Few scientists in history have accumulated as many extraordinary stories as Tycho Brahe.
He lost part of his nose in a sword duel. He wore an artificial replacement for the rest of his life. He owned an elk that reportedly got drunk on beer and fell down a staircase. He became astronomer at the imperial court of Rudolf II in Prague, worked with Johannes Kepler and became fatally ill after apparently refusing to leave a banquet to go to the toilet.
Then, more than four centuries later, scientists opened his tomb in Prague to investigate whether he had been poisoned.
Some stories about Tycho sound almost too good to be true.
Surprisingly, quite a few of them are.
So who was the real Tycho Brahe, what brought him to Prague – and which of the famous legends surrounding him can we actually believe?
Who was Tycho Brahe?
Tycho Brahe was born Tyge Ottesen Brahe in 1546 into one of Denmark's most powerful noble families.
His family expected him to follow the conventional path of a Renaissance aristocrat. Tycho had other ideas.
He became fascinated by astronomy and eventually developed into one of the greatest astronomical observers of the age before the telescope.
That last part is important.
When Tycho studied the night sky, the astronomical telescope did not yet exist. Instead, he relied on enormous precision instruments such as quadrants and sextants.
And he was exceptionally good at using them.
His observations of stars and planets reached an extraordinary degree of accuracy for the period. Those measurements would eventually become crucial to the work of another astronomer – Johannes Kepler.
But before the two men met in Prague, Tycho was already famous across Europe.
And he was already missing part of his nose.
Did Tycho Brahe really lose his nose in a duel?
Yes. This part is true.
In 1566, while studying in Rostock, the 20-year-old Tycho became involved in a dispute with another Danish nobleman, Manderup Parsberg.
The disagreement eventually led to a sword duel.
Parsberg's blade cut away part of Tycho's nose, leaving the astronomer disfigured. For the rest of his life, Tycho wore a prosthetic replacement.
This is where the legend begins.
Tycho's artificial nose has frequently been described as being made of gold or silver. It's a wonderful image – the eccentric Renaissance astronomer walking around Rudolf II's Prague with a golden nose.
Modern research suggests a less glamorous reality.
When scientists examined Tycho's remains, they found traces of copper and zinc around the nasal area, suggesting that the prosthesis he commonly wore was probably made from an alloy such as brass.
That doesn't necessarily prove that Tycho never possessed a more expensive prosthesis as well. But his famous everyday "golden nose" appears to belong more to legend than history.
Still, a Renaissance astronomer with a brass nose is hardly disappointing.
Tycho Brahe before Prague
By the time Tycho arrived in Bohemia, he was already one of Europe's most famous astronomers.
With the support of Danish King Frederick II, he had established the remarkable research centre Uraniborg on the island of Hven.
It was much more than an observatory.
Tycho created an environment for astronomical observation, scientific study and even alchemical experimentation.
He also developed his own model of the universe.
Tycho was not prepared to accept the fully heliocentric system associated with Copernicus. Instead, he proposed an ingenious compromise.
In the Tychonic system, Earth remained stationary at the centre. The Sun and Moon revolved around Earth, while the other known planets revolved around the Sun.
We now know that this model was wrong.
But Tycho's observations were so accurate that they would eventually help another man discover how the planets actually move.
That man was Johannes Kepler.
And the place where their lives came together was Prague.
Why did Tycho Brahe come to Prague?
After the death of Tycho's royal patron in Denmark, his situation deteriorated and he eventually left the country.
Meanwhile, Emperor Rudolf II had transformed Prague into his imperial residence.
Rudolf was fascinated by astronomy, astrology, art, natural philosophy and alchemy. His court attracted remarkable intellectuals and artists from across Europe.
Tycho fitted perfectly into this unusual world.
He came to Bohemia and became an astronomer at Rudolf's imperial court.
The final chapter of Tycho Brahe's life would therefore unfold in and around Prague Castle, Hradčany and the court of Rudolf II.
And although it lasted only a short time, it would become one of the most important periods in the history of astronomy.
Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler in Prague
In 1600, another extraordinary astronomer arrived in Prague.
Johannes Kepler.
The two men were very different.
Tycho was an aristocrat, internationally famous and extraordinarily skilled at making observations.
Kepler came from a much more modest background and possessed an exceptional mathematical mind.
They worked together in Prague, although their collaboration was neither particularly long nor always easy.
Tycho had something Kepler desperately needed: decades of extremely precise astronomical observations, particularly observations of Mars.
