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0:30

Like Sir Francis Bacon, René

0:32

Descartes, Isaac Newton and

0:34

Galileo. Here we're told

0:36

we see the rise of empiricism and the

0:38

development of the scientific method, the

0:40

creation of institutions to support scientific

0:43

work and discoveries like

0:45

gravity, heliocentrism and the circulation of

0:47

the blood that laid the foundation

0:49

for subjects that would go on to

0:51

become physics, astronomy and biology. But

0:56

what if we drew back and looked

0:58

not just for the great men of

1:00

change offered to us by the 17th

1:02

century, but the ones who

1:04

paved the way for their revelations, at

1:07

the places that facilitated their discoveries,

1:10

at the forms of technology and

1:12

types of collaboration that created the

1:15

environment in which intellectual innovation could

1:17

occur. What, in

1:19

other words, is the prehistory of

1:22

the scientific revolution? When did the

1:24

birth of science really occur? Today's

1:27

guest suggests that we need to

1:29

shift our focus a century earlier

1:32

to the places and people, including women,

1:34

who drew the blueprints for scientific work.

1:38

She is Violet Muller, award-winning

1:40

author of The Map of

1:42

Knowledge, whose new book Inside

1:44

the Stargazer's Palace, The Transformation

1:46

of Science in 16th-Century Northern

1:48

Europe, takes us from the

1:50

icy Danish observatory of Tycho

1:53

Brahe to the obsidian mirror

1:55

of Dr John Dee. Join

1:57

us as we venture into the mysterious

1:59

world of science. in which modern science

2:01

began. Dr

2:09

Violet Muller, welcome to Not Just the

2:11

Tutors. Thank you so much for having

2:13

me on. It is

2:15

a delight and a privilege to

2:17

talk to you about your forthcoming

2:20

book, Inside the Stargazer's Palace, which

2:22

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed.

2:25

And what's so interesting

2:27

about this is it

2:30

completely reformulates our idea

2:32

of when science happened, as

2:34

it were. I mean, this book is the

2:36

kind of prequel to the birth of science

2:38

that we normally hear. It's

2:40

not about the narrative of great men in the

2:42

17th century. This is a

2:45

16th century, obviously, and it takes

2:47

us to places rather than just

2:49

focusing on people. What

2:51

led you to take this approach, and

2:53

why does it matter that we hear

2:56

these other stories? Thank you.

2:58

I think it matters because I think

3:01

it's very reductive to only focus on

3:03

the history of science through the prism

3:05

of what turned out to be a

3:08

successful idea. And I think

3:10

it is a much richer and

3:12

more interesting story if we look

3:14

at the whole progress of it

3:16

and this idea that science is

3:18

this march forward towards enlightenment. It's

3:20

just really not true. There were

3:22

always these funny little cul-de-sacs that

3:24

people went down. And I think

3:26

if you miss all that out,

3:28

you just only see a very small

3:30

part of the story. And I think

3:33

the 16th century is particularly interesting. It

3:35

was a very complicated period. And I

3:37

think that's partly why in

3:39

terms of the history of science,

3:41

it's rather jumped over because it's

3:43

very difficult to fit it into

3:45

the narrative. And I think

3:47

for people in our age, there was

3:49

so much that was going on that

3:51

has been discounted since that makes it

3:53

nonsensical. But it's so interesting.

3:55

I think it was a really incredible

3:58

century. Interesting

4:00

what you say there, there is this sense that

4:02

one of the things that people struggle with when

4:05

you talk to them about beliefs in the

4:07

16th century is that

4:10

there wasn't the separation of fields

4:12

of knowledge, the astrology and medicine

4:14

were intertwined. There's no hard barrier

4:16

between what came to be

4:19

called science and what came to be called

4:21

superstition. You've got Tycho Brahe in this book,

4:24

The Great Astronomer, believing in

4:26

the influence of stars on the human organs.

4:29

How do you think we should grapple with this?

4:31

How should we handle this integration

4:33

of knowledge in the period? I

4:36

think you have to try and leave behind and

4:38

obviously this is an extremely difficult thing to do.

