[In the following excerpt, Thorndike discusses arguments made for and against astrology in France and Italy during the first half of the seventeenth century.]

I can see no justification whatever for the attitude which refuses on purely a priori grounds to accept action at a distance … Such an attitude bespeaks an unimaginativeness, a mental obtuseness and obstinacy.

—P. W. Bridgman

Attacks upon astrology were numerous in the seventeenth century…. On the other hand, … the papal bulls against astrology of 1586 and 1631 had only a limited effect, and … the subject continued to be taught at the University of Bologna into the seventeenth, and at Salamanca into the eighteenth century. We shall now examine further into its status and the books written for and against it during the first half of the seventeenth century in various regions of Europe…. We shall not attempt to cover annual astrological predictions or works elicited by particular comets, eclipses and planetary conjunctions. But even the authors of such judgments might assert that they were free from all superstition….

…..

The conception of macrocosm and microcosm, that man is a little world and corresponds member for member and faculty for faculty with the universe, or, more particularly, with the earth on the one hand and the heavens on the other, is evidently closely connected with the belief that inferiors are ruled by superiors and that man is related to and governed by the stars. It is not merely a fitting foundation for astrology, but really part and parcel of astrology in the broad sense of that word.

All this is well illustrated by one of three philosophic discourses which Jourdain Guibelet, a physician of Evreux, published there in 1603, and which is entitled, De la comparaison de l'homme avec le monde. He compares the rational soul with God, human faculties with the Intelligences that move the heavens, the head with the heavens, the heart with the sun, and the liver with the moon. The liver presides over human infancy, as the first age of other animals is under the government of the moon. To Jupiter corresponds the brain; to Venus, the generative organs; to Mercury, the tongue, to Saturn and Mars, the gall and spleen. Guibelet relates the hair to the fixed stars and other parts of the human body to the signs of the zodiac, but he adds that some give the eyes to sun and moon, the ears to Mars and Venus, the nostrils to Jupiter and Saturn, and the mouth to Mercury. Man further comprehends the elements, meteors and minerals, plants and animals. And in the little world as in the great there is republic, aristocracy and monarchy, and cities with all sorts of artisans and instruments to ply each trade. But the world is now in its decrepit old age, and all that heaven and earth engender in their senility is but as mere excrement in comparison with previous periods.

Despite the close connection between human faculties and members and the heavens and stars, which Guibelet made in this first Discours, in the second on the principle of human generation the influence of the stars is not mentioned, while in the third on melancholy he declares that the predictions of astrologers seem to him as ill-founded as those of augurs, and that they often turn to magic or demons for assistance. He also now notes that the astrologers assign an excess of melancholic humor to the influence of Mars and Saturn, but that we see many melancholies who are not under those planets, and many persons who are under those planets who are not melancholy. Thus he tacitly accepts planetary influence on men, although denying the truth of astrological prediction. This apparent discrepancy shows that the house of astrology is being divided against itself, and that, as the seventeenth century opens, a man may condemn prediction, although he accepts doctrines upon which it is based. It further indicates that these doctrines are being disassociated from astrology, although they may seem logically to go with it.

