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Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky Listener Discretion is advised.

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Speaker 1: There's an anecdote that's often included in biographies of sixteenth

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Speaker 1: century astronomer Tico Braie that, while almost entirely irrelevant to

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Speaker 1: his life or scientific achievements, I think is worth talking about.

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Speaker 1: You see, Tico Brie had a pet elk. He had

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Speaker 1: a few pet elks, we can determine that from primary sources,

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Speaker 1: but one in particular was Tame, who would trot along

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Speaker 1: at the side of his carriages and join him inside

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Speaker 1: the house. He and his family would feed it beer

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Speaker 1: and delight in the way that it lapped it up.

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Speaker 1: One of Brie's German friends wrote to him once asking

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Speaker 1: if it was true that in Denmark there was an

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Speaker 1: animal called a ricks that was bigger and faster than

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Speaker 1: a deer. Brian, you, his friend. He knew he was

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Speaker 1: one of those wealthy aristocratic types who just wanted as

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Speaker 1: many different animals as possible for his own private zoo.

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Speaker 1: Brian wrote back, saying, no, there's no ricks. You're probably

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Speaker 1: thinking of a reindeer. But hey, if you happen to

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Speaker 1: want an elk, I have a tame one that you

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Speaker 1: can borrow. The letter was sent off to Germany, and

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Speaker 1: by the time the friend wrote back saying sure it

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Speaker 1: was too late, bra he had already sent his tame

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Speaker 1: elk over to a neighbor's house for a party. That

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Speaker 1: party's guests were so amused by the animal that they

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Speaker 1: kept giving it more and more alcohol. The elk made

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Speaker 1: it to the top of a staircase and then drunk

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Speaker 1: it stumbled down and broke its neck. Now I reiterate

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Speaker 1: the tame drunk elk who fell down the stairs isn't

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Speaker 1: relevant to Tako Brie's scientific achievements, but the story strange

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Speaker 1: does sort of capture why Bray has become such a

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Speaker 1: figure of fascination for centuries. A drunk pet elk is

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Speaker 1: a detail you expect to find in the biography of

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Speaker 1: a romantic Arab poet. It's genuinely astonishing that it didn't

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Speaker 1: happen to Lord Byron. It's debauchrous and whimsical, and yet

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Speaker 1: Ticobry's scientific legacy is basically the opposite of that. It's

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Speaker 1: an incredibly precise and comprehensive data that he collected. He

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Speaker 1: was the last of the major naked eye astronomers working

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Speaker 1: in the era before telescopes, and for decades of his

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Speaker 1: life he pioneered equipment that brought a brand new level

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Speaker 1: of accuracy to the astronomical community in Europe. But he

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Speaker 1: was also the wildly strange figure that paraded around Europe

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Speaker 1: with a brass nose, who became lord ruler of an

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Speaker 1: entire island, who worked as an alchemist, and whose death

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Speaker 1: was either humiliating and mundane or a captivating murder of

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Speaker 1: scientific jealousy, depending on who you ask. Personally, I believe

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Speaker 1: the science even when it disproves the fun murder theory.

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Speaker 1: But as Ticobrie taught us, a devotion to science doesn't

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Speaker 1: have to be boring. I'm Danish schwartz and this is

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Speaker 1: noble blood. Ticobra was actually born by the name tegobri In,

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Speaker 1: but since starting university he would refer to himself by

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Speaker 1: the Latinized version of his name, Tico, and since that's

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Speaker 1: the name by which most history refers to him, that's

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Speaker 1: the name will go with here. He was the oldest

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Speaker 1: son of an incredibly storied lineage of Danish nobles. Almost

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Speaker 1: every one of his male relatives had a prominent position

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Speaker 1: in the Danish or Swedish king's privy council. They almost

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Speaker 1: all had castles. He was the oldest of eight children

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Speaker 1: who lived to adulthood, and all of his brothers went

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Speaker 1: on to become well respected government or military officials. Tico

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Speaker 1: probably would have shared their fate had it not been

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Speaker 1: for the strange decision to send him off as a

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Speaker 1: toddler to be raised by his aunt Anger and Uncle Jorgan.

