions of equipment used in alchemical practice with accompanying illustrations in the second edition of his Alchymia (1606). Through this transparent presentation, Libavius rejected the arcane character of traditional alchemical texts and claimed authority on the basis of his encyclopaedic knowledge. The creation and circulation of technological illustrations in related disciplines may be a fruitful field for further investigation but is sadly beyond the scope of this study, particularly as, despite an active interest in the field, Tycho did not record his own alchemical activities pictorially, preferring not to divulge details of his practice in print; see Brahe, Tycho Brahe’s Description of his Instruments, 118. For more on Libavius, see Hannaway, “Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science,” 585–610.
7. Many editions of Sacrobosco’s Sphaera, for example, depicted an armillary sphere to illustrate the celestial circles.
8. Instrument manuals were popular in the period, following the success of Johann Stöffler’s Elucidatio fabricae ususque astrolabii (1513); other examples include several by Gemma Frisius and Johannes Schöner. Compendiums were produced by authors such as Sebastian Münster (on sundials) and Giovanni Paolo Gallucci (Della fabrica et uso di diversi stromenti di astronomia et cosmographia, 1597). Such works were often produced by instrument-makers from whom the instruments would have been available for purchase: the commercial motivations are thus clear. For more detail, see Bennett, “Early Modern Mathematical Instruments,” 697–705.
9. See, for example, Apian, Astronomicum Caesarium and Schöner, Opera mathematica.
10. The appearance in 1572 of an unanticipated apparition in the night sky had rendered parallax measurements in particular of central importance, capable of determining the location of the phenomenon as either sub- or supralunary. Detecting no observable parallax, Tycho determined that the apparition was a nova stella, while a comet of 1577 was similarly ascribed to the celestial realm. These claims called into question central tenets of Aristotelian natural philosophy based on the immutability of the heavens; the epistemic status of Tycho’s claims (and the small group of astronomers who likewise recognised the celestial nature of these novelties) thus depended vitally upon the precision of their observations. Indeed, in book one of his Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata (1602), Tycho rejects sublunary accounts of the new star precisely on the basis of the inadequate observations upon which they were founded. See Westman, The Copernican Question, ch.8.
11. The Mechanica is available in two English translations: Brahe, Instruments of the Renewed Astronomy, and Brahe, Tycho Brahe’s Description of his Instruments and Scientific Work. Hereafter referred to as AIM (1996) and AIM (1946) respectively. The Mechanica is reprinted (5:1–161) with Brahe’s collected works in Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera Omnia; hereafter referred to as TBOO.
12. AIM (1946), 74–5.
13. For the concept of “virtual witnessing,” the seminal work is Shapin, “Pump and Circumstance,” 481–520. See also Shapin and Schaffer, Leviathan and the air-pump, 60–5.
14. The failure of commercially produced instruments to meet Tycho’s exacting standards is indicated in the case of a great brass globe he commissioned in 1570. Despite having “found a clever craftsman [Christoph Schissler], a person I had long searched for in vain,” Tycho nonetheless was forced to repair cracks in the globe surface five years after its construction in order to restore sphericity. See AIM (1946), 103.
15. For instance, Tycho improved the functionality of his quadrants by extending the alidades and adding handles for ease of manipulation.
16. Despite Tycho’s rather ambitious claim that “The astronomical instrument, which is particularly convenient to use, was first invented [excogitavi] by myself, about twenty years ago” (AIM (1946), 25), the instrument had been known in Islamic astronomy prior to Tycho’s “invention.” For the influence of Islamic instruments on European design, see King, “Islamic astronomical instruments,” 321–60. Tycho’s ongoing process of instrument construction is also highlighted by the inclusion within the Mechanica of a section on “instruments yet to be constructed,” confirming Tycho’s continued attention to technological improvement; see AIM (1946), 100–101.
17. AIM (1946), 99.
18. Ibid., 71.
19. Ibid., 66–7.
20. Ibid., 31. Tycho further elaborates upon his method in the preface to the Mechanica: “I constructed various and multiple instruments, for obvious reasons: First, because I would prove an observation to be free of all error, by investigating the same one by different means, and then, too, so that if some of them would produce any hidden defect, … others would be at hand, which would correct it and demonstrate their exact dependability, and in addition, so that the observers’ sharp-sightedness in sighting the instruments and their diligence in reckoning – there should be at least six or eight of them – to be compared in turn, might be examined, with no one of them having knowledge of what another has determined.” AIM (1996), 6–7.