A much more exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the analogy of the microcosm to the macrocosm was turned out by Nicolas Nancelius of Noyon, physician to Leonore Bourbon, abbess of Fontevrault, in 1611. It stretches to thirteen books and 2232 columns in folio, with quotations galore from the classics and church fathers marked by large capital letters across the column and set off by leaving a blank space above and below. It is not worth while to try to pick out his own views, if any, from the mass of citations, quotations and indirect quotations, and most of the text has little or nothing to do with the analogy of microcosm and macrocosm, which merely serves as a spring-board for a dive into a sea of quotations and opinions. The subject is said to be treated theologically, physically, medically, historically and mathematically. After a Proemium of forty-eight columns on God, the first book deals with the analogy of man with God, of the soul with the ether, the head with the sky, and "the seven conjugations of nerves" with the planets. Book two has more concerning the spirits of the human body in particular and "the miracles of air and fire." The third book is devoted to the earth and the analogy of parts of the human body with it, while a few columns are devoted to the theme of sleep and waking. Book four proceeds from esophagus to diaphragm, and by Book seven we reach the sexual organs with discussion of various problems of generation, such as whether the eighth month's child will live, and which lead finally to remarks concerning the Gregorian calendar. Book VIII on the arms and hands, in treating of the arts of chiromancy and physiognomy, seems to accept the Physiognomy ascribed to Aristotle as a genuine work, yet condemns those arts as false, inane, ridiculous, and full of tricks and impostures. It is absurd to predict one's whole fate from one little part of the body. Nancelius wonders that such grave men as Conciliator, Cardan and Albertus Magnus could waste time over such matters—although he himself devotes considerable space thereto—while he has no use whatever for such writers as Corvo, Tricasso, John of Indagine and Cocles. Later on we find him pointing out the analogy of the humors of the human body with earth's waters and with the four elements, quoting from John of Sacrobosco and Euclid, writing of the origin of fountains and rivers and their marvels, discussing why the sea, especialy the Dead Sea, is salt, and such other favorite and time honored questions, as whether the semen comes from the brain or the whole body, whether heart or brain is superior, and whether the world will have an end. He thereby illustrates the narrow range of ideas and problems that then occupied and beset men's minds, even when, like Nancelius, they took plenty of space in which to express themselves.

The Jesuit, Pierre Bourdin (1595-1653) of Moulin, who taught rhetoric for seven, and mathematics for twenty-two

years at La Flèche and Paris, besides a number of works in mathematics and related subjects, published together in 1646 a work on the sun as flame and aphorisms on the analogy of microcosm and macrocosm. In the former he not only held that the sun was flame but nourished by vapors from out globe of earth and water, which were impregnated by the influence of the planets. The three chief fluids in the microcosm were chyle, venal blood and arterial blood; in the macrocosm, water, air and fire. The eight founts of fluids in the small world were the mouth, stomach, mesentery, spleen, liver, right sinus of the heart, lungs, and left sinus of the heart. Those of the great world were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the moon, our terraqueous globe, and the heart of the world whence the flame of the sum bursts forth like vital spirit from the heart of man. Solar spirits retarded the movement of the superior planets westward. These solar spirits were changed into celestial, which were distributed through the world. Bourdin held that the earth was at rest and did not move about the sun. Vital spirits corresponded to solar; animal, to celestial. Air was the equivalent of the empyrean; and skin, of the firmament. Brain, arms and thighs paralleled the starry spaces; above the diaphragm, corresponded to planetary space; below it, to the moon and earth.

Robert Fludd (1574-1637) in 1617 published the first part on the macrocosm of a work on macrocosm and microcosm. At the close of the Appendix to his Harmonice mundi of 1619 Kepler compared the two works as to subjects covered and added qualitative distinctions. Fludd drew from old authorities; Kepler, from the nature of things by observation and experience. Fludd's affinities were with alchemists, Hermetics and Paracelsans; Kepler's, with astronomers and mathematicians. Fludd interpreted harmony in terms of light and darkness; Kepler, in terms of motion. Fludd was arbitrary, mystical and obscure; Kepler, geometrical and natural. Fludd dealt in enigmas, symbols and analogies; Kepler, in demonstrated measurements.

As in the days of the Roman emperors, the attitude of monarchs and governments to astrologers was largely swayed, not by the validity or vanity of the art of astrology, but by the favorableness or unfavorableness of the prediction. Jean Aimes de Chavigny flattered Henri IV by a collection, under the title of Pleiades, of seven past predictions which, he insisted, all foretold the happy advent of that monarch. The first, composed by Cataldus, bishop of Trent, over a thousand years ago, was a forecast of future ills of Italy which was brought to light only just before the French invasion by Charles VIII. The second was the vaticination of the Erythraean sibyl; the third, an anonymous tract given to Chavigny twenty years ago by Jaques Gohorry; the fourth, by Lorenzo Bonincontri di San Miniato. Even these first four predictions, according to Chavigny, "make authentic mention of Your Majesty," and at the close of the fourth he has taken occasion to "discourse on some points of your happy birth." The remaining items are the celebrated prediction of Antonio Torquato to Matthias of Hungary in 1480; a translation into French of a previous translation by a German into Latin from Turkish; and a prayer extracted from Hippolytus. Chavigny has annotated them and compared them with the prognostications of Nostradamus. He cites Cyprian Leowitz and prefers his connecting mutations of kingdoms and empires with planetary conjunctions to Bodin's ascribing them to "the force and virtue of numbers." He also cites such astrological authors as Junctinus and Cardan.