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Speaker 1: Books often refer to the couple as childless, which paints

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Speaker 1: sending them Ticco as a polite act of charity, giving

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Speaker 1: them a child to raise since they didn't have one

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Speaker 1: of their own. But that's an incorrect impression based on hindsight.

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Speaker 1: At the time that they got the little tych Tico

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Speaker 1: Inger was only twenty. It's strange to think that they

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Speaker 1: would have known at the time that they would have

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Speaker 1: been childless. But Uncle Jorgan was a military hero and

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Speaker 1: an intellectual. Maybe Tico's parents thought the were reason enough

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Speaker 1: to have him raise a child. Jrgen valued education in

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Speaker 1: a way that Tico's actual father might not have. Tico

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Speaker 1: attended a prominent church school, and then at age thirteen,

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Speaker 1: he was sent to the University of Copenhagen to study

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Speaker 1: law as his uncle requested. It was at the University

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Speaker 1: of Copenhagen that Tico's love of astronomy sparked into focus.

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Speaker 1: On August one, fifteen sixty, when Tico was fourteen years old,

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Speaker 1: the Moon passed between the Earth and the Sun, resulting

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Speaker 1: in a total solar eclipse. Even though the eclipse was

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Speaker 1: only partial from Mortico observed it, it was incredible, the

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Speaker 1: type of profound event that makes you wonder about the

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Speaker 1: meaning of life and mankind's place in the universe. But

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Speaker 1: Ta Tico even more fascinating was that it had been predicted.

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Speaker 1: By tracking the positions of the Sun and the Moon,

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Speaker 1: astronomers had been able to predict that a solar eclipse

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Speaker 1: would occur decades or even centuries before it happened. It

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Speaker 1: was the closest thing to actual magic in a world

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Speaker 1: that did still believe in alchemy and being able to

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Speaker 1: foretell the future. The problem Tico realized was that these

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Speaker 1: predictions of the solar eclips by astronomers had been a

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Speaker 1: full day off. If only they're observational tools had been

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Speaker 1: more precise, Tico thought, then humans could fully understand the universe.

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Speaker 1: Tico's uncle Jorgan tried to get his nephew to focus

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Speaker 1: on a more respected and conventional field, but Tico wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be deterred. He had found his passion. At sixteen, Tico

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Speaker 1: was sent on a tour of Europe to learn foreign

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Speaker 1: languages and about the other major European courts. It was

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Speaker 1: a rite of passage for noblemen who would need to

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Speaker 1: become not only well educated in intellectual matters, but also

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Speaker 1: matters of decorum and diplomacy. Escorting Tico on the tour

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Speaker 1: was a twenty year old middle class student named Andrew

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Speaker 1: Sorns and Fidel, hired to teach Tico and also to

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Speaker 1: keep him in the line. Fidell begrudgingly pretended not to

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Speaker 1: notice when Tico secretly purchased books of astronomy, and he

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Speaker 1: also pretended not to notice the tiny, fist size celestial

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Speaker 1: globe that Tico would consult whenever he thought Fidel wasn't looking.

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Speaker 1: By the time the two boys returned to Denmark in

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Speaker 1: fifteen sixty, they were met with two surprises. First that

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Speaker 1: Denmark was at war with Sweden, and also that Tico's

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Speaker 1: uncle Jorgan was dead. Jorgan was vice admiral of the

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Speaker 1: Danish fleet, and he had achieved several prominent military victories,

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Speaker 1: including sinking Sweden's biggest worship. But he died a hero

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Speaker 1: in a different way. The King of Denmark, Frederick the Second,

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Speaker 1: got drunk following a victory and fell off his force

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Speaker 1: into a canal in Copenhagen. Jorgan leaped into the icy

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Speaker 1: water to rescue him, got pneumonia and died two weeks later.

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Speaker 1: Tico wouldn't stay in Denmark long. He left to go

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Speaker 1: to Germany to study medical alchemy at the University of Rostock.

