quadrant was only 16 inches (one cubitus); the divided arc was turned upwards, and within it were forty-four concentric arcs of 90° to subdivide the single degrees according to the plan proposed by Pedro Nunez. On the empty space between the centre and the smallest of these arcs was a small circular painting, representing a tree, which on the left side is full of green leaves and has fresh grass under it, while on the right side it has dead roots and withered branches. Under the green part of the tree a youth is seated, wearing a laurel wreath on his head and holding a star-globe and a book in his hands. Under the withered part of the tree is a table covered with money-boxes, sceptres, crowns, coats of arms, finery, goblets, dice, and cards, all of which a skeleton tries to grasp in its outstretched arms. Above is the pentameter, "Vivimus ingenio, cætera mortis erunt," pointing out the vanity of worldly things, while only earnest study confers immortality. The first part of the sentence is over the green part, the second over the withered part of the tree. In another place[1] Tycho had a similar picture, in which there appeared among the green leaves symbols of the life and doctrine of Christ, while the symbols of philosophy are moved over to the withered side under the dominion of Death, and the inscription is changed to "Vivimus in Christo, cætera mortis erunt," so that the two pictures showed the superiority of the noble efforts of the human mind over trivial occupations, and yet the insufficiency of either except man turns to the Redeemer.
This small instrument does not seem to have had any fixed place, and was afterwards removed to the subterranean observatory, but the larger ones were all erected in the observatories at the north and south ends of Uraniborg.
- ↑ It is not stated where. I conclude from the description in Epistolæ Astron., p. 254, that these were two different pictures, and not one picture seen from two points of view, as one might almost conclude from Astr. Inst. Mech., fol. A.
