Decoding narratives on halo phenomena: an approach to Tycho Brahe's Vision of Urania in De nova stella (1573)

The booklet De nova stella, published by Ty- cho Brahe in 1573, contains various texts, some of which have little to do with the stellar explosion known today as a supernova: Towards the end there is a poem In Uraniam Elegia Autoris, 232 verses long, in which Tycho condens- es a visionary encounter with the goddess of the muses, Urania. But who or what is "Urania"? Is it just a literary fiction, an allegory of the supernova, an epiphany in the style of Ovid, a self-reflection projected onto the outside world? In a close reading, text passages that have re- ceived less attention so far are decoded - the evidence found in the process makes it clear: Tycho's "Urania" has a fundamentum in re. An hitherto underexposed side of the Renaissance scholar becomes visible: Tycho Brahe as a gifted observer of rare meteorological phenomena, who stands in the tradition of halo visionaries. The first part of the article attempts to provide an introduction to this complex subject.