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Speaker 1: It was there that Tico would experience one of the

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Speaker 1: most infamous events of his life, the duel where he

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Speaker 1: lost his nose. The duel didn't actually start with a duel.

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Speaker 1: It started with a lunar eclipse. Tico Bri, who had

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Speaker 1: just turned twenty years old, analyzed the lunar eclipse of

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Speaker 1: October fifteen sixty six and decided that it foretold the

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Speaker 1: death of the Turkish Sultan Suleman the Great. So certain

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Speaker 1: was he about the accuracy of his interpretation that Tico

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Speaker 1: wrote a long Latin poem about it and posted it publicly.

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Speaker 1: There was only one problem. Word came that Suleiman the

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Speaker 1: Great did die, but he had died six weeks before

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Speaker 1: the eclipse even happened. Bray was humiliated, and the humiliation

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Speaker 1: would continue for months. In December, Bry's host in Germany

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Speaker 1: through a party and happened to invite along another Danish noble,

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Speaker 1: Mandraup Parsburg, who also happened to be Tico's third cousin.

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Speaker 1: Parsburg mocked Tico for his hilariously earnest and completely wrong

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Speaker 1: Latin poem, and Tico did not have a sense of

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Speaker 1: humor about it. The two almost came to blows, but

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Speaker 1: they were pulled apart until a little over two weeks later,

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Speaker 1: when the two met again, this time in a dimly

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Speaker 1: lit bar. Parsburg snorted at Tico's assertion that he was

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Speaker 1: a better mathematician. Tico stood and touched the sword at

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Speaker 1: his hips. In that dark bar lit only by candles,

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Speaker 1: with everything obscured by their smoke, the two decided to

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Speaker 1: duel to decide once and for all who was the

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Speaker 1: better mathematician. With a single stroke of his blade, Parsburgh

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Speaker 1: hacked off the bridge of tico bride's nose. The injury

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Speaker 1: led to weeks of lonely, panic and uncertainty. The real

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Speaker 1: danger was not the injury itself, but the deadly infection

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Speaker 1: it could lead to. Besides, until the scar tissue formed,

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Speaker 1: the extent of the disfigurement couldn't be known. Eventually, Tico

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Speaker 1: Brie came to terms with the fact that he was

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Speaker 1: missing most of his nose. Rather than get a wax prosthetic,

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Speaker 1: he chose to instead affix a brass false nose. He

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Speaker 1: had another nose made of a mixture of silver and

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Speaker 1: gold as to be more or less skin colored, that

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Speaker 1: he brought for special occasions. Tico kept a small box

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Speaker 1: filled with adhesive with him at all times for the

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Speaker 1: moment that his nose began to slip in public. When

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Speaker 1: he returned to Denmark again when his father was dying,

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Speaker 1: it was as a new man. Literally upon his return,

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Speaker 1: he built an observatory at Harevard Abbey, a property belonging

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Speaker 1: to one of his maternal uncles, and it was there

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Speaker 1: that he would make the discovery that would turn him

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Speaker 1: into an overnight scientific celebrity. Tikobri had been memorizing the

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Speaker 1: stars in the sky since he was a child, and

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Speaker 1: so when on November eleventh, seventy two, a brand new

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Speaker 1: star seemed to appear in the sky right next to

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Speaker 1: the constellation Cassiopeia. Tico noticed right away. First, he asked

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Speaker 1: his sister, Sophia Brie, who worked alongside him as a

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Speaker 1: research assistant. She confirmed that star definitely hadn't been there before.

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Speaker 1: Batiko Brian couldn't wrap his mind around it. He couldn't

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Speaker 1: believe his eyes. He begged servants and passing peasants to

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Speaker 1: look up at the sky, see that star there that

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Speaker 1: wasn't there before. Right, My guess is the passing peasants

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Speaker 1: and servants weren't much help. The thing is, nothing new

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Speaker 1: was supposed to happen in the stars. New things happened

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Speaker 1: in the sky all the time. That was different. In

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Speaker 1: Bride's day, there was an understanding that the Moon revolved

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Speaker 1: around the Earth, and things could happen and change beneath

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Speaker 1: the Moon in the sub lunar space, but beyond the

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Speaker 1: Moon that was supposed to be fixed and unchanging. And

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Speaker 1: this new star, this was further away than the moon.

