 Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571 in Weil der Stadt, a little town near Stuttgart in Württemberg in southwestern Germany. Unlike his father Heinrich, who was a soldier and mercenary, his mother Katharina was able to foster Kepler’s intellectual interests. He was educated in Swabia; firstly, at the schools Leonberg (1576), Adelberg (1584) and Maulbronn (1586); later, thanks to support for a place in the famous Tübinger Stift, at the University of Tübingen. Here, Kepler became Magister Artium (1591) before he began his studies in the Theological Faculty. At Tübingen, where he received a solid education in languages and in science, he met Michael Maestlin, who introduced him to the new world system of Copernicus (see Mysterium Cosmographicum, trans. Duncan, p. 63, and KGW 20.1, VI, pp. 144–180).