In 1565, when Michael Maestlin was around 15 years old, he was sent to the nearby Klosterschule in Königbronn.
Gallery of Michael Maestlin
Im Kloster 11, 76332 Bad Herrenalb, Germany
In 1567, Maestlin was transferred to a Klosterschule in Herrenalb. Upon finishing his education at Herrenalb, Maestlin enrolled in university.
College/University
Gallery of Michael Maestlin
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
Maestlin matriculated at Tübingen University on 3 December 1568 and received the Bachelor of Arts on 30 March 1569 and Master of Arts on 1 August 1571 before entering the theological course. During the time he spent on earning his Master's degree, Maestlin studied under Philipp Apian. It is believed that Apian's teachings had an influence on Maestlin's paper on sundials as the contents of this essay involved elements of structured celestial globes and maps.
Maestlin matriculated at Tübingen University on 3 December 1568 and received the Bachelor of Arts on 30 March 1569 and Master of Arts on 1 August 1571 before entering the theological course. During the time he spent on earning his Master's degree, Maestlin studied under Philipp Apian. It is believed that Apian's teachings had an influence on Maestlin's paper on sundials as the contents of this essay involved elements of structured celestial globes and maps.
Petrus Apianus (April 16, 1495 – April 21, 1552), also known as Peter Apian, Peter Bennewitz, and Peter Bienewitz was a German humanist, known for his works in mathematics, astronomy and cartography.
Epitome astronomiae qua brevi explicatione omnia, tam ad sphaericam quam theoricam eius partem pertinentia, ex ipsius scientiae fontibus deducta, perspicue per quaestiones traduntur
Michael Maestlin was a German astronomer, mathematician, and educator. He is known as the teacher who most influenced Johannes Kepler. Maestlin strongly influenced his contemporaries by spreading the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus concerning heliocentrism. Maestlin was considered to be one of the most significant astronomers between the time of Copernicus and Kepler. He was the first to compute the orbit of a comet.
Background
Michael Maestlin was born on September 30, 1550, in Göppingen, Holy Roman Empire (now Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) to a Protestant family of Jakob Maestlin and Dorothea Simon. The original family name of the Maestlin was Leckher or Legecker and they lived in the village of Boll, just a few kilometers south of Göppingen. In his autobiography, Maestlin recounts how the family name of Legecker became Mästlin. He claims that one of his ancestors was given this as a nickname when an old blind woman touched him and exclaimed “Wie bist du doch so mast und feist! Du bist ein rechter Mästlin!” This roughly translates to “How are you so large and plump? You rightly are a fatso!
Education
In 1565, when Michael Maestlin was around 15 years old, he was sent to the nearby Klosterschule in Königbronn. In 1567, he was transferred to a similar school in Herrenalb. Upon finishing his education at Herrenalb, Maestlin enrolled in university.
Maestlin matriculated at Tübingen University on 3 December 1568 and received the Bachelor of Arts on 30 March 1569 and Master of Arts on 1 August 1571 before entering the theological course. During the time he spent on earning his Master's degree, Maestlin studied under Philipp Apian. It is believed that Apian's teachings had an influence on Maestlin's paper on sundials as the contents of this essay involved elements of structured celestial globes and maps.
Michael Maestlin started writing while he was still studying. To his reprint of Erasmus Reinhold’s Prussian Table, Maestlin added a brief appendix in 1571, and his 1573 essay on the nova of 1572 was impressive enough to be incorporated in its entirety into the Progymnasmata of Tycho Brahe. Lacking observational instruments, Maestlin stretched a thread through the nova and two pairs of previously known stars. He took the celestial longitude and latitude of these four fixed points directly from the star catalog of Copernicus, of whose Revolutions he had acquired a copy in 1570. (Maestlin’s heavily annotated copy of the Revolutions is preserved at Schaffhausen, Switzerland.) The intersection of the arcs of the great circles passing through the two pairs of his reference stars gave Maestlin the position of the 1572 nova, and its nondisplacement from them convinced him that it was indeed a new star; thus, coming-into-being could occur in heaven as well as on earth, contrary to the traditional dogma.