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Speaker 1: The heavens were changeable. One quick aside to explain how

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Speaker 1: Tiko knew for a fact that the star was beyond

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Speaker 1: the moon. It was using the principle of parallax, or

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Speaker 1: the idea that closer objects will move more relative to

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Speaker 1: their surroundings when you look at them from a different perspective.

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Speaker 1: It's a little tough to explain orally, but have you

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Speaker 1: ever noticed that, when you're driving in a car, the

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Speaker 1: nearby scenery right alongside the window seems to whip past,

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Speaker 1: while the further scenery moves incredibly slowly. That's an illustration

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Speaker 1: of parallax. With his observation of the new star, Tico

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Speaker 1: worked alongside his sister to write a short book called

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Speaker 1: to Stella Nova, or fittingly, the New Star. He had

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Speaker 1: found what we now know was a super nova. Tico

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Speaker 1: Brie is where we get that name. This feels like

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Speaker 1: the right moment to go back a bit and understand

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Speaker 1: just a little about astronomy as it was understood before

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Speaker 1: the sixteenth century. Bear in mind this will be just

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Speaker 1: a really cursory overview. In three hundred and sixty BC,

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Speaker 1: Plato posited a version of the universe to explain the

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Speaker 1: way the moon, stars, and sun all would move across

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Speaker 1: the sky. The Earth was the center of the universe, obviously,

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Speaker 1: and then the Sun, the Moon, and planets all moved

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Speaker 1: around us in perfect celestial spheres. But if you actually

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Speaker 1: observe the motion of the planets, there's a problem. They

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Speaker 1: don't move consistently across the sky the way they were

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Speaker 1: if they were in a perfect divine sphere. The planets,

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Speaker 1: at certain points in their trajectory moved back and then

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Speaker 1: forth again. It was Ptolemy who came up with a

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Speaker 1: solution for this retrograde orbits along the route of a

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Speaker 1: planet's main orbit. In simple terms, little epicycles are little

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Speaker 1: loops that planets would make during their big loop. It

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Speaker 1: made sense mathematically with the observations they were seeing, sort of,

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Speaker 1: but philosophically it was a mess. God created the universe,

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Speaker 1: and he created it to be divine and perfect circles

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Speaker 1: were symmetrical and mathematically clear. These epicycles were complicated and messy.

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Speaker 1: It was Copernicus, then, who actually figured things out for

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Speaker 1: European astronomers when he posited a heliocentric model, a model

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Speaker 1: of the Solar system with the Sun at the center.

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Speaker 1: For the record, there were Islamic astronomers who had more

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Speaker 1: or less been figuring out the exact same thing both

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Speaker 1: can currently and also a little bit before Copernicus, but

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Speaker 1: in European circles, it was Copernicus and his controversial theory

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Speaker 1: that scientists were butting their heads up against, because while

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Speaker 1: it flew in the face of the religious teachings that

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Speaker 1: were accepted as gospel, science was seen as just a

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Speaker 1: way to better understand God's divine vision. It would be

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Speaker 1: absurd to conceive that we were not the center of

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Speaker 1: the system that God created. Copernicus died three years before

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Speaker 1: Tico Brahe was born, and it's important to recognize Brie

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Speaker 1: was not a heliocentrist. He never believed that the Sun

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Speaker 1: was at the center of the Solar system or that

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Speaker 1: the Earth revolved around it. He the pre eminent astronomer

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Speaker 1: of his day, went to his grave thinking that the

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Speaker 1: Earth was stationary sixty years after Copernicus published his more

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Speaker 1: correct model. Science is not a series of steady accomplishments

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Speaker 1: at even intervals, where one great man takes on the

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Speaker 1: mantle of a great man before him. That's a convenient

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Speaker 1: way for some people to oversimplify and create a pretty

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Speaker 1: narrow and a little sexist understanding of history, but it's

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Speaker 1: also just not the truth. After his publication of Distella

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Speaker 1: Nova Ticobrai was an established European astronomer. It was around

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Speaker 1: this time that he almost completely rejected the responsibilities of

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Speaker 1: his noble position. He had no interest in a castle

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Speaker 1: or lordship or fancy aristocratic marriage. Most of the scholars

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Speaker 1: that he was engaging with weren't married for that very reason.