Kepler had the mathematical ability to understand what those observations were telling him.
After Tycho's death, Kepler continued working with his data and eventually demonstrated that the planets do not move around the Sun in perfect circles.
They move in ellipses.
During his Prague years, Kepler formulated the first two of what we now know as his three laws of planetary motion.
Tycho himself never accepted the heliocentric model that ultimately prevailed.
Yet the observations he spent his life collecting became part of the evidence that transformed our understanding of the Solar System.
There is a wonderful irony in that.
Where did Tycho Brahe live and work in Prague?
Tycho's Prague story is particularly interesting because you can still walk through the neighbourhood associated with his final years.
Around Pohořelec and Hradčany, just above Prague Castle, Tycho and Kepler worked in the intellectual world surrounding Rudolf II's court.
Today, a monument to Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler stands at Pohořelec, commemorating the connection between the two astronomers and this part of Prague.
Nearby is Nový Svět – the "New World" – one of the most atmospheric little neighbourhoods around Prague Castle and another area connected with Tycho's time in Prague.
The exact identification of individual houses associated with Tycho is not always consistent in modern sources, so it is safer not to attach too much certainty to a particular doorway.
What is certain is that this part of Hradčany formed the landscape of Tycho's final Prague chapter.
Unfortunately, it would be a very short chapter.
In October 1601, Tycho attended a banquet.
What happened next created one of the most famous stories in the history of science.
Did Tycho Brahe really die because he was too polite to go to the toilet?
Strangely enough, the basic story is supported by a contemporary account.
Johannes Kepler wrote about the circumstances surrounding Tycho's final illness.
On 13 October 1601, Tycho attended a banquet in Prague. According to Kepler's account, he drank heavily and felt increasing pressure in his bladder but, apparently because he considered leaving the table impolite, neglected his bodily needs.
After returning home, he was unable to urinate normally.
Tycho became seriously ill.
Eleven days later, on 24 October 1601, he died.
So the wonderfully absurd story about one of Europe's greatest astronomers refusing to go to the toilet during a banquet is not simply something invented centuries later.
That part has historical evidence behind it.
But then comes the famous ending.
According to the popular version of the story, Tycho held his urine for so long that his bladder burst.
That is not established fact.
Modern researchers cannot determine Tycho's precise cause of death with certainty, and several medical explanations have been proposed for his urinary retention and subsequent decline.
So the distinction is important:
The banquet, his reluctance to relieve himself, his urinary problems and his death eleven days later are historically supported.
The exploding or ruptured bladder is the legend.
And then the story became even more dramatic.
What if Tycho hadn't died naturally at all?
Was Tycho Brahe murdered?
For years, another theory surrounded Tycho's death.
Mercury poisoning.
Tycho was involved in alchemical and medicinal experimentation, so finding mercury in his body would not itself have been particularly surprising.
But speculation developed that somebody might have deliberately poisoned him.
Various suspects were proposed over the years.
Even Johannes Kepler eventually appeared in modern murder theories.
The idea made for an irresistible historical mystery.
Kepler needed Tycho's astronomical observations. The two had a difficult relationship. Tycho died suddenly. Kepler succeeded him and eventually used his observations to revolutionise astronomy.
It sounds almost too perfect.
Fortunately, scientists eventually had an opportunity to test the poisoning hypothesis.
They opened Tycho Brahe's grave.
Scientists opened Tycho Brahe's tomb
After his death, Tycho was buried in the Church of Our Lady before Týn on Prague's Old Town Square.
His remains were examined in 1901.
Then, in 2010, a Danish-Czech scientific team opened the tomb again.
Researchers collected samples from Tycho's hair, beard, teeth and bones. One of their objectives was to investigate the theories surrounding mercury poisoning.
The results dealt a serious blow to the murder mystery.
Although mercury was detected, researchers concluded that the concentrations were not high enough to have caused Tycho's death. Analysis also failed to indicate unusually high mercury exposure during the final years of his life.
The results therefore removed the main scientific basis for the mercury-poisoning murder theory.
Tycho's exact cause of death remains uncertain.
But the idea that he was killed by a massive dose of mercury is not supported by the modern examination of his remains.
Yes, Tycho Brahe really did have a beer-drinking elk
Some Tycho Brahe stories sound so ridiculous that you naturally assume they must be legends.
This one apparently isn't.
Tycho really did keep a tame elk.