But when the physician Senelles predicted from the horoscope of Louis XIII the death of the king in September, 1631, he was accused of lèse-Majesté together with Duval, another royal physician, condemned to the galleys, and his property confiscated.

Similar circumstances and considerations moved Urban VIII, pope from 1623 to 1644, to issue a new bull against astrology. Father Morandi, as a result of astrological calculations and the fact that the pope would be in his sixty-third year or grand climacteric then, came to the conclusion that Urban would die in 1630. He submitted his reckonings to three friends, abbot Luigi Gherardi of Padua, Francesco Lamponi and Father RafFaelo Visconti, for verification or correction. The first two agreed with his conclusion, but Visconti thought that, if the pope did not leave Rome, he would live until 1643 or 1644, and on February 21, 1630 composed Un discorso sulla vita di Urbana VIII, which was communicated to many cardinals, prelates and diplomats. But the view of Morandi prevailed and drew various foreign cardinals to Rome in expectation of a conclave to elect Urban's successor. Morandi, despite his reputation for personal piety and high standing in his Order, was imprisoned on July 13, 1630, and died of fever in November, whereupon all the other accused were set at liberty, except that Visconti was rusticated to Viterbo. Urban suspended the process against them on March 15, 1631, but on April first he issued the new bull against astrologers. And on April 22, 1635, for astrological predictions of the pope's death together with incantations, necromancy and sorcery aimed at his life, Giacinto Cantini, nephew of cardinal Felice Cantini, was decapitated, fra Cherubino da Foligno of the Order of Zocolanti and Fra Bernardino, called di Romito, were hanged and afterwards burned in the Campo di Fiori at Rome, while five other friars were condemned to various terms in the galleys.

François de Cauvigny, who was related to Malherbe, published a refutation of judicial astrology in 1614, and the Sorbonne forbade its practice on May 22, 1619. In the same year appeared at Paris L'incertitude et tromperie des astrologues judiciares of B. Heurtevyn. After chapters on the dates of creation, of the end of the world, of the deluge, of the birth and death of Jesus, and on religious changes, with the aim to show that astrologers have disagreed or been wrong as to these, comes another series of chapters on incorrect past predictions by them. A long chapter on the failure of astrologers to foresee their own deaths is then followed by a shorter one arguing that the devil is the author of judicial astrology, after which the volume terminates in a series of chapters criticizing the Copernican astronomy and astrological technique. The book is not so well arranged or expressed as this brief summary might seem to suggest, and Heurtevyn matches the incorrect predictions of the astrologers by historical errors and exaggerations of his own, such as the assertion that all the astrologers of Asia, Africa and Europe, and Stoeffler in particular, had predicted a universal flood for 1524, whereas there was such a drought that it withered all the fruit. We shall encounter other instances of misuse of history by opponents of astrology, indicating that they were special pleaders and not strictly accurate or judicial in their attitude.