21. For more details, see Mosley, Bearing the Heavens, 55–98.
22. For more on Tycho’s sights and divisions, see Thoren (1973), 27–9.
23. See AIM (1946), 141–44. Interestingly, Thomas Digges includes a similar diagram of transversal divisions while discussing the astronomical radius in his Alae seu scalae mathematicae (1573), fol. I3r. Though Digges does not delineate his instruments, the inclusion of this diagram emphasises the importance of enhanced accuracy for an author centrally concerned with parallax measurements.
24. Joan’s father, Willem Blaeu, had visited Tycho’s observatory in the winter of 1595–6 and became an important figure in the diffusion of his legacy, particularly through production of celestial globes based on Tychonic data. For more on Blaeu’s visit to Hven, see Christianson, 253–5. For Tychonic globes, see Mosley, Bearing the Heavens, 230–65.
25. TBOO 4:370–75.
26. For example, both a quadrant and sextant are described as contributing to Tycho’s observations of the comet of 1577. Indeed, Tycho is explicit in confirming the purpose of their delineation within his book on the comet: “I used it [the sextant] particularly for the observations of the comet of the year 1577. This is the reason why this sextant is, as was mentioned, delineated and described in greater detail towards the end of the lucid book that we wrote on this comet.” AIM (1946), 78.
27. Tycho’s observations of the “new star” of 1572 and the supralunary nature of comets, for example, undermined traditional Aristotelian concepts of the immutability of the heavens, as well as the existence of crystalline spheres to account for celestial motion. Furthermore, his geo-heliocentric cosmological system directly undermined traditional Ptolemaic astronomy.
28. TBOO 6:33–40; Mosley, Bearing the Heavens, 41–4. Tycho even sent scale models of his instruments to long-standing correspondent Thaddeus Hagecius in 1590, further emphasising the role of letters in communicating details of his technology; see TBOO 7:257; Mosley, Bearing the Heavens, 255.
29. Tycho’s active participation in astronomical debates through epistolary and publication strategies undermines the traditional image of Tycho as a secluded scholar pursuing the vita contemplativa in his island hideaway; in fact, letters were a crucial vehicle by which Tycho attempted to craft his reputation, while access to his own printing press granted him additional control over his publications. Indeed, Tycho had initially intended to settle in Basel “on account of its famous University and the excellent learned men who live there … and finally because Basel is located so to speak at the point where the three biggest countries in Europe, Italy, France and Germany, meet, so that it would be possible by correspondence to form friendships with distinguished and learned men in different places. In this way it would be possible to make my inventions more widely known”; AIM (1946), 108–9. For Tycho as secluded scholar, see Hannaway, “Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science,” 585–610; Shackelford, “Tycho Brahe, Laboratory Design, and the Aim of Science: Reading Plans in Context,” 211–30. For more on Tycho’s epistolary practices, see Mosley, Bearing the Heavens. For an analysis of Tycho’s published correspondence, the Epistolae astronomicae (1596), see Mosley, Jardine, and Tybjerg, “Epistolary Culture, Editorial Practices, and the Propriety of Tycho’s Astronomical Letters,” 421–51. Interestingly, the isolation of Tycho’s island may have granted him additional power to control his reputation abroad, with printed products (including instrument illustrations) offering only a partial (and no doubt favourable) presentation of his activities on Hven. For the productive role of distance in generating credit, see Biagioli, Galileo’s Instruments of Credit, ch.1.
30. Tycho, for instance, describes the presentation of a small mechanical globe to the young prince, later Christian IV of Denmark, in 1592; see AIM (1946), 30.
31. For more on Tycho’s patronage crisis, see Christianson, On Tycho’s Island, ch. 9; Thoren, Lord of Uraniborg, ch. 11.
32. Dedicated to Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph II, the Mechanica was an integral component of Tycho’s patronage strategy. Tycho ultimately secured the support of the emperor and relocated to the imperial court at Prague in 1599. For more, see Thoren, Lord of Uraniborg, ch. 12; Christianson, On Tycho’s Island, 218–27.
33. See AIM (1946), 29.
34. Ibid., 121.
35. TBOO 7:132. This intended seven-volume work was never completed.
36. Chapman, “Tycho Brahe in China,” 417.