Historical correspondence relating to Tycho records what happened when the animal was staying at Landskrona Castle.
The elk went upstairs.
It encountered strong beer.
It drank rather too much of it.
And when the intoxicated animal attempted to make its way back downstairs, it fell, injured itself badly and subsequently died.
So yes:
Tycho Brahe really appears to have owned an elk that got drunk on beer and died after falling down a staircase.
The story is often repeated as an example of the wild legends surrounding the eccentric astronomer, but unlike many such stories, it has a historical documentary basis.
It did not, however, happen in Prague.
So don't go looking for the staircase in Hradčany.
Was Tycho Brahe also an alchemist?
Yes.
And this is important for understanding the world in which he lived.
Today, we like putting historical figures into neat categories:
Astronomer.
Astrologer.
Scientist.
Alchemist.
The Renaissance didn't necessarily make those distinctions in the same way.
Tycho was an astronomer and astrologer, but he was also interested in alchemy, particularly its possible medical applications. His famous complex at Uraniborg included facilities for alchemical experimentation.
This doesn't make his astronomical achievements somehow less scientific.
It tells us something about the intellectual world of the late 16th century.
Studying the movement of Mars, examining substances in an alchemical laboratory and investigating possible relationships between celestial events and life on Earth could all form part of one person's attempt to understand nature.
This makes Tycho a particularly appropriate character for Rudolfine Prague, where astronomy, astrology, mathematics, art and alchemy existed side by side.
Did Tycho's tombstone really cure toothache?
Now we are firmly back in the world of folklore.
Tycho's tomb in the Týn Church eventually became associated with a curious Prague belief: touching or stroking his stone image was supposedly capable of helping with toothache.
There is no reason to think Tycho himself had anything particular to do with dentistry.
The story appears to fit into a broader tradition connected with tombstones inside the Týn Church, where standing on grave slabs was once believed to help relieve toothache.
So unlike the duel, banquet or drunken elk, this one should be treated as exactly what it is:
a Prague legend.
Still, becoming a supernatural dentist after death is perhaps a suitably strange final chapter for Tycho Brahe.
Where can you find Tycho Brahe in Prague today?
More than four centuries after his death, Tycho has left an unusually visible trail through Prague.
At Pohořelec, you can see the monument depicting Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler together.
Around Hradčany and Nový Svět, you can explore the part of Prague associated with the astronomer's final years and with the intellectual world surrounding Rudolf II's court.
And then, across the river in the Old Town, you can visit the Church of Our Lady before Týn, where Tycho was buried after his death in 1601.
His time in Prague was remarkably short.
Yet Prague became the place where his life intersected with Rudolf II, Johannes Kepler and one of the most important turning points in the history of astronomy.
Tycho Brahe: which stories are actually true?
Perhaps the best way to understand Tycho is to return to all those extraordinary stories.
He lost part of his nose in a duel – true.
His everyday artificial nose was made of gold – probably a legend; evidence points towards a copper-zinc alloy.
He owned an elk that got drunk on beer and fell down the stairs – surprisingly, supported by historical evidence.
He became seriously ill after apparently refusing to relieve himself at a banquet – supported by a contemporary account.
His bladder literally burst – famous story, but not established fact.
He was murdered with mercury – modern scientific analysis does not support it.
His tombstone can cure toothache – Prague folklore.
And behind all these stories was something considerably more important.
Tycho Brahe spent decades measuring the heavens with extraordinary precision.
He never accepted the model of the Solar System that eventually triumphed. He never used an astronomical telescope. And he died before Johannes Kepler discovered what his observations would ultimately reveal.
Yet without Tycho's measurements, Kepler might not have had the evidence he needed to discover how planets actually move.
Tycho's own model of the universe disappeared, but his observations helped transform our understanding of the universe forever.
The real man was already extraordinary enough.
Prague simply gave him a few more legends.
Follow Tycho Brahe's footsteps through Prague after dark
Tycho Brahe is one of the fascinating characters behind our Prague After Dark – Astronomers, Alchemists & Hidden Hradčany tour.
We explore Hradčany, Nový Svět and Upper Malá Strana, entering the world of Rudolf II, Brahe, Kepler and the unusual personalities who gave Rudolfine Prague its enduring reputation for science, alchemy and mystery.
And when you stand at Pohořelec after sunset, with Tycho and Kepler looking towards the sky, Rudolfine Prague suddenly doesn't feel quite so distant.