Johannes Kepler, the true founder and father of the new astronomy, was born on December 27, 1571, 28 years after the death of Copernicus. His birthplace was the town of Magsstadt, located one mile from the town of Weil in Swabia, or the Duchy of Württemberg. He came from an old noble family, since one of his ancestors was knighted about a hundred and fifty years ago under Emperor Sigismund. The Keplers were engaged exclusively in military service, but they did not rise to significant distinctions and, in the end, became very seedy and impoverished. The father of the future great astronomer, Heinrich Kepler, was an illiterate man and served in the troops of the Duke of Württemberg as a simple soldier; he was the son of Sebald Kepler, who had 12 children and held the position of head, or burgomaster, in Vail. Of this to his grandfather, Kepler says that he had a considerable fortune, but he loved luxury and extravagance, so he left very little for his children. Kepler spoke of his paternal grandmother as a very intelligent and troublesome woman. According to him, she was beautiful, pious, distinguished by great liveliness of character and irascibility; loved to brag and boast; she was very envious, loved to argue, and did not soon forget troubles and insults. Heinrich Kepler was married to Katerina Guldenman, the daughter of a village innkeeper from the village of Etlingen, a woman without any education, who could neither read nor write; she was brought up by her aunt, who was subsequently burned as a witch. Having married, Kepler's father moved to live in the village of Leonberg, where he bought a house and land, intending to engage in agriculture, although this was not at all in his nature. But all four of his children later, together with their mother, cultivated this land, apparently engaged in gardening. According to the general opinion of all Kepler's biographers, his parents were not worthy of such a great son. His mother was a rough and quarrelsome woman; besides, she loved to drink and generally enjoyed a bad reputation. Constant quarrels between father and mother, fierce scolding and all the consequences of mutual discontent and bitterness - these were the impressions of Kepler's most tender childhood. To get rid of the family hell that began almost immediately after the marriage, his father left his wife several times, joining the soldiers and living on the side. The mother, just as often, disappeared from the house and did not at all take care of her children, who grew up without any care, abandoned and left to the will of fate. Entering the army and leaving home in the very first year of his married life, Kepler's father left his pregnant wife, who, in the eighth month of pregnancy, more precisely, according to Kepler, on the two hundred and twenty-fourth day, resolved into a weak, half-dead human being, who received the name Johann. The baby was so small, frail and weak that it never occurred to anyone that he would not only remain alive, but also become immortal. However, Kepler all his life remained a sickly man, had a frail physique, and was also distinguished by severe myopia. Kepler was the first-born in the family of his parents, who, in addition to Johann, had two more sons and a daughter. However, his mother seemed to love him less than other children, and the baby's upbringing was the most careless. The baby was not yet four years old, when the mother left for Belgium to look for her husband, leaving the child in Leonberg in the care of his grandfather. Here he remained for two years, and in 1575 he contracted severe smallpox, so that he narrowly escaped death.
Biographical sketch
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