intelligent interest the many strange objects which Tycho had to show him. In particular, he admired a small brass globe, which, by an internal mechanism, showed the motions of the sun and moon. Tycho immediately begged him to accept it, and in return the Prince took off a massive gold chain in which his own portrait was suspended, and hung it round his host's neck.[1] The conversation between the astronomer and his youthful guest turned to fortification, navigation, shipbuilding, and other branches of applied science, in which the Prince had been instructed, and it is stated that Tycho on this occasion received a promise of an annual grant of 400 daler (£91) for instructing young men in the theory of navigation and astronomy, and an allowance of 120 daler annually for the keep of each pupil.[2] The Prince was greatly pleased with his visit, and seems to have regretted that it was but a short one, as he wrote in his Latin exercise the next day that he returned to Hörsholm "long before supper."
Historical events, whether trifling or important, are often by posterity, without any reason, connected with others or supposed to have caused them. Tradition afterwards made out that Christopher Valkendorf was in the Prince's suite on this occasion, and it has been related in detail how he and Tycho became enemies because Valkendorf kicked one of the dogs which King James had presented to Tycho, while the latter in turn abused the offender. But this story, which, according to other writers, refers to a later date, rests on a very slender foundation indeed, and at any rate
- ↑ Astron. inst. Mechanica, fol. B. (where for 1590 should be read 1592). Tycho had already in 1589 procured a couple of globes for the Prince from the Dutch artist Jacob Floressen (Florentius), who sent his son to Hveen to obtain correct star-places for his globes, which Tycho declined to give in writing, while he allowed him to examine the great globe in the library (Progym., p. 274). In 1600 Tycho sent a star-globe to the Elector of Saxony.
- ↑ Lund, Historiske Skitser, p. 353, quoting Slange's Christian den Fjerde's Historie (1749). I have not seen this mentioned elsewhere.
