Kepler's Witch

by James A. Connor

  Finally, with the most excruciating pain, he barely passed some urine. But it was still blocked. Uninterrupted insomnia followed, then intestinal fever, and little by little delirium. His poor condition was made worse by his way of eating, from which he could not be deterred. On October 24, when his delirium had subsided for a few hours, amid the prayers, tears, and efforts of his family to console him, his strength failed and he passed away very peacefully. With his death, his thirty-eight-year series of heavenly observations came to an end. During his last night, through the delirium in which everything was very pleasant, like a composer creating a song Brahe repeated these words over and over again: “Let me not seem to have lived in vain.”5

  Kepler stood at Tycho’s bedside with the family, and just before Tycho died, at nine or ten in the morning, he begged Kepler to carry on with his work, asking him not to abandon the Tychonic model of the universe entirely in favor of the Copernican. If he had to turn to Copernicus’s plan, then he should at least follow through with Tycho’s as well. The family buried Tycho on November 4 at Tyn Church in Prague in an Utraquist service. The Utraquists were pre-Reformation reformers peculiar to Bohemia, the followers of the long-dead martyr Jan Hus. Kepler was part of the funeral procession as a collaborator and a colleague, not an assistant. He composed and recited a long elegy for the service, for he never forgot what he owed to his old master. Though he would never surrender his belief in the Copernican system, he did his best to show where the Tychonic system was still applicable to the motion of the planets.

  Two days after Tycho died, the emperor declared Kepler his imperial mathematician. He sent an adviser named Barwitz to tell Kepler of his advancement and to inform him that the emperor had transferred the care of all of Tycho’s instruments and works to him. Barwitz told Kepler that the emperor would bestow on him both a salary and a title, but of course he would have to apply for the salary. Given the state of the imperial bureaucracy, this alone signaled trouble for Kepler. Nevertheless, where he was once the assistant, now he was the master. He had control of all of Tycho’s observations and could work freely for the first time in his life. His one great task was to prepare the Rudolphine Tables, and since little had been done on that project while Tycho was alive, Kepler needed to make mountains of calculations in order to finish it.

  For the next few months, however, he stood in the hallways of the great Prague Castle, one of a small crowd of imperial employees who gathered in clumps about the castle. In a little over a year, he had risen from an outcast from Austria to the imperial mathematician. Surely, he thought, this was the hand of God. Congratulations flowed in from all over Europe. Kepler received a letter from Baron Hoffmann and another from Herwart von Hohenberg, both of whom were thrilled, and said so. Only Kepler, Herwart said, could replace Tycho Brahe. Knowing the Prague bureaucracy all too well, Herwart advised Kepler to ask for a salary commensurate with his mind and his importance and to seek an immediate down payment. Kepler listened to this, but sadly took the advice of other, less astute political minds and let the emperor fix the salary. Seeing a bargain, Rudolf offered him 500 gulden a year, one-sixth of what he offered to Tycho, a salary commensurate not with his mind, but rather with his social standing. The salary was expected to begin on October 1, 1601, but that didn’t mean it would actually start then. Kepler, so unused to court life, spent the next few months shuttling back and forth from one office to the other in the imperial bureaucracy, looking for his pay.

  Troubles also began about that time with Tycho’s family. Although the Brahe family legally owned Tycho’s legacy, the emperor had given control over that legacy to Kepler since no one else could complete Tycho’s great work. The family, led by the son-in-law, the same Tengnagel who had so abused Tycho’s other assistants while courting his daughter, conspired to assure that the upstart Kepler would not profit from Tycho’s work and that all fame, glory, and whatever money might come would go to the family—in Tycho’s name, of course. Kepler tried to keep the peace and to respond with proper respect to Tycho’s family, but the problems would only get worse as the Rudolphine Tables neared completion.

