Nikolaus Kratzer

The king's astronomer

Nicholas Kratzer (1487 – ), also known as Nicolaus Kratzer and Nicholas Crutcher, is a German mathematician, astronomer, and horologist.

Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)

At Austin Friars: “Master Cromwell, either my calculations are wrong, or the universe is not as we think it.”

Also: “Luther says, God is above mathematics.”

Also: if Mars is not in Scorpio, I don’t know my trade.

Week 14: Devil's Spit / A Painter’s Eye

Kratzer is at Austin Friars. William Butts quizzes him on the king’s stars. He, Kratzer, draws them the shape of the universe according to Father Copernicus:

He shows how the world is turning on its axis, and nobody in the room denies it. Under your feet you can feel the tug and heft of it, the rocks groaning to tear away from their beds, the oceans tilting and slapping at their shores, the giddy lurch of Alpine passes, the forests of Germany ripping at their roots to be free.