Overview

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the most admired astronomers who ever lived and a key figure in the scientific revolution. A defender of Copernicus´s sun-centred universe, he famously discovered that planets move in ellipses, and defined the three laws of planetary motion. Perhaps less well known is that in 1615, when Kepler was at the height of his career, his widowed mother Katharina was accused of witchcraft. The proceedings led to a criminal trial that lasted six years, with Kepler conducting his mother's defence. In The Astronomer and the Witch, Ulinka Rublack pieces together the tale of this extraordinary episode in Kepler's life, one which takes us to the heart of his changing world. First and foremost an intense family drama, the story brings to life the world of a small Lutheran community in the centre of Europe at a time of deep religious and political turmoil - a century after the Reformation, and on the threshold of the Thirty Years' War. Kepler's defence of his mother also offers us a fascinating glimpse into the great astronomer's world view, on the cusp between Reformation and scientific revolution. While advancing rational explanations for the phenomena which his mother's accusers attributed to witchcraft, Kepler nevertheless did not call into question the existence of magic and witches. On the contrary, he clearly believed in them. And, as the story unfolds, it appears that there were moments when even Katharina's children struggled to understand what their mother had done...

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9780198736776

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Reviews

This book takes you right to the heart of life in the seventeenth century, with all its sense of intellectual possibility, its dreams and its fears. Rublack tells a shocking story. How was it possible for the mother of the famous scientist Kepler to be accused of witchcraft, and why did she come to trial? In gripping prose, Rublack shows how the case destroyed those involved in it. She makes us understand how witchcraft could be credible and why people feared it so much. She makes us understand the psychological wellsprings of Keplers work. And she presents a whole new account of scientific thinking and its relationship to natural knowledge at the dawn of a new era. The most compelling book I have read for a long time. Professor Lyndal Roper, University of Oxford ... an enthralling, many-sided book... at once a vivid introduction to a fascinating social and cultural world; a profound analysis of a witch trial... and a deep study of one of the greatest scientists who ever lived... Professor Anthony Grafton, Princeton University Gripping and inspiring, this tale of the six-year battle to clear Katharina Kepler of the charge of witchcraft yields striking new insights into the personalities and families involved, their communities and their culture... The past, with its hopes and fears, comes wonderfully to life in this scholarly masterwork. Professor Nicholas Jardine, University of Cambridge

This book takes you right to the heart of life in the seventeenth century, with all its sense of intellectual possibility, its dreams and its fears. Rublack tells a shocking story. How was it possible for the mother of the famous scientist Kepler to be accused of witchcraft, and why did she come to trial? In gripping prose, Rublack shows how the case destroyed those involved in it. She makes us understand how witchcraft could be credible and why people feared it so much. She makes us understand the psychological wellsprings of Keplers work. And she presents a whole new account of scientific thinking and its relationship to natural knowledge at the dawn of a new era. The most compelling book I have read for a long time. Professor Lyndal Roper, University of Oxford

An enthralling book. Jennifer Rampling, Nature

Author Information

Ulinka Rublack is Professor at the University of Cambridge and has published widely on early modern European history as well as approaches to history. She has edited, most recently, the Oxford Concise Companion to History (2011), and her Oxford Handbook of the Protestant Reformations is forthcoming. Her monographs include Reformation Europe (2005), The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany (1999), and Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (2010), which won the Roland H. Bainton Prize.

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