Having served as the assistant to Philipp Apian (1531-1589), professor of mathematics at Tübingen, Maestlin replaced him when Apian went on leave in 1575. This arrangement was not renewed, however, for on 24 October 1576 Maestlin was appointed to a Lutheran pastorate in Backnang.
Maestlin was designated professor of mathematics at Heidelberg University on 19 November 1580. In discussing that year’s comet he declared that the unsoundness of the Aristotelian cosmology had been revealed to him by three great celestial events occurring over a period of eight years: the 1572 nova and the comets of 1577 and 1580.
On 23 May 1584, Maestlin had replaced Apian, who had been dismissed for refusing to sign the oath of religious allegiance; he later bought Apian’s library from the latter’s widow. Maestlin was elected dean of the Tübingen Arts Faculty eight times between 1588 and 1629. He taught there for forty-seven years, until his death in 1631.
In a public address at Tübingen University on 22 September 1602, on the basis of his chronological researches, Maestlin put Jesus’ birth more than four years before the conventional date. Some of his books were banned by the Catholic Church. Maestlin also maintained interests in Biblical chronology and geography. He followed the Lutheran line in opposing the Gregorian calendar reform partly because it was initiated by the Pope.
Views
In his 1578 discussion of the comet of 1577, Maestlin announced his “adoption of the cosmology of Copernicus, truly the foremost astronomer since Ptolemy.”
Having failed to detect any perceptible parallax in the comet of 1577, Maestlin concluded that it was not a sublunar but, rather, a supralunar body. Remarking that “according to Abū Ma’shar, who flourished about A.D. 844, a comet was seen above the sphere of Venus,” he asked, “What would have been the physical cause of this [phenomenon], if we are to believe that comets have no place other than the region of the [four] elements?” Rejecting the conventional classification of comets as metrological phenomena, he located the comet of 1577 in the sphere of Venus.
Nevertheless, in his Epitome of Astronomy, an introductory textbook began while he was still a student at Tübingen and so popular that it ran through seven editions between 1582 and 1624, Maestlin expounded the traditional view as easier for beginners to understand. He advised Protestant governments to reject the Gregorian calendar as a papal scheme to regain control over territories that had escaped from its grasp. All of his books and writings appeared on the Index of Pope Sixtus V in 1590.
Personality
Maestlin was well-liked by both his colleagues and his students. He was an innovative thinker who was quite prepared to challenge conventional views.
Physical Characteristics:
Mästlin was a man of slight build, unlike the massive ancestor from whom his surname was derived.
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Nicolaus Copernicus
Connections
In April 1577 Michael Maestlin married Margaret Grüniger, who bore him three daughters and three sons. Ludwig became a physician after enrolling at Tübingen on 26 February 1594 and obtaining the Bachelor of Arts on 5 April 1598 and the Master of Arts on 13 February 1600. In that year Michael, Jr., a painter, ran away from home and was later said to be hiding among the Jesuits. Margaret married Tobias Olbert on 7 December 1602; Anna Maria also married a Lutheran clergyman, Johann Wolfgang Mügling; and Sabina married Burckhardt Rümelin, a Tübingen law student in 1606 and court attorney in 1624. His first wife died on 15 February 1588.
On 28 January 1589 Maestiln married Margaret Burckhardt who bore him nine children. Sabina, the second Maestlin daughter to bear this name, was buried on 9 July 1596, before attaining the age of seven, and a third Sabina was born on 22 June 1599. The second Margaret, christened on 16 December 1604, died on 31 August 1609. Augustus, born on 13 January 1598, died on 16 February 1598. Anna Dorothea married a Lutheran clergyman, Andrew Osiander in 1614. Gottfried, baptized on 12 October 1595, received his Bachelor of Arts at Tübingen on 31 March 1612, his Master of Arts on 16 August 1615, and became a professor of languages there in 1627. Matthew acquired his Bachelor of Arts at Türingen on 17 March 1619 and the Master of Arts on 20 February 1622. He married on 24 November 1622; taught school at Gerlingen; and worked as a caretaker in Knittlingen, where he was buried on 6 February 1661.