  As a mathematician, however, Kepler had reached the heights. He was a member of the emperor’s court, seemingly untouchable. But even there, the Counter-Reformation gathered around him. The old warfare between Protestants and Catholics was even more complicated in Prague than it had been in Graz. In Graz, there had been only two groups struggling for power. In Prague, there were three—the Catholics, the Utraquists, and the Bohemian Brethren. The Utraquists were founded when the more moderate followers of Jan Hus signed a treaty with the Catholic church on November 30, 1433. One of the Hussites’ great complaints was the division between the clergy and the laity, symbolized by the fact that the clergy received Communion under both species, sub utraque specie, the bread and wine, while the people received Communion under only one, the bread. The Utraquists were therefore a form of liberal Catholicism, more schismatic than heretical. They held a middle ground, much as Anglicanism does in the modern world. The Hussite rebellion, however, was a violent one, with war and betrayal at the hands of church officials. In the fifteenth century, after a good deal of bloodshed, church officials invited Hus to a conference to discuss healing the rift between his followers and the church, and while he was on the road to the conference, the bishops sent soldiers to arrest him, try him, and finally burn him at the stake. Memory sears like a hot iron, and almost a hundred and fifty years later, the people of Bohemia could still smell the smoke of betrayal.

  Into this mix of Catholics, Utraquists, and Bohemian Brethren, a more radical Hussite group, came Luther and his followers. Protestants began to split, and to split again. Some of the Bohemian Brethren formed a new group called the Bohemian Brethren in the Bohemian Confession, which followed the Augsburg Confession in most ways, with a pinch of Calvinism thrown in. In 1556, however, the Jesuits entered the scene, as they had done in Graz. Peter Canisius, later canonized a saint, lead them, and his zeal was aimed at one thing—the reconversion of Bohemia to the Catholic church.

  The Jesuits were missionaries and educators, founding colleges all over Europe, and they admired reasonable men. Complete union with the Society of Jesus required that one take a fourth vow over and above the traditional three of poverty, chastity, and obedience, a vow of special obedience and dedication to the pope. The Jesuits were therefore the most Catholic of Catholic orders. Throughout his life, Kepler had a complex relationship with them. Some Jesuits befriended him and gave him sanctuary when members of his own church would not. They supported him, promoted his work, and prayed for his conversion. From time to time, they passed on hopeful rumors wafting around Prague, as they had done in Graz, about Kepler’s imminent conversion, but these were pipe dreams.

  Once in Prague, the Jesuits founded a new university, the Clementinum, which, like all Jesuit schools, grew quickly and attracted political influence. The already existing university, the Carolinum, founded in 1348 by the emperor Charles IV, had become the seat of Utraquist doctrine, and from there it had opened to all the other new theologies, and so the Catholics needed a university of their own. After the arrival of the Jesuits, however, the initiative that had once belonged to the Protestants shifted to the Catholics. Meanwhile, the Habsburgs battled one another over the question. Maximilian II, Rudolf’s father, like Rudolf himself, was a Renaissance man. Theological niceties bored him, and what he wanted most was peace, so he oscillated between one stand and the next. When Rudolf II became emperor in 1576, he followed his father’s example, but under pressure from the growing Catholic faction, led by his mother, he invited the Capuchins into the city to join the Jesuits, and so the Counter-Reformation began to grow. Suddenly, new antagonisms gestated between the emperor and his people, just as they had done in Graz while Kepler was there.