4:41

And I guess it's what historians are always trying to do, escape

4:44

your own paradigm and just

4:46

be very accepting and very

4:48

open. And I think that's

4:50

actually essential to studying at any period of

4:52

history because the past, it was different and

4:55

that's one of the reasons why we're so

4:57

fascinated by it. And I have

4:59

been challenged countless times also with regards to

5:01

my previous book, The Map of Knowledge, where

5:04

people say, why is it interesting if these

5:06

ideas didn't turn out to be true and

5:08

valid and if they are now not part

5:10

of the scientific canon, why is it interesting

5:12

to study them? But I think it is

5:15

because without making those mistakes, we wouldn't be

5:17

where we are now. And also a lot

5:19

of what we think we know now, especially

5:21

about the cosmos and astronomy, will

5:24

be completely and utterly refuted in

5:26

years to come. This happens all the time.

5:28

This is an essential part of the way

5:30

that science works. So it still

5:32

happens today and I think therefore it's

5:34

completely vital that we're able to do

5:36

it when we're thinking about what people believed

5:38

in the past. Yes,

5:41

that makes total sense. Fundamentally to be

5:43

interested in the ways in

5:45

which knowledge did not go, that did not

5:47

prove to be the

5:49

route forward is to be interested in

5:51

the scientific method, isn't it? It's all

5:54

about experimentation. Exactly, and how people thought

5:56

about things and how they found things

5:58

out. For me, the process. is

6:00

as interesting as the result. And I

6:02

think that's why I wanted to focus

6:05

on places, because this is a sort

6:07

of relatively new area in the history

6:09

of science. It was traditionally very much,

6:11

as you said, about ideas, but actually

6:14

looking at the sort of material conditions

6:16

in which these ideas were

6:18

produced is very important and very

6:20

interesting. So that's what I wanted

6:23

to try and achieve in

6:25

this book. It is more difficult because of

6:27

the evidence that's left behind for descriptions of

6:29

what the laboratories looked like and what equipment

6:31

they were using and that kind of thing

6:33

is harder to find. So it's

6:35

a more difficult job and you have to

6:38

be quite broad and look at lots of

6:40

different sources of evidence. But I like that

6:42

kind of history. I like that sort of

6:44

building up a picture using lots of different

6:46

bits of things rather than just focusing on

6:48

one important text, which one scientist wrote. Well,

6:51

let's turn then to the study of

6:54

places. You look at seven places

6:56

in this book, and the

6:58

first one is 15th-century Nuremberg. What

7:01

was it about Nuremberg in

7:04

the late 15th century that

7:06

facilitated the creation of a new world

7:09

of knowledge? Nuremberg became

7:11

very early on a

7:13

big centre of craft

7:15

and making. So

7:18

there were people there who

7:20

moved out of their villages

7:22

and they moved to Nuremberg

7:24

and they were expert goldsmiths,

7:26

clockmakers, all these

7:28

really vital craft activities

7:30

that were carried

7:32

out in an atmosphere where they were

7:35

really protected. They had guilds, it was

7:37

very well organised, and the city

7:39

developed this absolutely unsurpassed reputation for

7:41

excellence. So if you wanted to

7:43

buy a machine that really worked,

7:46

that was really well-designed, Nuremberg

7:48

was the place to go and get it. And

7:51

of course, it's a very quick, vicious circle

7:53

that happens. It gets a name and then

7:55

more people come and attracts

7:57

all the most talented craft.

8:00

in that period. And that's where

8:02

you get the astronomer who I talk about,

8:04

Regimen Tarnas, who goes there and he specifically

8:07

says, I've come to make my home in

8:09

this city because I can get hold of

8:11

these instruments. And I think we

8:13

have to remember that in this period,

8:15

you couldn't just go to a shop

8:17

and buy an astrolabe or even a

8:20

measure rule or anything. You had to

8:22

order it or you had to make

8:24

it yourself. There weren't places where

8:26

they could just go and buy this stuff.

8:28

So it was a much more complicated process

8:31

than it is today or has been since.

8:33

You needed people who were physically capable

8:35

of doing this, of making these kinds

8:38

of things. And Nuremberg became

8:40

the sort of serendipitous centre for that.

