N.
three years after the death of Copernicus. The
one was a quiet ecclesiastic; the other a man of
noble birth, whose career was surrounded by diffi-
culties, owing to the family prejudices, which were
irreconcilable with the studies and occupations of
his choice. The family of Tycho Brahe believed
that the career of arms was the only one suited for
a gentleman. He became a student at Copenhagen
and at Wittenberg, and still further offended his
relations by marrying a beautiful peasant girl of
Knudstrup. The accident of his birth made it im-
possible for him to avoid strife. At Rostock he
felt bound to fight a duel with a Dane named
Pasberg, to decide the question as to which was
the best mathematician. Tycho Brahe had half
his nose cut off, and ever afterwards he wore a
golden nose. But, in spite of obstacles, he rose to
eminence as an astronomer. He discovered errors
in the Alphonsine Tables, and observed a new star
in Cassiopeia in 1572. King Frederick II of Den-
mark recognised the great merits of Tycho Brahe.
He granted him the island of Hveen in 1576,
where the illustrious astronomer built his chateau
of LTranienberg and his observatories.1 Here he
made his catalogue of stars, and here he lived and
observed for many years; but, on the death of
Frederick in 1588, the enemies of the great man
poisoned the mind of Christian IV against him.
His pension and all his allowances were withdrawn,
1 The instruments of Tycho Brahe and a plan of Uranienberg
are given in vol. i of the Adas Major of Blaew (Blasius).
INTRODUCTION.
xxiii
and he was nearly ruined. In 1597 he left the
island, and set sail, with his wife and children, for
Holstein. In 1599 he accepted a cordial invitation
from the Emperor Rudolph II to come to Bohemia,
and was established in the Castle of Beneteck, five
miles from Prague. He died at Prague in 1601,
aged 55.
The celestial globe constructed by Tycho Brahe
is described by his pupil Pontanus. It was made
of wood covered with plates of copper, and was six
feet in diameter. It was considered to be a mag-
nificent piece of work, and many strangers came to
the island of Hveen on purpose to see it. But
when Tycho Brahe was obliged to leave Denmark,
he took the globe with him, and it was eventually
deposited in the imperial castle at Prague. Of
about the same date is the celestial globe at the
South Kensington Museum, made for the Emperor
Rudolph II at Augsburg in 1584. It is of copper-
gilt, and is 7|- inches in diameter.
John Kepler, who was born at Weil in Wiirtem-
berg in 1571, is also said to have been of noble
parentage ; but his father was so poor that he was
obliged to keep a public-house. A weak and sickly
child, Kepler became a student at Tubingen, and
devoted himself to astronomical studies. He visited
Tycho Brahe at Prague in 1600, and succeeded him
as principal mathematician to the Emperor Rudolph
II. But he was always in pecuniary difficulties,
and was irritable and quick-tempered, owing to ill-
health and poverty. Nevertheless, he made great
XXIV
INTRODUCTION.
advances in the science of astronomy. He com-
pleted the Kudolphine Tables in 1627, being the first
calculated on the supposition that the planets move
in elliptical orbits. Kepler's laws relate to the
elliptic form of orbits, the equable description of
areas, and to the proposition that the squares of
the periodic times are proportional to the cubes of
the mean distances from the sun. His work on the
motions of the planet Mars was published in 1609.
Kepler died in November 1630, aged 58.
The great Italian astronomer was his contempo-
rary. Galileo Galilei was born at Pisa in 1564,
and was educated at the university of his native
town. Here he discovered the isochronism of the
vibrations of the pendulum; and in 1592, when
professor at Padua, he became a convert to the
doctrines of Copernicus. His telescope, completed
in 1609, enabled him to discover the ring of Saturn
and the satellites of Jupiter; while the latter dis-
covery revealed another method of finding the lon-
gitude. The latter years of the life of Galileo were
clouded by persecution and misfortune. The Con-
vent of Minerva at Pome, where stupid bigots
forced him to recant, and where he whispered « e
pur se muove», is now the Ministry of Public In-
struction of an enlightened government. His trial
before the Inquisition wTas in 1632; he lost his
daughter in 1634; and in 1636 he became blind.
Galileo died in the arms of his pupil Yiviani, in
January 1642. There can be no more fitting monu-
INTRODUCTION.
XXV
ment to the great astronomer than the « Tribuna»
which has been erected to his honour at Florence.