  In 1602, two years after Kepler arrived, the emperor declared that only Catholics and Utraquists could live in the land of Bohemia. What was Kepler to do? Was his position on
ce again in jeopardy? Would he be forced out, as had happened in Graz? None of these things happened, however. The hammer never fell. Partly, this was because Kepler had grown in stature. Where he was once a simple teacher in a Lutheran school, now he was the imperial mathematician. That, along with the personality of the emperor himself, made the difference. Although Rudolf’s cousin Ferdinand and his younger brother Matthias were both devoted to the Catholic faith, Rudolf was much more open. Although Ferdinand was a zealous torch, ready to set the world on fire, dogmatic in his beliefs, and intolerant of anyone who was not in direct communion with Rome, Rudolf was too busy trying to solve the problem of himself. He was an eccentric and suffered from profound depression. Reclusive, he abandoned much of the business of the empire to his corrupt and treacherous court and hid himself in the labyrinth of his Kunstkammer, his personal imperial museum. Weighed down by sadness, he grew more introverted with each year and eventually suffered a breakdown, tormented by hallucinations. Fearful that he was bewitched, he gathered around himself astrologers and alchemists, mathematicians and astronomers, practitioners of magic high and low, and even a few mystical rabbis.

  RUDOLF II WAS AN INTERESTING MAN. King of Bohemia and Hungary, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, he was a collector of oddities, antiquities, and wonders. His family, especially his ambitious younger brother Matthias, thought he was too soft on Protestants and should be replaced by, well, Matthias. Although Rudolf was a strong Catholic and promoted the works of the Jesuits and the Capuchins in his kingdom, he preferred peace and was at heart more concerned with the occult, with piercing the veil of the mystery of life. His grandmother, Juana “the Mad” of Castile, had died howling with insanity, and his mother, Maria of Spain, was a cold, difficult woman who had never wanted to leave Spain and wanted everyone around her to be as Spanish as possible. She gave birth to Rudolf on a summer evening in July—July 18, 1552. His father, Maximilian II of Austria, was a different sort, an openhearted, friendly man, unlike his mother, who like her grandmother suffered from chronic melancholy. All her life, she remained cool and distanced from her sixteen children, as if she were living in a high, dark room.

  Madness permeated both branches of the of the Habsburg line—the Spanish and the Austrian. Both of Rudolf’s parents, who were cousins, were the grandchildren of Mad Juana of Castile, who lived from 1479 to 1555. According to the story, after her husband, Philip the Handsome, died on September 25, 1506, Juana kept his body beside her bed for the next nineteen years in the belief that on the anniversary of his death he would come back to life. Supposedly, she took his casket along whenever she traveled about Spain, and now and then, perhaps wondering if he were still dead or perhaps desiring to look one more time on his moldering face, she would open the lid and look inside. An odd connection: as a young man before his conversion, Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, would accompany the royal treasurer to the royal villa at Tordesillas, where Juana lived with her youngest daughter, Catherine. For several years, Ignatius held a secret crush on the young Infanta, “the secret of his heart.”

  The Spanish king, Philip II of Spain, joined with his sister, Rudolf’s mother, Maria, in lobbying for a Spanish education for all of Maximilian’s children. Maria feared that her children would come under the sway of the Protestants, for Protestant ideas floated through Vienna like a morning mist, but not so in Madrid, which remained Catholic, austere, proud, and gloomy. Maximilian, who never liked the Spanish, put off his sons’ departure year after year, until the pressure from the Spanish faction became overwhelming, and he gave his permission.

  Rudolf arrived in Spain in 1564 with his younger brother Ernest and two friends, Wolfgang von Rumpf and Count Adam von Dietrichstein. Even by that time, his personality had begun to form, and he showed the first symptoms of his mother’s melancholy. He was also probably bisexual. A serious boy, Rudolf was reserved but deeply intelligent and often given to flights of fancy and bouts of sadness. Eventually, he would prove to be a great linguist, able to speak, read, and write Latin, Spanish, German, and eventually a little Czech. He also developed a taste for art and loved mathematics and science. All his life, the natural world held him spellbound, and he wanted to know all he could about it.

  Life in Spain was difficult for young Rudolf and his brother. Philip II’s court was a cold place, mannerly, bigoted, and often ruthless. Spanish manners seemed to infect him, playing on his natural melancholy. While in Spain, he met Don Carlos, the insane son of the King Philip II. He stood by watching in January 1568 as the king ordered his own son locked into a room and then forbade everyone in the court to mention the boy’s name, even in conversation and even in prayers. Don Carlos died in July that year, followed by the queen, his mother, in October.