8:43

And it's so sad because when you

8:45

hear the name of Nuremberg, that's not

8:47

what you think about. Obviously, of course,

8:49

you think about the terrible things that

8:51

happened there in the 20th century. So

8:53

yes, I wanted to rehabilitate Nuremberg's early

8:55

golden age. And

8:57

one of the things you say is

8:59

that other than necessary ingredient was

9:02

money, patronage, powered culture. What was

9:04

the role of the Fugger family

9:07

in Nuremberg during this time? They

9:10

were actually from Augsburg, but they

9:12

were this absolutely extraordinary dynasty. They

9:15

were the sort of northern version

9:17

of the Medici. And

9:19

they managed to create wealth. And

9:22

I think still today, if you

9:24

translate their wealth and compare it,

9:27

they are up there with Jeff

9:29

Bezos and people like that. They

9:31

were just unbelievably clever. They

9:34

were also lucky because Jakob, who was

9:36

the first member of the family to

9:38

really get things going, he happened to

9:40

be around at a time when copper

9:43

production was ramping up massively metal production

9:46

in all these different places in Germany

9:48

and what's now the Czech Republic. And

9:50

he was just the right man at

9:52

the right time. And he

9:54

would lend local noblemen money because

9:57

everyone was always broke. And they

9:59

would then repay him in the

10:01

rights to the silver from the

10:03

mines. So he just was able

10:05

to put himself right in the

10:07

centre and ended up lending the

10:09

equivalent of millions and millions of

10:11

pounds to pretty much every

10:14

royal house in Europe and in particular

10:16

the Habsburgs. So they funded the patronage

10:18

and the nobility but then they were

10:20

also patrons in their own rights. Now

10:24

you mentioned the importance

10:26

of craft, this sense of

10:28

having to create the instruments in order

10:30

to do the intellectual work and this

10:33

is a theme I suppose that

10:35

carries on into your next place.

10:38

What was happening there in the early

10:40

16th century? Louvain

10:42

sort of took over from

10:44

Nuremberg when it came to

10:47

making these specialist mathematical instruments

10:49

and that was just simply that there

10:52

was a combination of people who

10:54

were studying there, there was a very important university

10:56

in the city and I think that's one of

10:59

the things that really I find so fascinating

11:01

when you look back at the past and

11:03

you have it in terms of art and

11:06

all sorts of things where you just get

11:08

this moment in time when you get the

11:10

right combination of people in the right place

11:12

and they work together and something incredible happens

11:15

and this was definitely the case in Louvain

11:18

in the early 16th century because

11:20

a man called Gerard

11:22

Mercator was studying under

11:25

another man called Gemma

11:27

Frisius and together they

11:29

revolutionised making maps, obviously

11:31

globes and also all

11:33

sorts of other mathematical instruments

11:35

and it's interesting that Frisius

11:37

was a doctor, he was part of

11:40

the university and he taught

11:42

maths on the side so he had

11:44

this sort of unofficial and

11:46

I think that's quite a common theme

11:49

in this period. The universities are really

11:51

important places where people meet but they're

11:53

not studying these subjects at the universities,

11:55

if you wanted to study the forefront of

11:57

science you couldn't learn that at a university.

12:00

So they would gather in these informal

12:02

groups in their houses, in their

12:05

workshops, and that was where the

12:07

sort of magic happened, basically. Yes,

12:09

so that sense of collaboration informally

12:13

leading to progress, leading to new ideas seems

12:16

really important here. I was really struck by the

12:18

fact that Louvain this time there was a theologically

12:21

dangerous place, the

12:23

terrible story of

12:25

the women being buried alive because they

12:27

don't believe in transubstantiation. It

12:30

made me think that it's also a kind

12:32

of dangerous place to be conjuring up

12:34

new ideas. Yes, absolutely. In

12:36

the whole story, once you get

12:38

1580, 1519, and the

12:41

reformation has begun, it's the backdrop

12:43

to all of these stories. And

12:45

actually, the growth of Protestantism had

12:48

a really transformative effect on the

12:50

scientific communities because they were the

12:52

kind of people in a town

12:54

who were attracted by this new

12:56

religion, especially in the Low Countries

12:58

in this period. It was the

13:01

merchants and the educated craftspeople who

13:03

were the early adopters of Lutheranism.

13:06

And of course, then as the Habsburgs

13:08

who were ruling that whole area at

13:10

that time, tried to stamp out Protestantism.

13:13

And there were these awful stories where

13:15

this group in Louvain was caught and

13:17

arrested, and then they actually did bury

13:19

some of the women alive, I think

13:21

in the marketplace even. But

13:24

of course, this then meant that there

13:26

was immigration. So a lot

13:28

of these people fled and went elsewhere.

13:31

And I talk about this a little bit later in the

13:33

book, but quite a lot of these communities of people went

13:35

to England and settled in

13:37

London, which was itself becoming Protestant.

