Johann Baptist Hebenstreit's Idyll on the Temple of Urania,the Frontispiece Image of Kepler's Rudolphine Tables,Part 1: Context and Significance

Hammer F. , “Nachbericht”, in Johannes Kepler Gesammelte Werke (Munich, 1938; hereafter KGW), x, 1*–88*, pp. 29*–37*; Gingerich O. , “Johannes Kepler and the Rudolphine Tables”, Sky and telescope , xlii (1971), 328–33; Jardine N. , The birth of history and philosophy of science: Kepler's A defence of Tycho against Ursus with essays on its provenance and significance, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1988), 287–9; Arnulf A. , “Das Titelbild der Tabulae Rudolphinae des Johannes Kepler: Entwurf, Ausführung und dichterische Erläuterung einer Wissenschaftsallegorie”, Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft, liv/lv (2000–2001), 176–98; Pantin I. , “Une ‘École d'Athènes’ des astronomes? La représentation de l'astronomie antique dans les frontispices de la Renaissance”, in Images de l'antiquité dans la littérature française: Le texte et son illustration, ed. by Baumgartner E. Harf-Lancner L. (Paris, 1993), 87–99, pp. 91–4; Gattei S. , “The engraved frontispiece of Kepler's Tabulae Rudolphinae (1627): A preliminary study”, Nuncius, xxiv (2009), 341–65.

Arnulf , op. cit. (ref. 1), draws on passages from the poem, as does I. E. Söderlund's Taking possession of astronomy: Frontispieces and illustrated title pages in 17th-century books on astronomy (Stockholm, 2010), to which is appended a translation of the poem by Peter Sjökvist that differs significantly from ours.

Delambre J.-B. J. , Histoire de l'astronomie moderne, i (Paris, 1821), 558.

KGW, x, 32*. Max Caspar, however, states that in the poem “the symbolic picture is significantly interpreted in well-chosen words”: Caspar M. , Kepler, transl. and ed. by Hellman C. D. , new intro. by Gingerich O. , bibliographical citations by Gingerich O. Segonds A. (New York, 1993), 328.

For details of the protracted preparation and production of the Tables, see Hammer F. , op. cit. (ref. 1), 8*–29*; List M. , “Rudolphinische Tafeln”, KGW, xix, 189–227; Caspar , Kepler (ref. 4), 140–2, 308–18, 321–8.

KGW, xix, no. 5/3.

“foelix illa calamitas”, letter of 1 Dec. 1618 to Remus Johannes , KGW, xvii, no. 812: 28. On Keplerian logarithms and their relation to Napierian and natural logarithms, see Belyi Y. A. , “Johannes Kepler and the development of mathematics”, Vistas in astronomy, xviii (1975), 643–60, pp. 654–7; Gattei , op. cit. (ref. 1), 358–60.

Letter of 10 Feb. 1627 to Schickard Wilhelm , KGW, xviii, no. 1037: 29–59.

See KGW, x, 215.

KGW, xix, 216–7.

This portrayal of Tycho is, as pointed out by Arnulf , op. cit. (ref. 1), 194, col. 2, quite close to that in the image of his great mural quadrant at Uraniborg in his Astronomiae instauratae mechanica of 1598: Brahe Tycho , Opera omnia, ed. by Dreyer J. L. E. (Copenhagen, 1913–29; hereafter TBOO), 28.

See Weyermann A. , Nachrichten von Gelehrten, Künstlern und andern merkwürdigen Personen aus Ulm (Ulm, 1798), 291–5. On Kepler's association with Hebenstreit, see Caspar , Kepler (ref. 4), chap. v; Specker H. E. , “Johannes Kepler and Ulm”, Vistas in astronomy, xviii (1975), 165–76; Hawlitschek K. , Johann Faulhaber 1580–1635: Eine Blütezeit der mathematischen Wissenschaften in Ulm (Ulm, 1995), 244–6.

KGW, viii, 497.

Letter of 27 Dec. 1618, KGW, xvii, no. 820: 58–62.

See, for example, his letters of 21 Nov. 1618, 28 Feb. 1619 and 7 May 1620: KGW, xvii, nos 811, 830 and 878.

KGW, xix, 222–3.

KGW, xix, 223–4.

KGW, xix, no 5: 23.

For a listing of the alterations in the second and third issues, see Bibliographia Kepleriana, ed. by Caspar M. , 2nd edn (Munich, 1968), 86.

KGW, x, 36–14.

