relation: http://eprints.imtlucca.it/73/
title: The Engraved Frontispiece of Kepler’s Tabulae Rudolphinae (1627): A Preliminary  Study
creator: Gattei, Stefano
subject: Q Science (General)
description: Johannes Kepler completed the Tabulae Rudolphinae in their logarithmic  form in 1624. It then took three years to gather the financial support, find a  suitable publisher and, particularly, overcome the difficulties posed by  Tycho’s heirs, who claimed both a share in the profits as well as censorship  rights. The tables represented the crowning achievement of Kepler’s career  as an astronomer. Because of their novelty and importance, he proposed  that the tall folio volume should have an appropriate frontispiece. The  paper describes the meaning of the very many components of the engraving  and relates them to Kepler’s published works. Furthermore, it traces the  origin of Kepler’s frontispiece to Tycho’s observatory on the Isle of Hven, as  well as suggests the possible pictorial source of the key element of the  drawing. Finally, it highlights how Kepler, by way of this frontispiece, found  the way both to assert his own position in and contribution to the history of  astronomy, as well as to place himself in the dispute over the Copernican  hypothesis.
publisher: Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki 
date: 2009
type: Article
type: PeerReviewed
identifier:   Gattei, Stefano  The Engraved Frontispiece of Kepler’s Tabulae Rudolphinae (1627): A Preliminary Study.  Nuncius, XXIV (2).  pp. 341-365.       (2009)  
relation: http://digital.casalini.it/18253911
relation: doi: 10.1400/130136