13:40

So it did have a very

13:43

interesting effect on pushing these cutting

13:45

edge technologies to different places. And

13:47

I think that's a sort of fascinating aspect

13:49

of the story. If you look at how

13:51

science developed in Northern Europe at this time,

13:53

and that's really the underlying

13:56

story that I'm telling is how

13:58

science became established in process. the

14:00

northern Europe in the

14:02

16th century. Yes, that's a

14:04

fascinating parallel or perhaps causative

14:07

element in terms of the environment

14:09

of Protestantism and these progressive ideas.

14:12

Do you feel those two things

14:14

are fundamentally interlinked or is this

14:16

a coincidence of geography, for

14:19

example? I think in some

14:21

ways they are but that's not

14:23

to say that there weren't huge

14:25

numbers of Catholics doing extremely important

14:27

scientific research and there are

14:29

lots of other factors involved, the biggest

14:31

one being of course the discovery and

14:33

then settlement and exploitation of

14:35

what they call the New World,

14:38

so the Americas and Africa and

14:40

India. So that was all part

14:42

of this story but I think

14:44

that you can't discount the importance

14:46

of Protestantism in terms of formulating

14:48

a new identity and

14:51

giving impetus to people. They wanted

14:53

their religion to be the

14:56

most successful because there was always this feeling

14:58

that if you were successful, whether it was

15:00

in battle or in commerce or whatever it

15:02

was, that meant that your type of religion,

15:04

whether it was Islam or Catholicism or

15:06

Lutheranism, you were right and God was

15:08

on your side and that was really

15:11

important. So it is part of this

15:13

much bigger story but of course I'm

15:15

definitely not saying that there weren't very

15:18

important Catholic scientists because there were. Yes,

15:20

obviously your book makes clear the complicated

15:22

economic and political circumstances in which these

15:25

developments are happening. Let's follow some of

15:27

those emigrants to England now and catch

15:29

up with the figure that many people will

15:31

have heard of, Dr John Dee and

15:34

his library at Mortlake near

15:36

Richmond. And what was

15:38

so striking to me from

15:41

your work on Dee was this sense

15:44

of having to create a centre

15:46

of learning not only in

15:49

the absence of official structures but

15:51

quite often despite the officials. Why

15:54

do you think he was able to do this

15:56

and to create this library

15:58

that predates the great libraries

16:00

of Cambridge and Oxford? I

16:03

don't know. He's a really extraordinary man

16:05

and I must admit now that I

16:08

did my PhD thesis on

16:10

his library. That's what I studied. John

16:12

Dee and I have been, I feel,

16:14

close companions for many years and I

16:17

find him a very confounding

16:19

person because he's infuriating and I mean

16:21

I'm sure if you met him you

16:23

would have felt like throttling him quite

16:25

quickly because in some ways he was

16:27

so arrogant. I don't think he

16:29

was very good at reading a room. That was

16:31

one of the reasons why he was never

16:34

as successful as his early career suggested

16:36

that he might have been. But

16:38

he was also just this amazing person

16:40

who had this vision and he had

16:42

no money but he collected

16:45

the first universal library in this country

16:47

in terms of scope and also one

16:49

of the first properly universal libraries since

16:53

the ancient world really. He was

16:55

interested in everything and

16:57

he wrote a catalogue of his books

16:59

before he left for Poland in 1583.

17:01

He went for this long trip which

17:03

I talk about later in the book

17:06

to the continent because he's basically exhausted

17:08

all his avenues in

17:10

Elizabethan London. So you

17:12

can see the books that he owned

17:14

and there's just this wonderful bibliographic edition

17:17

that was made in I think 1992

17:19

by these two fantastic bibliographic scholars and

17:21

they make an index of subject matter

17:24

and it goes on from about five

17:26

pages because he just had books on

17:28

everything and created this

17:30

sort of unofficial research centre really

17:32

where people was right on the ten

17:35

so people would drop in all the

17:37

time on their way from

17:39

Richmond into Whitehall or wherever

17:41

they were going and it

17:43

was a really pivotal place in

17:45

Elizabethan London. It was really important

17:48

and sadly he just

17:50

wasn't very good at playing the game and I think

17:53

obtaining patronage at the Elizabethan court was

17:55

difficult. Basically she's very good at making

17:57

promises but not so good at keeping

17:59

the game. And he really

18:01

struggled financially and then he had all these

18:03

children and a wife and the house

18:05

was always full of scholars who were staying over

18:08

and it was just this sort of

18:10

extraordinary place. Ryan

18:23

Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the price

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18:54

is After Dark. Myths, Myst

18:56

deeds and the paranormal. The

18:59

podcast that takes you to the shadiest corners

19:01

of the past. Unpicking history's

19:03

spookiest, strangest and most

19:05

sinister stories. I'm Maddy Pelling. And

19:08

I'm Anthony Delaney. Join us every Monday

19:10

and Thursday. And we'll take a look

19:12

at the darker side of history. From

19:14

haunted pubs to Houdini to witch trials

19:16

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After Dark, Myths, Myst deeds and

