Inside the Stargazer's Palace

The Transformation of Science in 16th-Century Europe

Violet Moller

Enter the mysterious world of sixteenth-century science, where astronomers and alchemists shared laboratories.

In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus declared the earth revolved around the Sun, overturning centuries of scholastic presumption. A new age was coming into view – one guided by observation, technology and logic.

But omens and elixirs did not disappear from the sixteenth-century laboratory. Charms and potions could still be found nestled between glistening brass instruments and leather-bound tomes. The line between the natural and supernatural remained porous, yet to be defined.

From the icy Danish observatory of Tycho Brahe, to the smoky, sulphur-stained workshop of John Dee, Violet Moller tours the intellectual heart of early European science. Exploring its rich, multidisciplinary culture, Inside the Stargazer’s Palace reveals a dazzling forgotten world, where all knowledge, no matter how arcane, could be pursued in good faith.

Violet Moller is a critically acclaimed and award-winning historian, who has written four previous books, including The Map of Knowledge. She presents the "Travels Through Time" podcast, one of the Guardian’s five best podcasts for the curious-minded and lives in Oxford.

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Endorsements & Reviews

"Fascinating... Moller expertly guides the reader through the significant cultural and political events of the century... the book presents an intriguing alternative view of the Scientific Revolution." Physics World

"Inside the Stargazer’s Palace takes the reader to places they are unlikely to have visited and to figures they are unlikely to know… Violet Moller brings the world to life vividly and with style." Nicholas Spencer, author of Magisteria

"A fantastic introduction to 16th-century thought, revealing myriad connections between characters I only knew as stand-alone practitioners. Moller deftly places these characters into a coherent historical narrative that (in keeping with the time) does not privilege scientific knowledge above religious or astrological, but rather shows interconnectedness. This is a well-told story of knowledge production and the spread of ideas in 16th-century Europe that gives voice to more unsung figures in instrument making, writing and printing who were making waves just as their industries were starting out." BBC Sky at Night

"Violet Moller captures something vital. Northern scholars did indeed build new communities of inquiry, whose members irritated and inspired one another. Lines of communication were fragile, but they buzzed with striking messages. Behind the painted facades of merchant houses, in basements and attics, on the towers and terraces built for Wilhelm IV and Tycho, new paths were being beaten to the forbidding door of the greatest palace of all, that of Nature herself." Anthony Grafton, Times Literary Supplement

"‘In her lucid account of this transformative age, the historian and podcaster Violet Moller shows how the two strands – the practical and the hermetic and magical – interacted and informed one another." New Statesman

"Moller continues the story of science’s spread, shifting her lens northward and tightening her frame to the 16th century... It’s an appealing method: follow the stories of the people, but imagine visiting the places, which are handsomely evoked... [a] pacy narrative... By the end, I wanted to visit all these places." The Spectator

"In this fascinating study of the early scientific revolution, when experimental thought was beginning to emerge from Medieval scholasticism, Violet Moller brings to life the trailblazers of this new age." Paul Strathern, author of The Other Renaissance

"A scintillating journey into a world where discoveries rip through doctrine like meteors. There is magic in these pages." Daisy Dunn, author of The Missing Thread

Praise for Violet Moller

"An endlessly fascinating book, rich in detail, capacious and humane in vision.” Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

“Through Moller’s imagination, the reader is invited to marvel at how multicultural the ancient world was, and to consider how the foundational knowledge of the Western world did not simply leap from the ancient Greeks to modern times but was painstakingly preserved, analyzed and innovated upon for almost 1,000 years.” Rachel Newcomb, Washington Post