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TYCHO BRAHE.

fundamental questions, he had no choice but to go to Prague.

In the meantime the Emperor had returned from Pilsen to Prague in July 1600, and about the same time, or shortly afterwards, Barwitz advised Tycho to leave Benatky and move to Prague, as the Emperor would like to have his astronomer near him. Probably Tycho was not sorry to leave Benatky, where he and Mühlstein still kept up a running fight about money matters and building operations. He therefore left Benatky and took up his quarters temporarily in the hotel Beim goldenen Greif, on the Hradschin,[1] while his instruments were placed in Ferdinand I.'s villa, not far from the castle.[2] A few days after his arrival, Tycho was received in audience by the Emperor, who conversed with him for an hour and a half. The Emperor inquired about Tycho's work, upon which Tycho remarked that he necessarily required more help, and suggested that Kepler might be attached to the observatory for a year or two. The Emperor nodded his consent to this, and desired Tycho to mention this proposal in a memorial about his requirements, which was to be sent to Barwitz. Tycho afterwards spoke to Corraduc, and asked that the Styrian authorities might be requested officially to give Kepler leave of absence for two years, and let him retain his salary, to which the Emperor would add a hundred florins on account of the expense of living at Prague. Tycho wrote to Kepler

  1. Hasner, p. 10. The house "Zum goldenen Greif" is still in existence (Neuweltgasse, No. 76), but is no longer an inn or a hotel. This quarter of Prague was then the most aristocratic one, being close to the castle. It was thoroughly devastated by the Prussians in 1757 by bombardment, and has since been the poorest part of the city.
  2. Now called the Imperial Belvedere. On January 24, 1601, Tycho wrote to Magini that he had now all his twenty-eight instruments "non longe ab Arce, in Cæsaris quadam magnifice extructa domo." Carteggio, p. 241. The observations at Benatky had been stopped at the end of June 1600, and they were not resumed till the 2nd December, "in domo Cæsaris horto vicina ubi instrumenta mea adhuc disponebantur." Barrettus, p. 860.