SOURCE: "Alchemy, Astrology, and Ovid—A Love Poem by Tycho Brahe," in Acta Conventus Neo-Latini: Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies, edited by Rhoda Schnur, et al., Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, No. 120, 1994, pp. 997-1007.

In the following essay, Zeeberg studies Brahe's Latin poem Urania Titani as a work that blends mythic astrology, the pseudoscience of alchemy, and the literary influence of Ovid.

The famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was a scientist and a nobleman.¹ In the society of the day that was not a suitable combination. Indeed he was forced to make a choice between his allegiance to science and his allegiance to his class and its norms and ideals. When, at an early age, he decided to devote his life to astronomy and chemistry, he went so far as to make actual plans for emigration to some great city in central Europe where...