Thus, the generous hand of the Czech monarch financed serious students, as well as imposters who tried to take full advantage of their patronage. In Rudolfine Prague evolved the well-known alchemists Edward Kelley and John Dee, and the famous astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler -- who precisely described the laws governing the planets' orbits.
It was the blue sky research of its day. They didn't know at the time that alchemy was bogus and the new astronomy was the key to modern physics.