nothing useful, and so on.
Number eight kept him guessing for three months, until he tired of her
constant indecision, and confided his disappointment to number nine, who
was not impressed. Number ten, introduced by a friend, Kepler found
exceedingly ugly and enormously fat, and number eleven apparently too
young. Kepler then reconsidered one of the earlier ones, disregarding
the advice of his friends who objected to her lowly station. She was the
orphan daughter of a cabinetmaker, educated for twelve years by favour
of the Lady of Stahrenburg, and Kepler writes of her: "Her person and
manners are suitable to mine; no pride, no extravagance; she can bear to
work; she has a tolerable knowledge of how to manage a family;
middle-aged and of a disposition and capability to acquire what she
still wants".

Wine from the Austrian vineyards was plentiful and cheap at the time of
the marriage, and Kepler bought a few casks for his household. When the
seller came to ascertain the quantity, Kepler noticed that no proper
allowance was made for the bulging parts, and the upshot of his
objections was that he wrote a book on a new method of gauging--one of
the earliest specimens of modern analysis, extending the properties of
plane figures to segments of cones and cylinders as being "incorporated
circles". He was summoned before the Diet at Ratisbon to give his
opinion on the Gregorian Reform of the Calendar, and soon afterwards was
excommunicated, having fallen foul of the Roman Catholic party at Linz
just as he had previously at Gratz, the reason apparently being that he
desired to think for himself. Meanwhile his salary was not paid any more
regularly than before, and he was forced to supplement it by publishing
what he called a "vile prophesying almanac which is scarcely more
respectable than begging unless it be because it saves the Emperor's
credit, who abandons me entirely, and with all his frequent and recent
orders in council, would suffer me to perish with hunger".

In 1617 he was invited to Italy to succeed Magini as Professor of
Mathematics at Bologna. Galileo urged him to accept the post, but he
excused himself on the ground that he was a German and brought up among
Germans with such liberty of speech as he thought might get him into
trouble in Italy. In 1619 Matthias died and was succeeded by Ferdinand
III, who again retained Kepler in his post. In the same year Kepler
reprinted his "Mysterium Cosmographicum," and also