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Speaker 1: An aristocratic marriage was an ordeal. It took time, energy,

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Speaker 1: and attention away from science. But Tico didn't remain unmarried.

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Speaker 1: He fell in love with a woman named Kirsten Jorian's daughter,

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Speaker 1: a commoner. Though they lived together for almost thirty years

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Speaker 1: and had eight children, it was technically illegal for a

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Speaker 1: noble and a commoner to get married. Technically illegal, but

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Speaker 1: not entirely unusual. There was an established term under judish

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Speaker 1: law for what they had together, basically modern day equivalent

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Speaker 1: of a common law marriage. The main consequence of their

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Speaker 1: relationship was that Tico's children would be commoners. They would

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Speaker 1: have to enroll in school as commoners, and they wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be allowed to inherit any of his noble property. Presumably,

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Speaker 1: the twenty year old Tico who just got his nose

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Speaker 1: hacked off, who met a pretty girl named Kirsten wasn't

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Speaker 1: thinking about inheritance when they met, and again it wasn't

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Speaker 1: scandalous necessarily, or even uncommon that he took up with

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Speaker 1: a commoner. It was more just seen as a rebuffed

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Speaker 1: Danish high society. Another rebuff Tico Brie was touring around

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Speaker 1: Europe looking for a better place to build a laboratory.

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Speaker 1: When King Frederick the Second caught wind of Brye planning

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Speaker 1: on building a lab in Basil, Switzerland, he panicked that

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Speaker 1: simply wouldn't do. Brie had just become a well known scientist,

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Speaker 1: and he was Danish. For God's sake. Denmark needed to

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Speaker 1: hold on to its scientific celebrities if it wanted to

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Speaker 1: be a world player, and so King Frederick offered Bride

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Speaker 1: a number of castles and positions, all of which Tico

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Speaker 1: Brye rejected. And then the king made another offer, the

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Speaker 1: island of Ven, a small island with forty farms which

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Speaker 1: Brian could rule over like a fiefdom. Brie thought about it.

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Speaker 1: On one hand, Denmark was a little further north than

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Speaker 1: he would have liked in terms of astronomical observations, and

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Speaker 1: it was often wet and cloudy, but fun was attempting offer.

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Speaker 1: It was isolated. That was a plus plus. Frederick the

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Speaker 1: second was prepared to give Ticco whatever funds he needed

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Speaker 1: to build a truly spectacular laboratory. And remember those farms

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Speaker 1: on the island, the king would throw in their free labor,

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Speaker 1: and so Ticobrie accepted. Uraniabourg was about to come into being.

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Speaker 1: Though the island of Ven had always technically been owned

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Speaker 1: by the Crown, the forty or so families that lived

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Speaker 1: there were freeholding farmers. They made their own community laws

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Speaker 1: and interacted with the outside world in a very limited capacity,

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Speaker 1: maybe when someone went to sell on the mainland. But

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Speaker 1: when Frederick the second gave ven to Ticobry, that all

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Speaker 1: would change. Tico first insisted that they cultivate twice as

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Speaker 1: much on their farms, and he was allowed to make

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Speaker 1: that insistence. Also, as part of his position as lord,

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Speaker 1: he was entitled to two full days from sun up

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Speaker 1: to sundown a free labor from each of the farms

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Speaker 1: every single week. These farmers were the foot soldiers who

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Speaker 1: would help him build Uraniabourg, the Castle of the Heavens,

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Speaker 1: named for the Greek muse of astronomy Urania Uranni Aborg

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Speaker 1: was a Palladian style castle meant to represent, in its

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Speaker 1: dimensions and architectural symmetry, the elegance and order of the cosmos.

