The Nose Knows [more about Tycho Brahe ... a very odd man ...]

This story is directly from Curious Expeditions.

It was a precious metal occasion, Tycho thought to himself, looking down at his metallic options. Though heavier and more uncomfortable then the copper design, the gold and silver model looked more realistic and carried a certain gravitas and nobility. Today was a worthy event.

With that Tycho Brahe spread a layer of adhesive putty on the hole in his face where his nose used to be and smushed on the shiny metal nose, holding it in place to let it bond. The gold and silver had been mixed together to provide a somewhat flesh-like appearance, though Tycho knew it must have been distracting when it caught the light glinting off of it at odd angles. Tycho, however, was not one to let public opinion get to him. In fact, the metal nose on his face was one of the more normal things about Tycho Brahe.

Born in 1546 into Danish nobility, Tycho was a precocious child. Raised by an aunt and uncle, Tycho became fascinated with astronomy at the young age of 14 after he witnessed a solar eclipse. Amazed by both the event and the magical ability of the local astronomers to predict such an astonishing thing, Tycho took to astronomy like a fish to the sea. At the age of 17 he was already aware of the need for much more accurate astronomy practices, saying

“What’s needed is a long term project with the aim of mapping the heavens conducted from a single location over a period of several years.”

He did just that. Without the aid of the yet to be invented (or at least used for astronomy) telescope, Tycho worked night after night with only his eyesight and the best measuring instruments he could invent or acquire. Slowly he began the arduous process of making some of the very first accurate astronomical measurements.

Despite being obsessively accurate in his astronomical work, Tycho also knew how to let his mustache down. At the age of 20, Tycho was at a party when he got into a argument over mathematics and engaged in the very unwise idea of a duel in the dark. He escaped with his life but without his nose. Out of necessity he developed an immediate interest in metallurgy and crafted himself a metal replacement.

A wildly rich man (said to have owned as much as one percent of Denmark’s entire wealth at one point) Tycho also drank like a champ. He kept a future telling dwarf named Jepp around, often stashing him under the table during dinner. He also had a tame moose that he brought to friends houses for parties. Unfortunately at one such party, the moose was allowed to drink a large amount of beer and become highly intoxicated. It drunkenly fell down the stairs, and died shortly thereafter. If that’s not a wild party, I don’t know what is.

tychotomb.jpg Like a 16th century Animal House, this raucous behavior and Tycho’s general attitude towards the Danish peasantry was to eventually get him kicked out of Denmark. He settled himself in Prague where he got along with Emperor Rudolf II famously. Rudolf himself had a number of odd interests, and kept a beloved pet tiger. It’s not hard to see why they hit it off. Tycho was to be assisted in Prague by a young astronomer named Johannes Kepler. This, according to some, may have proved fatal.

Tycho sat down at the banquet that day, his precious metal nose weighing heavily on his face, unaware that this would be the last meal he ever ate. He felt ill throughout the banquet, but refused to leave the table, as it would have been poor manners. Tycho lapsed into a fever after the banquet and died 11 days later saying he words “Ne frustra vixisse videar” or “May I not seemed to have lived in vain” over and over.

The official story of his death, one corroborated by his assistant Kepler, was that he had strained his bladder by not using the bathroom during the banquet, and that did him in. But according to “Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History’s Greatest Scientific Discoveries” Kepler would have had every reason to espouse this theory. After performing tests on Tycho’s hair, Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder found that Tycho had very high mercury levels in his body. They claim in their book that Kepler, who went on to use Tycho’s research to write his own astronomy hit, “Laws of Planetary Motion”, had every reason to off Tycho and did so with a heavy dose of Mercury poisoning.

While it may be true that Kepler had a motive, the mercury levels in Tycho’s body are hardly solid evidence of murder. A serious practicer of alchemy, mercury exposure was a part of the job. Robert Hooke and Sir Issac Newton would both likely test well above Tycho for mercury levels. While Kepler may or may not have been a murderer, he certainly benefitted from his relationship with Tycho and Tycho’s untimely death. Two days after Tycho died, Kepler was appointed his successor as imperial mathematician.

All of which leaves me with one burning question. What’s the point of having a future telling dwarf named Jepp you keep under the dinner table, if he’s not around when you really need him?

Today one can see Tycho’s grave in the “Church of Our Lady in front of Týn” in the Old Town Square in Prague. Above his grave stands an relief of Tycho where one can just make out a line where the sculptor subtly indicated his metal nose.