they observed Mars with it together on some evenings in June and July, as Tycho had called Magini's attention to the singularly favourable opposition.[1] Magini wrote to Tycho that he was going to get a large quadrant and a radius (cross-staff) made with sights like Tycho's. He added that he could not procure for Tycho the copyright of his books in the Venetian dominions, as they had not been printed there.[2] In the following year Magini dedicated to Tycho a book on the extraction of square root, but the copy sent to Denmark never reached its destination, and Tycho did not see the book till five years later, when he came across another copy and reprinted the dedication in his Mechanica.
In 1592, the year in which Tycho wrote the concluding part of his book on the new star, an event occurred which seemed to augur well for his future. The young king-elect, then fifteen years of age, paid a visit to Hveen on the 3rd July. We possess a detailed account of the way in which this visit was brought about, through the Latin exercise-book of the Prince, in which he was in the habit of writing letters, sometimes fictitious, sometimes really addressed to those about him.[3] In the beginning of April 1592 he was obliged to leave Copenhagen, where the plague had appeared, and on the way to Frederiksborg Castle he received from Tycho's friend Kaas so lively a description of Uraniborg, that he became very anxious to pay a visit to Hveen. He at once composed a Latin letter, probably addressed to his governor, in which he requested leave to proceed to Hveen, and as he met with a refusal, he appealed
- ↑ Barretti Historia Cœlestis, p. 498; Kepler, De Stella Martis, (Opera omnia, iii. p. 211).
- ↑ Carteggio, p. 407. In a footnote Favaro quotes a statement by J. D. Cassini, that he had seen a sextant which T. Brahe had got made for Magini by a workman sent from Denmark, and that M. sold the sextant as soon as the workman was gone. No doubt this "workman" was Gellius.
- ↑ Published in the Danish Nyt Historisk Tidskrift, vol. iii.; compare T. Lund, Historiske Skitser efter utrykte Kilder, Copenhagen, 1876, p. 322 et seq.