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19:25

Hit. Today,

19:35

writers are expected also to be

19:37

speakers and to have to go

19:39

and do a range of public

19:41

events. And that isn't always

19:44

easy for a writer. And I feel

19:46

that kind of parallel for D, the

19:48

need to find patronage, but

19:50

the need also for scholarly solitude

19:53

and seclusion. And

19:55

as you say, that means that in the end,

19:58

it is very difficult for him to program. because

20:00

he needs money to do the work. And

20:02

I wonder actually, I mean this is a

20:04

complete tangent, but I wonder if we're into

20:07

a kind of place in our history where

20:09

that's becoming a problem again. I mean scientists

20:11

have scientific labs but more and more

20:13

scholars are independent. We're both independent

20:15

scholars having this conversation and it's

20:17

a challenging situation in which

20:20

scholarly research is produced. Definitely

20:22

and I think also for Dee when he

20:24

started he always had his books but then

20:26

he had laboratories it sounds like he had

20:28

a sort of couple of sheds in the

20:30

garden where he was doing alchemical experiments. But

20:32

then of course he later in life got

20:35

very obsessed with scrying which involved this

20:37

man called Edward Kelly who claimed to be able

20:39

to speak to angels and they would sit at

20:41

a table with a crystal ball and

20:43

what Dee called his showstone and

20:46

Kelly would declaim from what the angels

20:48

were saying to him and there's an

20:50

incident in Dee's diary where he described

20:52

someone comes in unannounced and

20:54

just opens the door of the study

20:56

and there they are doing this what

20:58

you know was considered by some people

21:00

to be an extremely dangerous and possibly

21:03

diabolical activity. So yes the sort

21:05

of dichotomy of needing to be

21:08

accessible to people and to be seen

21:10

and be a person at the Elizabethan

21:12

court and then the dichotomy of needing

21:14

to do the secret work was something

21:16

that he really did struggle with. It was

21:18

a real problem for him. Fascinatingly

21:20

though as you say it's his reputation

21:23

for magic that means his papers survive.

21:25

I hadn't ever put that together before.