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Speaker 1: The castle itself was surrounded by a square wall oriented

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Speaker 1: perfectly to the north, southeast, and west. Diagonal paths cut

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Speaker 1: through perfectly manicured gardens towards the main central castle, which

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Speaker 1: was three stories high and home to dozens of people

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Speaker 1: at any given time. On the top floor, Braye built

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Speaker 1: unheeded apartments where his servants and assistants lived. On the

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Speaker 1: second floor there was a summer room, the Queen's Chamber

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Speaker 1: where Queen Sophia of Denmark once came to stay, and

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Speaker 1: the king's chambers. The first floor had living quarters, four

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Speaker 1: huge observatories, a kitchen, and a massive museum library, where

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Speaker 1: Tico kept the giant brass celestial globe that he had

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Speaker 1: personally commissioned. The globe took years to make and get

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Speaker 1: to bra but in a sense it would actually take

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Speaker 1: twenty five years to be completed Brah. He would carefully

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Speaker 1: engrave it with the position of stars he measured one

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Speaker 1: by one. In the basement of Uranniaborg were salt and

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Speaker 1: wood sellers and also Tico's alchemy lab for someone who

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Speaker 1: became famous for the rigor of his mathematical precision and

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Speaker 1: skills of observation. Bray was also fascinated by alchemy and

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Speaker 1: other sciences that are let's say, dubious at best. He

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Speaker 1: studied not just astronomy but also astrology for his entire life.

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Speaker 1: He did readings of the lives of famous men from

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Speaker 1: history and would sometimes perform them for the royal family.

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Speaker 1: At some point, Tico Brie kept at Uranniaburg a dwarf

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Speaker 1: named Jip who acted as a sort of court jester.

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Speaker 1: Brian would bring Jep out at parties to tell the

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Speaker 1: future for his guest because he believed that he had

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Speaker 1: psychic abilities, and Tico's guests were often incredibly prominent people

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Speaker 1: the Danish royal family, famous writers and fingers, even King

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Speaker 1: James the sixth of Scotland later King James the First

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Speaker 1: of England came to visit Ven when he came to

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Speaker 1: Denmark to pick up his new wife to be. If

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Speaker 1: you're a longtime listener of the podcast, you might remember

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Speaker 1: James the six the witch hunter King, and his trip

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Speaker 1: to Denmark. Another of the visitors to then would be

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Speaker 1: a young astronomy student named Johannes Kepler. He'll come back

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Speaker 1: into the story later, so remember that name. And if

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Speaker 1: you're listening to this podcast and planning a Mozart Salieri

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Speaker 1: Onmadeus Style Oscar drama about these two men. I imagine

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Speaker 1: the scene of a young Kepler in tram By the

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Speaker 1: strange and enigmatic, brass nosed Tico Brie at the height

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Speaker 1: of his power, would make a good cold open. Uranni

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Speaker 1: a Boorg was sort of a Wonka's factory for science.

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Speaker 1: There was running water, something Queen Elizabeth the First didn't

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Speaker 1: have at Hampton Court, nor did Henry the third of

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Speaker 1: France at the Louver. And it wasn't just the castle.

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Speaker 1: Uranniaboorg became a compound. Bray recognized the importance of publishing

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Speaker 1: his own work, but he was also highly suspicious of

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Speaker 1: thieves and copycats, and so he hired a printer and

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Speaker 1: built his own printing press on the island. When he

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Speaker 1: couldn't find access to paper of a high enough quality

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Speaker 1: that he demanded, he also built a paper mill that

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Speaker 1: produced sheets with a water mark, the name and an

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Speaker 1: illustration of his castle. The island also had a tannery

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Speaker 1: that made the parchment for book binding, a grain mill,

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Speaker 1: and a machine shop for Tico to continue to build

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Speaker 1: new and better astronomical instruments. Telescopes weren't in use yet,

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Speaker 1: but Brahi designed and built large specialty equipment that would

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Speaker 1: allow him to record measurements far more precisely than anyone

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Speaker 1: else in Europe. His instruments out on balconies, though, were

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Speaker 1: exposed to wind and the elements, and that could distort