Hipparchus was strongly critical of the accuracy of the observations, largely derived from Eudoxus, reported in Aratus's poem: Hipparchus, In Arati et Eudoxi Phaenomena commentariorum libri tres, ed. by Manitius K. (Leipzig, 1894).

Aratus's Phaenomena was fulsomely praised by Latin poets: see Kidd's D. introduction to his edition of Aratus, Phaenomena (Cambridge, 1997), 41–3. Ovid , for example, who translated the poem, declares in his Amores, I, xv, 16: “as long as the Sun and Moon Aratus shall live on”; on Ovid and Aratus, see Gee E. , Ovid, Aratus and Augustus (Cambridge, 2000).

A portrait of Tycho pointing at a representation of his world system and asking “Quid si sic?” is described in his account in Epistolae astronomicae of his observatory at Stjerneborg: TBOO, vi, 276.

Copernicus is abnutans (denying by “nodding up”) as opposed to adnutans (assenting by “nodding down”).

On early-modern representations of invention and progress in the fine and mechanical arts, see Popplow M. , Neu, nützlich und erfindungsreich: Die Idealisierung von Technik in der fruhen Neuzeit (Münster, 1998); Bredekamp H. , The lure of antiquity and the cult of the machine, transl. by Brown A. (Princeton, NJ), 1995.

On Kepler's view of the relation between ancient and modern astronomy, see Jardine , op. cit. (ref. 1), chap. 8; Jardine N. Segonds A. , “Kepler as reader and translator of Aristotle”, in Philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: Conversations with Aristotle, ed. by Blackwell C. Kusukawa S. (Aldershot, 1999), 206–33.

Almagest, i, 10.

It is also to be noted that the description of the “transverse ruler [transversa amussis]” applies not to the visible rule or label but to the alidade on the other face of the instrument. Thanks to Jim Bennett for pointing out these anomalies.

Söderlund, op. cit. (ref. 1), 372.

KGW, iii, 10:20–1.

These features of the image are well analysed by Gattei, op. cit. (ref. 1).

The image used to draw this analogy derives from Kepler's Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae: KGW, vii, 332; cf. Gattei, op. cit. (ref. 1), 360.

KGW, x, 129:14–15. From this it is evident that Doctrina triangulorum and Logarithmica here double up as Geometria and Arithmetica, often referred to in the period as “the wings of astronomy” (as indicated by their placement beneath the wings of the Hapsburg Eagle). There is a similar image in which Urania presides over Arithmetica and Geometria in Tycho's Astronomiae instauratae mechanica: TBOO, v, 40. On arithmetic and geometry as the wings of astronomy, see Remmert V. , “On picturing the past: Arithmetic and geometry as the wings of astronomy”, The mathematical intelligencer, xxi 3 (2009), 42–47; Jardine N. Segonds A. , “Sur l'expression geometria et arithmetica alae astronomiae”, in their La guerre des astronomes: La querelle au sujet de l'origine du système géo-heliocentrique à la fin du XVIe siècle, i (Paris, 2008), 263–71.

On the relation between Napierian, natural and Keplerian logarithms, see Belyi , op. cit. (ref. 7) and Gattei, op. cit. (ref. 1).

Kepler , Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, in chaps. 4 “On the measure of refraction” and 7 “On the shadow of the Earth”: KGW, 78–143, 234–47.

On the roles of the Platonic solids in Kepler's cosmology, see van der Schoot A. , “Kepler's search for form and proportion”, Renaissance studies, xv (2001), 59–78.

As noted by Hammer Franz , KGW, x, 89*, the map of Hven (without the misplaced meridian) comes from Tycho's Epistolae astronomicae and Mechanica: TBOO, vi, 295; v, 150.

On the many versions of the story of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth, see “Spartoi”, http://www.theoi.com/Gigante/Spartoi.html (accessed 22/02/2013).

Kepler had had sorts with mathematical symbols cast, and in a letter to Schickard of 10 Feb. 1627 he mentions the difficulties the compositor faced in using them: KGW, xviii, no. 1037:40–3.

On genres as covenants and bearers of shared expectations, see, e.g., Hirsch E. , Validity in interpretation (New Haven, 1967), chap. 4; Damrosch D. , The narrative covenant (San Francisco, 1987). On visual genres in the sciences, see Rudwick's M. J. S. classic “The emergence of a visual language for geological science 1760–1840”, History of science, xiv (1976), 149–95.

See KGW, xx/1, 82: 31–2.

I dieci libri dell' architettura di M. Vitruvio; tradutti et commentati da monsignor Barbaro (Venice, 1556), 125.

