The article explores Johannes Kepler’s abortive attempts to produce an opulent, decorative art object to accompany the publication of his first treatise, Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596). It was Kepler’s hope that this Credentzbecher, so-called because it was designed to resemble a large, ceremonial chalice, would valorize the significance of what he believed to be an epoch-defining discovery concerning the proportional nature of the planetary intervals and serve as a personal introduction to his local sovereign, Duke Friedrich I of Württemberg (1557–1608). The correspondences of Kepler and his circle, some of which have been reproduced and translated here for the first time, reveal in excruciating detail the struggles to negotiate the demands, and exacting standards, of the Stuttgart court and Kepler’s difficulty working with the local goldsmiths employed by the court to enact his vision. Though met with skepticism and destined for failure, the model, its design, and the misunderstandings its failure revealed, poignantly display the sometimes-insurmountable gap between artisanal knowledge and scientific ambition.

本文探讨了约翰内斯·开普勒（Johannes Kepler）为生产华丽的装饰性艺术品而进行的失败尝试，以伴随他的第一篇论文《神秘的世界》（Mysterium Cosmographicum，1596年）的出版。开普勒希望这个Credentzbecher之所以这么称呼，是因为它的设计类似于一个大型的礼仪圣杯，它将使他认为是行星划时代的比例性质的划时代发现的重要性得到重视，并且可以作为对他当地主权的个人介绍，符腾堡州弗里德里希一世（1557–1608）。开普勒和他的圈子的往来书信（其中一些已在此处首次复制和翻译）以令人难以置信的细节揭示了斯图加特法院在谈判要求和严格标准方面的努力以及开普勒在与当地金匠工作方面的困难由法院制定他的愿景。尽管遭到怀疑并注定要失败，但模型，其设计以及对其失败的误解表明，