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Speaker 1: his readings, and so Tico Brahi built another laboratory called Serenberg,

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Speaker 1: or Castle of the Stars. This one dug under the ground,

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Speaker 1: so he and his many assistants and proteges could measure

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Speaker 1: angles and distances in the sky from beneath ground level,

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Speaker 1: where wind couldn't affect the readings. Along the halls of Serenberg,

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Speaker 1: Tico hung portraits of great astronomers throughout history, with the

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Speaker 1: stated purpose of inspiring his students. Of course, one of

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Speaker 1: the portraits was of himself, and the final portrait was

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Speaker 1: of someone who hadn't even been born yet. It was

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Speaker 1: an imaginary person named Ticondas, a descendant of Tico Brye,

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Speaker 1: whose inscription beneath his portrait read that he only wished

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Speaker 1: to be worthy of his great ancestor. Modesty wasn't one

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Speaker 1: of Ticobrie's strongest suits. It was that ego that would

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Speaker 1: eventually lead to trouble for Ticobrye. His laboratory was renowned,

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Speaker 1: but it was also a massive expense. At one point

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Speaker 1: one percent of Denmark's wealth was going to urania Borg.

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Speaker 1: After Frederick the Second died, his son, Christian the fourth

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Speaker 1: was far less amused by Tico's science and his antics.

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Speaker 1: Tico had already made a number of enemies at court,

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Speaker 1: and these enemies were far closer to Christian the fourth.

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Speaker 1: When he came of age, Tico was just a thorn

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Speaker 1: in his side, and incredibly expensive thorn. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: the peasants on Fen kept complaining about Tico exploiting them.

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Speaker 1: If you can imagine, the commoners would riot sometimes in

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Speaker 1: front of Brye's family home in Copenhagen. The winds were

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Speaker 1: changing for Tico Brie, and he knew it. He tried

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Speaker 1: quickly before he lost too much favor, to get the

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Speaker 1: Dowager Queen to put into writing that his kids could

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Speaker 1: maybe be an exception to the no commoners inheriting noble

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Speaker 1: property rule. But Soon after, he left Fen and then Denmark.

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Speaker 1: On his way out, he wrote one of his famous

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Speaker 1: Latin poems about his exile, called an Elegy to Denmark,

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Speaker 1: all about what fools they were for letting him go.

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Speaker 1: It was the Latin poem equivalent of the email you

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Speaker 1: write to your ex who breaks up with you, the

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Speaker 1: one that you're not supposed to send. Brie spent a

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Speaker 1: year at a friend's castle in Germany before he became

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Speaker 1: court astronomer to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second. Tico

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Speaker 1: and his family then moved to Prague along with Tico's

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Speaker 1: most famous assistant, Johannes Kepler. Tico Brie worked in Prague

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Speaker 1: for a year before his death, and for that year

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Speaker 1: he and Kepler endeavored side by side to create the

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Speaker 1: most accurate astronomical tables possible. Keppler would eventually publish them

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Speaker 1: after Brie's death, and they'd be known as the Rudolphin Tables, named,

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Speaker 1: of course, for their royal patron Kepler kept all of

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Speaker 1: Tico Brie's incredibly important work and notes after Brie died,

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Speaker 1: no doubt taking advantage of the confused and when it

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Speaker 1: came to the ability of Brie's children to inherit his property.

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Speaker 1: Using Brie's data, Kepler was able to make one of

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Speaker 1: the most important scientific discoveries of the last thousand years.

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Speaker 1: The planet don't move in perfect circles. Their orbits are elliptical.

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Speaker 1: Tico Brie, in his lifetime, had made his own model

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Speaker 1: of the Solar system, a sort of compromise between Plato

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Speaker 1: and Copernicus, where the Sun does revolve around the Earth,

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Speaker 1: but the other planets revolve around the Sun. Depending on

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Speaker 1: the size of those orbits and the way you draw it.

