paling, flower-gardens. Four roads ran through the orchards and gardens from the four angles of the enclosure to the open circular space in the middle, where the principal building was situated on a slightly higher level than the surrounding grounds. Uraniborg was built (apparently of red bricks with sandstone ornaments) in the Gothic Renaissance style, which towards the end of the sixteenth century was becoming more generally adopted in the North of Europe, where the heavier mediæval style had hitherto still been the ruling one, so that Tycho Brahe's residence became epoch-making in the history of Scandinavian architecture. The slender spires and tastefully decorated gables and cornices were indeed in better harmony with the peaceful and harmonious life of a student of the heavens than the more severe and dry Gothic style which the Renaissance was superseding; and the pictures, inscriptions, and ornaments of various kinds profusely scattered through the interior reminded the visitor at every step of the pursuits and tastes of the owner.
The woodcut below (which, like the previous and following ones, is a reduced copy of a figure in Tycho's own description) gives a general idea of the aspect of the edifice from the east, and by comparison with the plan of the ground-floor on the next page, the reader will get a clear idea of this remarkable structure.[1] The base of the principal and central part was a square, of which each side was 49 feet long, and to the north and south sides of this there were round towers 18 feet in diameter, surrounded by lower outhouses for fuel, &c., while narrow towers on the east and west sides contained the entrances. Including the towers, the entire length of the building from north to south
- ↑ The buildings and instruments are described in Epist. Astron., p. 218 et seq., and Astron. Inst. Mech., fol. H. 4 et seq. Some short Latin inscriptions, with which various places in the house were ornamented, are given in Resenii Inscriptiones Hafnienses (1668), p. 334, reprinted in Weistritz, i. p. 225.
