Kepler to Müller, 22 April 1630
Johannes Kepler, “Kepler to Müller, 22 April 1630,” Nova Kepleriana 4, April 22, 1630, 74–76, transcribed in Plain Old Text, https://sources.vjbe.net/stable/sj54x.
Nova Kepleriana 4 22 Apr, 1630, p. 74–76 Summary
Part of Die Keplerbriefe auf der Nationalbibliothek und auf der Sternwarte in Paris
Back from Wallenstein at Gitschin, Kepler sends 600 copies of the *Ephemerides* for 1630–1633, comments on the type and the signs cast for them, and asks Müller to urge Bartsch and Susanna to hurry to Sagan for the christening of his newborn daughter.
Source: Johannes Kepler's letter to Philipp Müller written at Sagan on 22 April 1630, on his return from Wallenstein at Gitschin, sending 600 copies of the Ephemerides for 1630–1633, with notes on type and astronomical signs, and asking Müller to urge Jacob Bartsch and his wife Susanna to come to the christening of Kepler's newborn daughter. The original is lost; the copy is in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris (Nouv. acq. lat. 1635, fol. 99; 89, 8. P). First printed in Nova Kepleriana 4, ed. Walther von Dyck and Max Caspar, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Math.-naturw. Abteilung 31, no. 1 (Munich, 1927), 74–76.
English translation of the letter as printed in Nova Kepleriana 4 (1927), made for Plain Old Text. Each paragraph translates the corresponding paragraph of the original. [sign omitted] and [cut out] are kept as in the Latin; the editors’ restorations are given without brackets.
Many greetings.
Famous Sir.
Lately back from Gitschin, where my Patron kept me for 3 weeks, at a great loss of his time and of mine, I am now very busy with my wife’s lying-in and with arranging my little daughter’s christening. So, very briefly. I am sending in a cask 600 copies of the Ephemerides for 1630, 31, 32 and 33, to be given to Voigt for safe keeping until either Tampach writes from Frankfurt what he wants done with them, or I send the years since 1621, or Bartsch the years 34, 35 and 36, so that the work of 20 years may be complete. Secondly, I send one copy of the 4 years, without the first 2 pages, which I sent before. Thirdly, I send 13¾ imperials, the rest of the debt; but at the same time, fourthly, I send the additions to be made to the type lately cast, so that the founder is not paid in full until he has delivered those finished too; then he will also be paid by weight for what is still to be cast. The matrices he has are middling, and not all well fitted to their rods; those that he cut not [sign omitted] but only at last, first in steel, are very rustic, like the double figures, with very thick strokes, and I should like finer ones for casting the additions, if he has to strike any new.
The sign [sign omitted] is suitable enough (in its place, in the 4 years of the Ephemerides, I used [sign omitted]), but I do not know whether to use the other, [sign omitted]; for I think I should confuse the reader with an ambiguity between it and an incomplete [cut out]: it should have been [sign omitted], with the [cut out] lengthened. I await your judgement. The aspect must certainly not be neglected. My workmen were held up by my absence. So instead of the Ephemerides they printed the Lunar Astronomy,The Somnium, Kepler's “lunar astronomy”, a dream of a journey to the moon, with his notes; it was published in 1634. with notes; there are now 6 pages. A new version of Plutarch’s little book on the face of the MoonKepler's Latin translation of Plutarch's De facie in orbe lunae, published with his Somnium in 1634. will be added, but the little work is put off for other delays in the work on the Ephemerides.
Bartsch, his wedding with my daughter done, has come with his wife to Frankfurt, and has written from there to his family at Lauban. I think he will come to your fair. So I mean to use you as go-between, to beg him to hurry to Sagan with his wife for my little daughter’s christening, and further to plead with his wife himself for the christening cloth that she made with her own hands at Ulm for my wife. But there is need of haste: these rites will be performed, God willing, on 14/24 April, that is, in three days’ time, since I do not know whether this letter will leave tomorrow. You see how much your intercession, if it is not in vain, will be worth. And so it is: while they bestir themselves, while it is a [sign omitted] year, they must by all means be begged to hurry.
To crown your earlier services, I beg Your Excellency again and again to add this one too: to find out from Voigt, through a suitable person, whether, how readily and with what face he will take this cask of mine into his keeping, especially if Tampach has written nothing, morose as he is. I have written that I am ready to pay for the keeping, whatever is fair.
I am exceedingly vexed by the Nuremberger’s delays, now two years long, in engraving the map,The world map meant for the Rudolphine Tables, being engraved at Nuremberg; it was issued only after Kepler's death. of which, to tell the truth, only the meridians will be any use to the work of the Tables. The coasts of the continents, fitted to the meridians, over which the engraver lingers so long from some notion of a hidden art, are uncertain, and will only be corrected in the end by frequent observations. About my money, 120 florins, which has been held there these two years and is perhaps already spent, I should not trouble so much, if only the work would come out at last.
Farewell, most excellent Sir; go on furthering our studies, and love me.
Sagan, 22 Apr. 1630.
Your Excellency’s
most dutiful
J. Kepler.
To the most famous and most excellent Mr Philipp
Müller, Licentiate of Medicine, Professor of Mathematics and
Philosophy in the University of Leipzig,
my most kindly lord and friend,
Leipzig.