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Tycho Brahe and the restoration of Astronomy
3 October @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Ready to take your journey of Discovery? Renaissance: Journeys of Discovery at BRLSI is a year-long programme of talks and events exploring the many joys, discoveries and something of the broader cultural legacy of a movement still making waves in the 21st century. Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Martin Luther, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Machiavelli, Hieronymus Bosch… if you love culture then you’ll love our new talks series!
But who was Tycho Brahe? From his island observatory funded by the Danish king, astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) conducted a systematic programme of observation that would lay the foundations for significant astronomical innovations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Yet while his empirical approach resonates with modern scientific sensibilities, Tycho’s view was retrospective: he aimed at no less than the restoration of astronomy. In this he was inspired, like many of his Renaissance counterparts, by the example of the ancient world. This talk will explore the ways in which Tycho looked to the past to inform his own practices, which were themselves motivated by contemporary debates within the discipline of astronomy.
Dr Emma Perkins, University of Cambridge
Emma Perkins is a Teaching Associate in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and a Fellow of Newnham College at the University of Cambridge. Her main interests are in early modern astronomy, especially its visual and material culture and systems of patronage.
