Bartsch to Müller, 9/19 January 1630
Jacob Bartsch, “Bartsch to Müller, 9/19 January 1630,” Nova Kepleriana 4, January 19, 1630, 97–98, transcribed in Plain Old Text, https://sources.vjbe.net/stable/cha7k.
Nova Kepleriana 4 19 Jan, 1630, p. 97–98 Summary
Part of Die Keplerbriefe auf der Nationalbibliothek und auf der Sternwarte in Paris
From Strasbourg, Bartsch reports that Kepler's daughter Susanna is now living in Bernegger's house awaiting the wedding, that he has been promised a chair of mathematics, and that he will take his medical doctorate and marry at the end of February.
Source: Jacob Bartsch's letter to Philipp Müller written at Strasbourg on 9/19 January 1630, on his coming marriage to Kepler's daughter Susanna, the promise of a chair of mathematics at Strasbourg, and his medical doctorate. The original is in the Bibliothèque de l'Observatoire, Paris (B, 1, 9; 89, 10. D. 4). Printed in extracts in Nova Kepleriana 4, ed. Walther von Dyck and Max Caspar, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Math.-naturw. Abteilung 31, no. 1 (Munich, 1927), 97–98.
English translation of the Latin extracts printed in Nova Kepleriana 4 (1927), made for Plain Old Text. Each paragraph translates the corresponding extract of the original; the omission marks (…) are the 1927 editors’, and [!] is their mark.
… As for me and my situation, it stands very well as to my marriage. For the Prince,The Margrave of Baden, at whose court at Durlach Susanna had been living. having received my lord father’s letter,Kepler, Bartsch's father-in-law to be; Bartsch's own father had died in 1628. sent by his own messenger, has now released the maiden pledged to me, who is now living here in Bernegger’s house, waiting with me, with great longing, for a second answer from home, from which something certain is to be settled about the place and time of the wedding. It stands very well, too, as to my mathematical studies. For I cannot hide from you that last year the Curators of the University, the Scholarchs, the Rector and their deputies gave me a definite hope of succeeding to the professorship of mathematics, and meanwhile allowed me to go back to my family and to enjoy my lord father’s company for a time. Within a few days, by order of the Scholarchs, I shall be given a certificate under the University’s public seal. Yet I am not so bound that, if God offers a better or more convenient place, I should be forced to give it up. There are indeed some here who think it wrong to prefer a stranger to a native; but the majority of votes decides. As to my medical studies, things are in doubt [!].
I should have liked to celebrate the wedding without a degree; but at the urging and pressing exhortation of Mr Bernegger, the best of men and the best disposed towards me, I shall hardly be able to forgo it, for some private reasons, chiefly concerning the state of this city and university, and my bride. So, unless the answer we expect from home any day directs otherwise, we are working to have the act of graduation and the wedding held here about the end of February, which I shall announce more certainly in due time. …