  A pall hung over the court after that; Rudolf and young Ernest hid behind their studies, the classics, Latin prose, fencing, and theology. On Sunday, they served as altar boys at Mass. In early 1570, Philip II married Rudolf’s youngest sister, Anna, making her his fourth wife. Finally, the following spring, the king gave Rudolf and Ernest permission to return to Vienna. Rudolf later remarked that he had spent the next night so filled with joy that he couldn’t sleep. Their years in Spain had been a difficult time for them, scarring them deeply. Once they were back in Vienna, their father, Emperor Maximilian, did not approve of the changes and commanded them to rid themselves of their “Spanish humors.” He disapproved of the penitential gravity and prideful distance he found they had acquired. “Change your bearing!” Maximilian told them, but they could not; Spanish manners had become too solid a part of them. Soon after they returned, Maximilian’s health began to fail. He suffered from numerous health problems—heart attacks, gout, and something called “kidney colic,” all of which might have had their roots in syphilis.

  Maximilian, knowing that his time on earth was coming to a close, arranged to have Rudolf, his oldest son, crowned king of Bohemia and king of Hungary. Soon after, the Imperial Diet met in Regensburg, so that Rudolf could be crowned king of the Romans, a necessary prerequisite to the imperial throne, as well. On Maximilian’s way to Regensburg, his health collapsed. Though he seemed to rally for a short while, his health faded, and he grew weaker every day. Rudolf rushed to his bedside. His daughter Anna rode quickly from Bavaria in order to join the family. Both Anna and Queen Maria urged him to receive the last rites. The Spanish faction gathered, until finally the Spanish ambassador said: “I see from your condition, Your Majesty, that it would be time…” Maximilian, however, cut him off. “You are right, Mr. Marquis. I have not slept well and would like to rest a little.” Finally, on October 12 Emperor Maximilian died, with his entire family gathered around.

  Wasting little time, the German electors voted Rudolf the new emperor and crowned him on November 1. As with his mother and Mad Juana of Castile, Rudolf suffered from bouts of melancholy. These would only get worse in his life, as the troubles of his times encompassed him. Those were troubled times, indeed. Catholics and Protestants were at war all across his kingdom. An earthquake rocked Vienna, and local epidemics of plague flashed into and out of existence like brush fires. In 1577, the year that Johannes Kepler stood upon the hill outside of Leonberg holding his mother’s hand watching the great comet, Rudolf II, king of Bohemia and Hungary, king of the Romans and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, suffered an emotional breakdown. From that time on he almost never left the castle; he became so sick over the next four years and lost so much weight that people feared for his life. The responsibilities of power were too much for him. The threats of the Turks were constant. The struggles between Catholics and Protestants were endless.

  Finally, he moved his court to Prague in Bohemia to get away from the crowds and pressures of Vienna. Almost immediately after moving into Prague Castle, he ordered the construction of a series of great cabinets and long shelves throughout the hallways of the castle, the beginnings of his Kunstkammer, his private museum. This museum was never open to the public, and only a few select guests, u
sually kings and important ambassadors, were ever given a tour. There, he began collecting exotic animals and gathering to himself mountains of art. He also gathered some of the great minds of Europe, not only painters and artists, philosophers and mystics, but scientists such as Tycho and Kepler.

  Throughout the long galleries of the Prague Castle, which is actually a small city built on top of a high hill, he housed several thousand paintings (some by Arcimboldo, Breughel, and Correggio), sculptures, coins, gems, natural oddities, medicines, scientific instruments, and clocks as well as books on the occult and other curious matters. On the first floor were the Spanish Room and the New Room, where he placed his art collection. He was fascinated with little machines, which was one of the reasons he had appointed Tycho Brahe as his imperial mathematician.