S_UraniborgOgStjærneborg

TYCHO BRAHE’S URANIBORG AND STJERNEBORG ON THE ISLAND OF HVEEN

O n the 23rd of May 1576 King F rede r ick II g ran ted Tycho Brahe the small island of Hveen in the Sound for life in o rd e r tha t the Dan ish a s tronom e r m igh t con tinue his stud ies here. At the same time the k ing g ran ted h im 400 da le r annu a lly (co rrespond ing to abou t £ 600 nowadays) for the e rec tion of su itab le bu ild ing s on the is la n d .1 Nea rly in the cen tre of the island Tycho bu ilt a house wh ich he called U ran ibo rg after the mu s e of as tronomy . It con tained , besides rooms for Tycho and his family, gues t-rooms , rooms rese rved the feudal lord , the Dan ish king, and the queen , Sophia, garrets for his assistants, and in the p ro jec tions kitchen , s tore-rooms, observatories, chemical labo ra to ry as well as a j o i n t s tudy an d lib rary . Accord ing to Tychos own s ta temen t the founda tion -stone was laid on the 8 th of August 1576.2 However, he d id no t take up his res idence in the house till the end of 1580, and it was no t completed till a y e a r l a te r .3 A lthough the hou se was no t large, it is qu ite u n d e r s tand a b le tha t the erection ex tended over a series o f years, for Tycho h ad b u t annu a lly res tric ted means at his disposal. The p ro to type of U r an ibo rg was “Villa R o tond a ” n e a r Vicenza (figs. 2-3), bu ilt abou t 1552 by And rea P a l­ ladio for the fo rme r sec re ta ry of the Pope, Paolo A lmen ico .4 Tycho h imse lf men tion s th a t in the au t um n of 1575 he mad e a trip from Basle to the no r th of Italy. His F r e n ch b iog raphe r, P ie r re Gassend, add s tha t Tycho stayed a few days in Venice and that the town pleased h im .5 Hence he may have seen Villa Ro tonda in situ. But at any rate he mu s t have known the villa from the r ep roduc tion s in P a llad io ’s famous w o r k : “ I qua ttro libri de ll’ a rch i te t tu r a ” , pub lish ed in 1570 for the first time. The villa, however, was erec ted in a mild climate as a coun try house for a man who w an ted to enjoy the beautiful su r round ing s . U ran ibo rg , on the o th e r hand , was bu ilt in an inc lemen t and b low ing climate as an abode for a nob leman and his family and as a labo ra to ry for a scientist. The re fo re the fou r co lumna ted porticos were he re omitted with w h ich Villa Ro tonda opens ou t on all four sides. In U ran ibo rg two of them we re changed into the p ro jec ­ tions in No r th and South , wh ich , amongst o th e r things, con ta ined labora tories, the o th e r two in East and We s t con ta ined the g r and portals. And in the in terior, the c ircu la r dome -roo fed hall of Villa Ro tonda was changed into the c ircu la r ex tension a rising ro u n d the in tersecting po in t of the four passages. Ex ternally , it is p a r ticu la r ly the mou ld ing be tween the first and second storey wh ich is suggestive of U r an ibo rg ’s prototype. In the in t rodu c to ry d iscou rse to the course of lectures, wh ich Tycho B rahe delivered at the Un ive r­ sity of Copenhagen du r ing the a u t um n of 1574, he men tions a rch itec tu re amongst those b r an ch e s of k now ­ ledge de rived from Geome try . 6 Here he subsc ribes to Vitruv ius who expressly d em a nd s skill in geome try of the arch itects in o rd e r tha t they may be able to d raw p lans of b u il d ing s . 7 U ran ibo rg in its entirety, i. e. the castle w ith the su rround ing s , the ga rdens and the walls, shows how Tycho realized the d em and of Vi­ truv iu s (fig. 6 ). R ound the castle he laid a c ircu la r cou rt-ya rd , c ircumsc r ibed by the qu ad ra tic flower-garden , this in its t u r n be ing c ircumsc ribed by the quad ra tic wall a r rangemen t. At the midd le of each of the four sides of the wall was a sem ic ircu la r b end in the centre of wh ich a c ircu la r a r b o u r was built. If the in te r io r sides of the s em ic ircu la r walls we re ex tended into circles they wou ld touch the cen tre of the sides of the flower- gardens. The system, on wh ich the design of U ran ibo rg and its su r r o u n d in g s is based, is thu s dom ina ted by the squa re and the circle, and it is connected by p rinc ipa l axes, d iame te r s and diagonals. The principal

1 I. L. E. Dreyer, Tycho Brahe (Edinburgh 1890), p. 86 f.

2 The fragment o f the foundation-stone (fig. 1) w h ich is preserved

in the historical Museum o f the University o f Lund, bears, however, the date August 1. doctorum virorum epistolae ab anno 1568 ad annum 1587 (Havniae 1876—86) p. 39, 49, 55, 58.

3 F. R. Friis, Tychonis Brahei et ad eum 4 Cp. Fritz Burger, D ie Villen des

Andrea Palladio. Leipz. s. a. p. 53 if. T ychonis Brahei vita. Paris 1654, p. 34. tectura libri decern ed. F. Krohn. I, 1, 4.

5 Epistolae astronom icae (the preface). Astronom iae instauratae mechanica. Fol. F 2. Gassendi

6 Tychonis Brahe Dani opera omnia ed. I. L. E. Dre 3 7er. I, p. 146—47.

7 Vitruvii archi-

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