Introduction: Scope.- The Order of Things: the quest for world harmony.- Time and Space: historic context and political and economic situation in Middle Europe.- Childhood and Youth (1571-1594): studies and exams in southern Germany; first encounters with Greek mysticism and the work of Copernicus.- Graz -professorship, "Mysterium cosmographicum", correspondence with Galileo.- Prague - cooperation and discord with Tycho Brahe, Mars data, Tabulae Rudolphinae, "Astronomia Nova", first and second law of planetary movements, various publications, the telescope.- Linz - torn between Lutheranism, Calvinism and Catholicism, "Harmonices Mundi", third law of planetary movements, logarithms.- Between Ulm and Prague - completion of the Tabulae Rudolphinae, encounter with Wallenstein, prognostica.

- Sagan - court astrologer; death in Regensburg.- The Order of Things Revisited - the dismantling of world harmony, deconstruction and back to the unification attempts of modern physics.