21:28

It's really interesting that it's that

21:30

intense focus on the esoteric work

21:32

that he's doing that means that

21:34

we know about his scientific

21:36

research. Yeah absolutely and this

21:38

absolute obsession that he

21:40

might have got hold of some kind

21:43

of higher knowledge it's possible and then

21:45

you get people like Elias Ashmall in

21:47

the following century the sort of decades

21:49

after Dee has died literally going

21:51

to the field in Morelake where his house was

21:53

and digging up the field in order to try

21:56

and find things. The sort

21:58

of historiography of Dee's legacy

22:00

is one of the most fascinating things

22:03

about him and then of course later

22:05

on he gets taken over by this

22:07

really unsavory person called Alistair Crowley who

22:10

was a Satanist basically. So these

22:12

afterlives are every bit as fascinating

22:14

as his actual life was. So we're

22:18

heading back to Germany as the next

22:21

place on our tour of 16th

22:23

century scientific Europe and we're going

22:26

to talk about a man whose

22:28

work is little known especially in

22:30

the anglophone world. Can you

22:32

talk to me about the work

22:35

in Castle that anticipated many of

22:37

the developments in science that we

22:39

associate with people like Francis Bacon

22:41

and René Descartes? Yes,

22:44

trying to get the name of Wilhelm

22:46

the Fourth out into the world is

22:48

one of my main aims with writing

22:50

this book because he was this absolutely

22:53

extraordinary man and there isn't really even very much

22:55

about him in Germany that I found

22:57

and even in Castle where he lives. He's

23:00

one of those people who has

23:02

fallen down the crack of time

23:04

in the history of science which

23:07

is a great shame because he

23:09

was a really interesting character and

23:11

he did make huge contributions towards

23:13

making astronomical observations more accurate and

23:15

in particular using clocks rather

23:18

than trying to measure so they

23:20

would use time rather than measuring

23:22

the distance between heavenly bodies and

23:25

there's really nothing written about him

23:27

in English apart from one American historian

23:29

who wrote about him early on in

23:32

his career but apart from that

23:34

there was very little I could find on

23:36

Wilhelm and his name

23:38

should be known and he was

23:40

obviously in communication. Dee went and

23:42

visited him at Castle and he

23:44

was also in close communication with

23:46

Tyler Brahe and Brahe also visited

23:48

him in his palace and

23:51

I don't think he had sort of

23:53

specific observatory which he had built but

23:55

he had lots of instruments and he

23:57

would keep them on the balconies of

23:59

his palace and then the servants would have to move

24:01

them across to a different balcony when he needed to see

24:03

a different part of the sky. And this

24:05

is something we see again and again throughout the history

24:07

of science. When you get

24:10

a ruler who is personally really

24:12

passionate about a particular subject, that's

24:14

when you really see progress because

24:16

they obviously put their heart and

24:19

soul into it. And Wilhelm designed

24:21

astronomical clocks and cells and popularized

24:23

them. And he was a

24:25

very important ruler in Germany at that time,

24:28

which was made up of lots of lots

24:30

of these little principalities. And

24:32

they all looked to Wilhelm for

24:34

inspiration and also for political leadership because

24:37

early on when he was a very

24:39

young man, his father was taken

24:41

prisoner as part of the battles that

24:43

were going on between the Habsburgs

24:45

and the Lutherans. And

24:47

he had become the regent for quite

24:50

a long time when he was really

24:52

very young. And he developed this reputation

24:54

for being very good at getting people

24:56

together. He was very

24:58

moderate, very intelligent, very thoughtful.

25:01

And so they looked up to him in

25:03

all different ways and they all ordered his

25:06

clocks. They all wanted one of his astronomical

25:08

clocks for their collections. And

25:10

he was in contact with all of

25:12

these astronomers. There was this

25:14

widespread community of astronomers at this time. And

25:16

that was another thing I really wanted to

25:18

bring across in this book because again,

25:21

I think that's not at all well known,

25:23

but how there was really a scientific community

25:25

for the first time across Europe. And they

25:27

were all writing each other letters and they

25:29

would then copy the letters and pass them

25:31

on. That then turned into what

25:34

we now call academic journals because it

25:36

was a way of presenting your research

25:38

in your findings and then getting it

25:40

peer reviewed effectively. So Wilhelm was so

25:42

important. And of course, he was right there in the center

25:44

of Germany, in the center of Europe. So

25:47

Castle was a sort of major

25:49

hub on this network of scientists.