Pantin , op. cit. (ref. 1). On the imagery of astronomical frontispieces and title-page vignettes in the period, see also Remmert V. , Widmung, Welterklärung und Wissenschaftslegitimierung: Titelbilder und ihre Funktionen in der wissenschaftlichen Revolution (Wiesbaden, 2005); Söderlund, op. cit. (ref. 2).

See, e.g., Gouldman F. , A copious dictionary (London, 1664), entry “Idyllium”; Thesaurus linguae latinae (Leipzig, 1900), entry “Idyllion”, and the sources cited there.

The poem is also an ekphrasis in the narrower sense of a description of an image. This, however, is a very much later usage: see Webb R. , “Ekphrasis ancient and modern: The invention of a genre”, Word and image, xv (1999), 7–18.

On epideictic (demonstrative) poems, see Curtis E. R. , European literature and the Latin Middle Ages [1948], transl. by Trask W. R. (London, 1953), 68–9, 156–9, 174ff; O'Malley J. W. , Praise and blame in Renaissance Rome (Durham, NC), 1979.

For a list of these, see Weyermann , op. cit. (ref. 12).

On amplificatio see, e.g., Quintilian , Institutio oratoria, viii, 4; Erasmus, On copia of words and things [1512], transl. by King D. B. Rix H. D. (Milwaukee, WI, 1963), 47–50; Dieterich C. , Institutiones rhetoricae [1616] (Jena, 1630), 214–43.

Aeneid, i, 453–93.

Dieterich C. , Institutiones oratoriae [1620] (Jena, 1630), 108–14. On Dieterich, see Weyermann (ref. 12), 145–57.

On emblems and enigmatic frontispieces as “conversation pieces”, see Biagioli M. , Galileo courtier: The practice of science in the culture of absolutism (Chicago, 1993), chap. 2; Kaoukji N. Jardine N. . “‘A frontispiece in any sense they please’? On the significance of the engraved title-page of John Wilkins's A Discourse concerning A NEW world & Another Planet, 1640”, Word & image, xxvi (2010), 429–47; Söderlund , op. cit. (ref. 2), 244ff.

Eco U. , The open work [1962], transl. by Cancogni A. (London, 1989).

See Jardine N. , “God's ‘ideal reader’: Kepler and his serious jokes”, in Johannes Kepler: From Tübingen to Zagan , ed. by Kremer R. L. Wlodarczyk J. (Warsaw, 2009), 41–51.

On Kepler and Mannerist aesthetics, see Hallyn R. , The poetic structure of the world: Copernicus and Kepler [1987], transl. by Leslie D. M. (New York, 1993).

Nagel A. Wood C. S. , Anachronic Renaissance (New York, 2010).

On Kepler's conception of the history of astronomy, see Jardine , opera cit. (refs 1 and 26); Eastwood B. S. , “Kepler as historian of science: Precursors of Copernican heliocentrism according to De revolutionibus, I, 10”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxxvi (1982), 367–94.

KGW, x, 43: 36–7.

TBOO, v, 28. On the sources of the image in Tycho's description of the vault of Stjerneborg, see Arnulf, op. cit. (ref. 1), 195–6, Gattei, op. cit. (ref. 1), 343–6.

TBOO, vi, 264–88.

Vitruvius , De architectura, iv, 1, 3. On the meanings assigned to the columnar orders, see Onians J. , Bearers of meaning: The classical orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance (Princeton, NJ, 1988).

De architectura, iv, 1, 7–8.

Tycho , op. cit. (ref. 58); Gattei , op. cit. (ref. 1), 363–4.

Tycho Brahe claimed as a justification for his system that his parallactic observations had shown Mars to be closer to the Earth than the Sun when in opposition to it, a finding clearly at odds with the Ptolemaic system: see Gingerich O. Voelkel J. R. , “Tycho Brahe's Copernican campaign”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxix (1998), 1–34.

See, for example, Gejrot C. Ström A. , Poems for the occasion (Stockholm, 1999), 23ff.

Arnulf , op. cit. (ref. 1), 184, col. 1.

On Schickard, see Wilhelm Schickard 1592–1635: Astronom, Geograph, Orientalist, Erfinder des Rechenmaschine, ed. by Seck F. (Tübingen, 1978).

As noted by Franz Hammer: KGW, x, 32*.

Kepler J. , The harmony of the world, transl. and intro. by Aiton E. J. Duncan A. M. Field J. V. (Philadelphia, PA, 1997), 391.