At the front of the green octagonal table in the Linder Gallery, very prominently positioned in the painting, is a scrap of paper bearing three competing systems of the universe: the Ptolemaic earth-centred system at the top left, the sun-centred Copernican system (prohibited by the Inquisition since 1616) and the compromise system of the Danish astronomer, Kepler’s mentor Tycho Brahe, which has the inner planets going around the sun but the sun and the outer planets orbiting around the earth. Read more…

Three books can be seen to the right of the celestial globe in the Linder Gallery. From the bottom they are the HARMONICES MUNDI or Harmonies of the World (1619) and the TABULAE RUDOLPHINAE or Rudolphine Tables (1627)  by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler.  Read more…