25:52

I love the way that you're drawing attention

25:54

to these places that haven't been on the

25:56

map of scientific importance, but

25:59

now. should be. You

26:01

mentioned that he was visited by

26:03

Tycho Brahe and our next place,

26:05

a little Scandinavian island, is really

26:07

all about Brahe but it's also

26:09

about, as you've already said, the

26:11

importance of rulers and here it's

26:13

Frederick the Second. And

26:15

one thing I wanted to ask you

26:18

about with regard to the kind of

26:20

world-class astronomical research institute that Brahe establishes

26:23

with Frederick's help, do

26:25

you feel that the

26:27

Scandinavian culture of egalitarianism

26:30

was crucial to making that

26:32

a success? That seemed to come through. I

26:36

don't know. Maybe I should be a bit

26:38

hesitant about making claims like that but I

26:40

lived in Denmark for six years. My husband

26:42

is Danish so I do feel

26:44

like I have a bit of an insight

26:47

into Danish culture and they are different from

26:49

us in that way. There's this weird Scandinavian

26:51

thing called Yandelaw. It's basically you shouldn't ever

26:53

think that you're better than anyone and I

26:56

think that's quite different from our society which

26:58

seems to be much more hierarchical and the

27:00

class system and all of that kind of

27:02

thing. I don't know enough

27:04

about Danish social history but definitely if

27:07

you look at Brahe and he was literally

27:09

born into the grandest Danish family and

27:12

all of his relations were advisors to

27:14

the king and all of the families

27:16

that his mother's family and his father's

27:18

family were all the absolute creme de

27:21

la creme of Danish society and

27:23

he was extremely arrogant and he

27:26

treated people really badly sometimes but

27:28

he did also have this sort

27:30

of egalitarianism insofar as he was

27:33

also interested in geography and the

27:35

weather and all sorts of things. If you

27:37

were interested in those things and you were talented

27:40

he wanted you. He had

27:42

this sort of side to him and I don't

27:44

know if that was because he was Danish. He

27:46

married this woman. They had a tradition at that

27:48

time in Denmark of a Morganatic marriage so if

27:50

you were an aristocrat and you wanted to marry

27:52

someone who was from a lower class than you

27:55

further down the social order you had what was

27:57

called a Morganatic marriage and it meant that you

27:59

were a woman. that your children

28:01

couldn't inherit any of

28:03

your property and they did have his surname,

28:06

but it was a sort of half marriage

28:08

and that was the life that Tycho

28:11

chose. He didn't want the life of

28:13

an aristocrat. He didn't want to spend

28:15

his time running his estate and hunting

28:17

and at court, having banquets and that

28:19

kind of thing. He was

28:21

a complex person and I think there were

28:23

sides to him where he was very arrogant,

28:25

but also sides to him where he was

28:28

egalitarian. And people will know

28:30

his discovery of 1577, the comet.

28:32

One thing that struck me

28:35

though is the sense that it

28:38

didn't really lead to immediate intellectual

28:40

change. No. Everyone

28:42

knows about Copernicus and that was many years

28:44

before in 1543 when the book was published

28:48

where the Copernican system was put out

28:50

into the world, but it took decades

28:54

for that idea to be processed,

28:56

to be accepted. And I

28:58

think the next generation of astronomers, including Brahe

29:00

and Wilhelm and Dee and all of them,

29:02

they were all obviously very much aware and

29:05

Tisborkin had read it and this was the

29:07

period when everyone was looking at the sky

29:09

and saying, okay, is it right? Can it

29:11

really be true that the Earth isn't at

29:13

the centre of the universe? Because that was

29:15

quite a big deal to accept. And

29:17

then there was this series of

29:20

astronomical events which really brought the attention

29:22

to astronomers and really gave them something

29:24

to all discuss. And this was the

29:26

first moment, certainly in the post-antique world,

29:28

where we see a group of people

29:30

that all seen the same thing in

29:32

the sky and then they're writing down

29:35

their observations and they're writing to each

29:37

other and they're rationalising what could it

29:39

be? What does this mean? And

29:41

so there was the supernova of

29:43

1572 and

29:46

then there was the comet of 1577 and

29:48

then there's this grand conjunction in the

29:50

early 1580s. And these

29:53

things really bring astronomy to the

29:55

fore when it comes to research

29:57

and really got people talking. And

30:00

we can see this in the huge

30:02

number of pamphlets and leaflets and letters

30:04

that are then written and books about

30:06

these events where you can see everyone

30:08

is trying to work out what is

30:10

going on. And they're

30:12

letting go of the idea which had

30:14

stood for millennia. Aristotle's idea

30:17

that the cosmos was made up

30:19

of these crystal spheres nested within

30:21

one another. It was such a

30:23

beautiful idea, but obviously it couldn't

30:25

be true. If suddenly there's a

30:27

new star crashing through the atmosphere,

30:29

then it would have had to break

30:31

the crystal sphere. So yes, it takes

30:34

a long time for them to be

30:36

processed and worked out. Our

30:38

last real place is the place

30:41

in which all roads you suggest

30:43

in the 16th century led

30:45

to, which is Prague and the court

30:47

of Rudolf II. Di

30:50

and Brahe and Kepler, they're all

30:52

here. What was the

30:54

role of that extraordinary emperor

30:56

in creating that place as

30:59

a place of immense scientific achievement?

31:02

Yeah, he was so important, I

31:04

think, and has been so undervalued

31:06

by history. He was also a

31:09

very strange personality. And I think

31:11

without putting modern diagnoses on

31:13

a historical person, he might well have

31:15

been on the autistic spectrum in some

31:17

way. He was a strange

31:20

and extraordinary man, really intelligent,

31:22

but someone who found

31:25

social interaction difficult. But

31:28

he created this center in Prague. When

31:30

he became Holy Roman Emperor, he moved

31:33

the capital from Vienna to Prague, and

31:35

he had money at

31:38

his fingertips, which none of the

31:40

other rulers that we have discussed

31:42

could even dream of. He just

31:44

had the resources, and

31:46

he also had the passion,

31:48

the single-minded passion. He was

31:50

absolutely and utterly focused on

31:53

his collections of art and

31:55

his scientists, his alchemists, and he just did

31:58

it on a scale that... no

32:00

one else was able to. And

32:02

again, the whole religious element

32:05

comes into play because Rudolf was

32:07

nominally Catholic, but actually, I think,

32:10

really struggled with religion. So Prague was a

32:12

place where it was very tolerant, and you

32:14

could be there and be a Protestant and

32:16

you could be a Catholic. And at a

32:18

time when there was a lot of religious

32:21

persecution and oppression, Prague was a

32:24

sort of island, a haven for

32:26

people. And it was very important.

