Tycho a copy of a letter he had received from Hieronimus Munosius of Valencia on this subject, and Tycho tried in vain to dissuade him from publishing an answer to the scurrilous and absurd assertions of Raimundus of Verona.[1] Another and most precious gift which Hagecius bestowed on Tycho on this occasion was a copy of a MS. by Copernicus, De Hypothesibus Motuum Cœlestium Commentariolus, an account of the new system of the world, which its author had written for circulation among friends some ten years before the publication of his book, De Revolutionibus, but which had never been printed.[2] In after years Tycho communicated copies of this literary relic to various German astronomers. Probably he presented to Hagecius in return a copy of his own paper on the star, as the latter is quoted in Hagecius' reply to Raimundus.[3]
From Ratisbon Tycho returned home viâ Saalfeld and Wittenberg. At the former place he visited Erasmus Reinhold, the younger, a son of the author of the "Prutenic Tables," who showed him his father's manuscripts, among which were extended tables of the equations of centre of the planets for every 10′ of the anomaly.[4] At Wittenberg he inspected the wooden triquetrum with which Wolfgang
- ↑ Progymn., pp. 567 and 734; see also above, p. 64.
- ↑ Progymn., p. 479. Though the description there given of the MS. ought to have attracted attention, and have led to a search for copies of it, the Commentariolus remained perfectly unknown till the year 1878, when it was noticed that there was a copy of it in the Hof-Bibliothek at Vienna, and immediately afterwards another copy was found at the Stockholm Observatory. The Vienna MS. had been presented by Longomontanus on his departure from Prague in 1600 to another of Tycho Brahe's disciples, Joh. Eriksen, and it is therefore doubtless a copy of the MS. belonging to Tycho. See Prowe, Nicolaus Coppernicus, i. part ii. p. 286.
- ↑ Danske Magazin, ii. p. 196, quotes Thomasini Elog. Viror. Illustr., according to which, Tycho, in his younger days, received an offer of an appointment at the Emperor's court. There is no confirmation anywhere of this statement; but if the offer was ever made, it was probably done at Ratisbon in 1575.
- ↑ Progymn., p. 699.
