The Garden

Around the castle, Tycho Brahe built a magnificent Renaissance Garden. Outside the garden, walls were built up to 5 meters high. The garden was square and there was a gate house in each corner where the walls met. The castle was placed on a circular yard. From the port houses to the castle, there were paths from north to south and from east to west. The garden was divided into four parts, where each quarter had one herb garden, one fruit garden and one pavilion.

The garden was built according to strict geometrical principles, and it is a deliberate reflection of the mathematical harmonies of the universe. The square symbolised the earth, and the circle symbolised the sky. By letting these shapes come together, Tycho showed how the sky and the earth were mutually connected to each other. The botanical garden in Padua that Tycho probably visited in his journey to Italy in 1575 serves as the model. It is also known that Tycho had the gardens restructured in 1592, after visiting his sister Sophie at the Eriksholm Castle (now Trolleholm).

It is not known exactly which plants that were present in Tycho's garden. In one if his writings, Tycho states that the garden had 300 different trees of different types, but he does not mention which types of trees they were. We don't know if they were fruit trees or other trees for sure. The garden's overall design is known from pictures in Tycho's own books, or from later copperplate engravings.