32:28

That's why Kepler went there, because

32:30

where he'd been working in Graz

32:32

just became inhospitable to him.

32:34

So he had to move. So again, we

32:36

see religion forcing people to go to different

32:38

places. So yes, it would have been an

32:40

amazing place to be in about 1600, it

32:43

really would. I know

32:45

you have a podcast called Travel Through Time where

32:47

you take people back in time for a particular

32:49

moment. Would you like to go to the course

32:51

of Rudolf II? I would love to,

32:54

but I would like to go to all of these places. I

32:56

don't know about you, but I do spend

32:58

a lot of time just thinking about what would it have

33:00

been like to live in the past? What would it have

33:02

been like to walk down the street? What would the food

33:04

have been like? That's what I just longed to do. And

33:06

if I got a genie that came out of a bottle

33:08

and it said you have one wish, it would be to

33:10

go back in time, definitely without a question.

33:13

Our last place is a place of

33:15

the imagination, which is the place that

33:18

Francis Bacon writes about in his New

33:20

Atlantis, Ben-Salem. And the

33:22

question you ask here is where did Francis

33:24

Bacon get his ideas? And I suppose I

33:26

want to ask that to you. With the

33:28

addition of how much did

33:31

the people and the places

33:33

that we have considered together today pave

33:35

the way for what then became called

33:37

the scientific revolution? I would

33:39

argue that, of course they

33:42

paved the way. It was the

33:44

development of these specialized centres where

33:46

people studied laboratories developed during this

33:48

period. That's when they started to

33:50

make these specialized glass vessels for

33:52

doing experiments With. And In Brahe's

33:54

palace on the island of Veen he

33:56

had this huge sort of underground room

33:59

with furnaces. And some

34:01

wonderful illustrations old trees in German

34:03

Princes powerful the stuff. At this

34:05

time though I would say yes

34:07

hugely and that's the story that

34:09

I want to tell because I

34:11

really struggle with this idea that

34:13

suddenly find food borne you know

34:15

seventeenth century and it all came

34:18

from nothing. And the thing much

34:20

focus on how bacon pencil and

34:22

and solomon's how this research institute

34:24

has been lot written about how

34:26

it influenced into the future and

34:28

all the people that elected. And

34:30

how important bacon was in later century foot

34:32

where does it come from heat industry would

34:34

have. I have nothing but it is difficult

34:37

because they can. only went abroad once. he

34:39

went to France for a brief period when

34:41

he was very young for he didn't visit

34:43

any of the places that we the in

34:45

my book but he did I think go

34:48

to these house and would make one hundred

34:50

percent sure that is there's an entry indies.

34:52

Library When he says Mr Bacon came

34:54

to my house. And it must be

34:56

that Mr Bacon for various different reasons

34:58

which I go Nc but he would

35:01

have heard about these other places though

35:03

he is connections between theme because James

35:05

the first had actually been there and

35:07

visited when he was picking up his

35:09

bride print says i'm of Denmark has

35:12

a Scandinavian island we talked about for

35:14

to confront him yet it exactly so

35:16

he'd the now and oversee them with

35:18

lots of connection between as he places

35:20

because says his wife was Danish and

35:22

the orthodox of connections between the courts

35:25

in. Prague so I'm sure that

35:27

he would have had plenty of

35:29

descriptions and spinning speech people p

35:31

been to these places but yes

35:33

that's my argument is that a

35:35

lot of the circles originality of

35:37

they can actually come from the

35:40

sixteenth century and from the period

35:42

that he was born until. Well

35:44

thank you so much for sharing

35:46

it with us today. I am

35:48

giving us a sense that these

35:50

centers of learning which have been

35:52

excluded from the history of science.

35:54

These people. And their developments who

35:57

have not formed part of the

35:59

Carter. No, this is where

36:01

sign. Started need to be reconsidered

36:03

and the first place people can

36:05

do that is are picking up

36:08

a copy of your new book

36:10

inside a Stargazers Palace. Thank you

36:12

Violet so much for your time!

36:14

It's been really fun and your

36:16

book is enormous enjoyable and I

36:18

recommend it. And

36:30

thanks to you finish things not just the

36:32

tutored. From History Hit and also

36:35

my research smith, my producer

36:37

grub one. That we are always eager

36:39

to hear from. Used to do. Drop us a

36:41

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