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Speaker 1: Tico's model isn't too geometrically different from Copernicus is more

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Speaker 1: correct theory, but it was a compromise that the Church

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Speaker 1: and established scientific community at large could swallow. Kepler disagreed

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Speaker 1: with his boss. He knew, like Copernicus knew that the

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Speaker 1: Earth actually revolved around the Sun. But Kepler also knew

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Speaker 1: that Tikobray's measurements were extraordinarily precise. Using ticho Bray's measurements

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Speaker 1: for the path of Mars, Kepler realized that his calculations

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Speaker 1: for a circular orbit we're off by about eight arc minutes. Now,

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Speaker 1: eight arc minutes is not a lot to be off by.

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Speaker 1: To put it in layman's terms. If you were to

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Speaker 1: hold a penny out at arm's length and turn the

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Speaker 1: penny sideways the edge of the penny, that amount of

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00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: space was the distance of the margin of error that

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00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: Kepler got. But Bray was more precise than that, and

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Speaker 1: Kepler knew it. Ray would never be off by more

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00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: than four or five arc minutes. And so Coupler tried again,

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Speaker 1: this time with the calculation for an elliptical orbit, and

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00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: there was it fit. Kepler became a scientific hero, and

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00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: the idea that planets traveled in elliptical orbit became the

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Speaker 1: first of his three laws of planetary motion. Kepler was

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00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: a german Man born to a struggling mercenary and the

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00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: daughter of an innkeeper. Very convenient, how Brie died, and

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00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: then Kepler was able to use all of the data

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00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 1: he left behind to achieve glory. Almost too convenient. Some

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00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: positive just an idea that Kepler had poison Ticobrie, who

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00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: died at age fifty four. Kepler, his assistant, would have

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00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: had the opportunity, he would have had access to the

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00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 1: poison mercury, and he definitely had the motive. In his writings,

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00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: Kepler explained Brie his death a little differently. He wrote

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00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: that on October one, he and Brie were at a

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00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: banquet for Rudolph the Second. Bran had to urinate, but

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00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 1: as royal decorum dictated that you couldn't leave the table

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00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 1: before the king, he had to hold it in. Eleven

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00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: days later, now unable to urinate and in extreme pain,

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00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: brah died, but not before begging his pupil to finish

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00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: his work and published the Rudolphine Tables. Of course, Kepler

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00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 1: readily agreed. The Lord of Uranni Aborg died a urine

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00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 1: related death. Urania urine sounds like fate. Unfortunately, there is

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00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: no etymological link between those two words, but you know,

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00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: doesn't make it any less interesting. Ticobrie's achievements were vast

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00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: and remarkable, especially when one remembers that all of his

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00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: work was done with the naked eye. Galileo wouldn't use

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00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 1: a telescope until eight years after Tico Brie's death, so

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00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: Tico did all of his work just looking up at

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00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: the sky. That's all it took. Well, that and the

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00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: sponsorship of King's a near infinite supply of money in

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00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: free labor. But just that, that's the life and death

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00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: of Tico Bride, but keep listening after a brief sponsor

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00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: break to hear about when scientists decided to examine those

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00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: pesky murder rumors Tico bri His body was exhumed twice,

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00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: first in one and then in when scientists investigated once

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00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: and for all whether those kepler murder rumors had any

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00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: truth to them. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Brian did

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00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,479
Speaker 1: have a little bit of mercury in his hair follicles,

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00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: but no more than the normal amount that an alchemist

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00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: slash scientist in the sixteenth century would have. Plus, the

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00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 1: data didn't indicate a sudden amount of mercury flooding his

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00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: system right before his death. Brian also had gold in

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00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,879
Speaker 1: his system, which people tended to drink at the time

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00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:15,879
Speaker 1: in their wine for medicinal purposes, so it was more

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00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: likely scientists decided that Tico had some bladder or kidney

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00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 1: issue before that fateful banquet that ultimately led to his demise.

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Speaker 1: So no murder by a jealous, ambitious assistant, exciting as

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Speaker 1: that might have been, thanks a lot science. Noble Blood

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00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and

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00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted

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00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,

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00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social

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00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 1: media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more

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00:34:53,440 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 1: about the show over at Noble blood tails dot com.

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00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i

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Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows. M