Frescoes of the chief events in his life adorn the
walls, while his instruments, and those of his pupils
Yiviani and Torricelli, illustrate his labours and
successes.
Pontanus, who was a disciple of Tycho Brahe,
mentions that Ferdinand I of Tuscany had two
large globes, one terrestrial, and the other an armil-
lary sphere with circles and orbs, both existing in
the time of Galileo. The latter, which was designed
by the cosmographer Antonio Santucci between
1588 and 1593, is still preserved, and has been
described by Professor Meucci.1 It is constructed
on the Ptolemaic system, and consists of nine con-
centric spheres, the outer one being 7 feet in dia-
meter, and the earth being in the centre. The frame
rests on a pedestal consisting of four caryatides,
which represent the four cardinal points; and it
stands near the entrance to the «Tribuna» of Galileo.
It is the last and most sumptuous illustration of
the old Ptolemaic system, and a monument of the
skill and ingenuity of the scientific artists of
Florence.
The celestial globe of Tycho Brahe and the armil-
lary sphere of Santucci cannot have been seen byMoly-
neux. Their construction was nearly contemporane-
ous with that of the first English globes. But all the
1 La Sfera Armillare di Tolomeo, construita da Antonio San-
tucci (Firenze, 1S7G).
XXVI
INTRODUCTION.
other globes that have been enumerated preceded the
kindred work of our own countrymen ; and in their
more complete development, under the able hands of
Mercator, they served as the pattern on which our
mathematician built up his own enlarged and im-
proved globes.
We find very little recorded of Emery Molyneux,
beyond the fact that he was a mathematician resid-
ing in Lambeth. He was known to Sir Walter
Raleigh, to Hakluyt, and to Edward Wright, and
was a friend of John Davis the Navigator. The
words of one of the legends on his globe give some
reason for the belief that Molyneux accompanied
Cavendish in his voyage round the world. The
construction of the globes appears to have been
suggested by learned men to Mr. William Sander-
son, one of the most munificent and patriotic of the
merchant-princes of London, in the days of the
great Queen. He fitted out the Arctic expeditions
of Davis ; and the same liberal patron readily under-
took to defray .the expenses connected with the
construction of the globes. There are grounds for
thinking that it was Davis who suggested to Mr.
Sanderson the employment of Emery Molyneux.
The approaching publication of the globes was an-
nounced at the end of the preface to the first edition
of Hakluyt's Voyages, which saw the light in 1589.
There was some delay before they were quite com-
pleted, but they were actually published in the end
of 1592.
The Molyneux globes are 2 feet 2 inches in
INTRODUCTION.
XXV11
diameter,1 and are fixed on stands. They have
graduated brass meridians, and on that of the terres-
trial globe a dial circle or «Horarius» is fixed. The
broad wooden equator, forming the upper part of
the stand, is painted with the zodiac signs, the
months, the Roman calendar, the points of the
compass, and the same in Latin, in concentric
circles. Rhumb lines are drawn from numerous
centres over the surface of the terrestrial globe.
The equator, ecliptic, and polar circles are painted
boldly ; while the parallels of latitude and meridians,
at every ten degrees, are very faint lines.
The globe received additions, "including the dis-
coveries of Barents in Novaya Zemlya, and the date
has been altered with a pen from 1592 to 1603.
The constellations and fixed stars on the celestial
globe are the same as those on the globe of Mer-
cator, except that the Southern Cross has been
added. On both the celestial and terrestrial globes
of Molyneux there is a square label with this inscrip-
tion :—
« This globe belonging to the Middle Temple was
repaired in the year 1818 by J. and W. Newton,
Clobe Makers, Chancery Lane.»
i The largest that had been made up to the time ef their pub-
lication. The Behaim globe was 21 inches, the Mercator globes
1G inches, the Ulpius globe loh inches, and the Schoner globe
10i- inches in diameter. The others, which are older than the
Molyneux globes, are very small. The diameter of the Laon
XXV111
INTRODUCTION.
Over North America are the arms of France and
England quarterly; supporters, a lion and dragon ;
motto of the garter; crown, crest, and baldrequin ;
standing on a label, with a long dedication to
Queen Elizabeth.
The achievement of Mr. William Sanderson is
painted on the imaginary southern continent to the
south of Africa. The crest is a globe with the sun's
rays behind. It stands on a squire's helmet with
baldrequin. The shield is quarterly: 1st, paly of
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