Book delves into possible murder of 16th-century astronomy pioneer

Tycho Brahe's cause of death has always been listed as a burst bladder.
By TIM CUPRISIN
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
"Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe and the Murder Behind One of History's Greatest Scientific Discoveries," by Joshua Gilder and Anne-Lee Gilder (Doubleday, $24.95)
This relatively thin volume isn't so much a whodunit, as a how-Kepler-might-have done-it.
But the possible murder mystery described in "Heavenly Intrigue" also provides a good excuse for telling the intriguing story of two of history's greatest proto-scientists. Their 16th-century lives and the watershed times they lived in are re-created in great detail by this husband-and-wife investigative team.
The Johannes Kepler revealed by their research is a brilliant, but chronically sour German who seems to have grievances around every corner of Renaissance Europe.
You would think that a man who rose so far above his social limitations and ill health could be a role model for an era. Instead, it seems surprising that no one offed Kepler first.
Meanwhile, Tycho Brahe was destined for power -- if not greatness -- from the start. The scion of a noble Danish family, his engaging personality and swashbuckling adventures stand out from the pages of the book and make a sharp contrast to the unpleasant Kepler.
Intriguing questions
Did Brahe, court astronomer to Hapsburg emperor Rudolf II, die because of a burst bladder after declining to answer the call of nature during a lengthy banquet as conventional historical wisdom would have us believe?
Or was he murdered in Prague by Kepler, his envious assistant? That possible homicide is the driving force behind this book, and the authors' detective work is aided by X-ray emission analysis of Brahe's remains that points toward mercury poisoning.
There is a third option floating around: the possibility that Brahe indeed died from mercury poisoning -- but far less dramatically as a self-administered (and quite fatal) cure for an illness of the urinary system. The Gilders dismiss this possibility.
As for the astronomical revolution engineered by the two main characters in "Heavenly Intrigue" -- the laws of planetary motion as outlined by Kepler or Brahe's instruments like the massive mural quadrant at Brahe's island castle of Uraniborg -- they will remain beyond the ken of many readers. But the most fascinating part of their scientific world is that it overlaps completely and comfortably with the mysticism of a previous era, as evidenced by the continuing practices of alchemy and astrology.
The Gilders write of Brahe, "much of his original impetus to map the heavens more accurately was to provide a more certain basis for astrological predictions." And Kepler's involvement with alchemy, in which mercury played a prominent role, gives us the murder weapon in this scenario.
The take on Brahe's death presented in "Heavenly Intrigue" isn't the first such bit of mystery/history revisionism. A theory that Napoleon's death was murder by arsenic, rather than stomach cancer, has been floating around for years, pushed by "The Murder of Napoleon," by Howard Mitchell, Ben Weider and David Hapgood.
Speculative books such as these asks questions that can never be completely answered. But there's plenty of intellectual enjoyment and reading pleasure in tackling such unanswerable questions.