afflicted father, took his departure. He never saw the Landgrave again, but the visit of the young enthusiast had renewed the wavering scientific ardour of his host, and the friendship thus commenced was revived in after-years by frequent correspondence and the interchange of observations.
From Cassel, Tycho went to Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where he purchased some books at the half-yearly mart, particularly some of the numerous pamphlets on the new star. He went thence to Basle, where he had already spent some time in the winter of 1568–69, and where he now found his stay so agreeable that he thought seriously of settling down there. The University of Basle was one of the most important centres of learning in Europe, and Tycho might hope to find the same refined tastes and culture among the scientific men living there which, some sixty years before, had decided Erasmus to take up his residence at Basle. The central situation of the city, between Germany and France and not far from Italy, seemed also very convenient.[1] Deferring, however, for the present the final step of returning home for his family, Tycho went through Switzerland to Venice, and spent some days there, after which he retraced his steps back to Germany, and went in the first instance to Augsburg. The friendships with the brothers Hainzel and Hieronimus Wolf formed during his former visit had in the meantime not been forgotten, and several letters had been exchanged between them. Thus, Paul Hainzel had in March 1574 written to express his warmest thanks for a copy of Tycho's book on the new star, and in March 1575 both he and Wolf had written to tell Tycho that they had succeeded in procuring for him from Schreckenfuchs of Freiburg a zodiacal sphere constructed according to the description of Ptolemy as formulated by
- ↑ Astr. Inst. Mechanica, fol. G. 2.