The Opuscula of Julius Caesar Bulenger (1558-1628), a member of the Society of Jesus, printed at Lyons in 1621, include a work on all kinds of divination, of which the main feature is an attack upon astrology. However, he grants that the weather, price of crops, and diseases may be predicted without superstition. He contends that Aristotle did not recognize other influences of the heavens than by their motion and light, but he admits that bodies which are placed under the sky so depend upon the celestial bodies that they cannot long persevere without them. Also he accepts the existence of occult virtues in inferiors, such as the softening of adamant by the blood of a goat, the lion's terror of the cock, Thessalians fascinating by laudation, the animal catoblephes killing men from afar by its glance. He further admits that these occult virtues may be produced by the stars. But he regards genitures as fallacious and forbidden, astrological elections as frequently fraudulent, and astrological images as forbidden and magical. The astrologers associate six religions with the relations of Jupiter to the other six planets, but there are actually over a hundred religions. They cannot predict contingent events, and it is ridiculous to say that the stars incline me to play or read or walk or drink at this or that time. But he does not say what does determine his choice in these cases. He makes use of previous authors a great deal: Sixtus ab Hemminga, Augustine and Favorinus, Cicero and John of Salisbury, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and Eusebius. He denies that matter is prepared for forms by the heavens alone, or even that critical days are due to the moon. Astrologers could not have learned the forces of the stars from experience. He further attacks various particulars of astrological technique, such as the monomoeriae of the Egyptians, antisica, conjunctions, and horoscopes for the founding of cities. But there is little logical order, plan or structure to his arrangement and argument. He dismisses astrology as a vain and infidel art, puffed up with lies and day-dreams.

Bulenger was born at Loudun and died at Cahors. He left the Order in 1594 to supervise the education of his brothers and nephews; taught at Paris, Toulouse and Pisa; then re-entered the Order in 1614. He was a doctor of theology and also wrote upon classical antiquities.

Judicial astrology was condemned in French in a little book of 272 pages by Claude Pithoys (1596-1676), printed at Sedan in 1641 and reflecting a Huguenot point-of-view, as Pithoys had declared himself a Protestant in 1632, and taught philosophy at Sedan. The author is described on the title page as a theologian and professor of philosophy and law, and advocate consultant at Sedan. He lists a number of -mancies or forms of divination besides astrology, or "astromantie des genethliaques," and regards them all as relics of pagan darkness. He holds that judicial astrology is a magic art, condemned alike by God, canon law, the Fathers and theologians, civil law, philosophy, medicine and astronomy. Kepler and Tycho Brahe are represented as among its foes. It is pernicious to its practitioners, their employers, and the public at large. It attempts the impossible, for the stars cannot act upon the rational soul; the rules and methods of astrology are absurd and ridiculous; the art is not justified by experience, and its predictions are often false. Pithoys distinguishes five kinds of prediction: moral, political, natural, divine, and diabolical. His book was reprinted in 1646.

Another attack upon astrology from an authoritative quarter was made by Claude Saumaise or Salmasius, the great French classical scholar, in his De annis climactericis et antiqua astrologia diatribae, a long work published at Leyden in 1648. Gui Patin, in a letter to Spon of May 8, 1648, says that a bookseller in Paris who received twenty copies sold them all within four days. The preface, which occupies most of the preliminary 64 leaves, is devoted to an onslaught upon astrology, which, however, continues to be the object of occasional criticism in the 844 numbered pages of the text proper.

The vanity and unreliability of astrology, Saumaise maintains, are shown by the disagreement between astrological authors, by the fact that the present art differs from the ancient, which is today unknown, and by the gross errors made by Arabic translators from the Greek and by medieval Latin translators from the Arabic. Moreover, the signs of the zodiac are mere creations of human imagination. The Chaldeans recognized only eleven signs, having no Libra, and Scorpio covering sixty degrees. Our zodiac is late and based upon Greek mythology, and much astrological detail is drawn from the fables of the poets. Tartars, Hindus and Chinese have other zodiacs. There probably are other stars, invisible to us, in the vast intervals which separate the named constellations, and so there is nothing solid and true about present celestial configurations. Salmasius also criticizes the division of the signs into decans. He notes that astrology was condemned by the Christian emperors and by many classical authors, and asks why it continues, when other forms of divination have disappeared.

If the stars are inanimate, they can produce only physical effects, not grammarians or rhetoricians or medical men or musicians or smiths or astrologers. How can they indicate future good or evil, when what is good for one man is evil for another? If their influence alters with their changing positions, they are evidently not gods, and Saumaise puts the dilemma: Either the stars are gods, or there is no astrology. Moreover, the telescope has shown us more than seven planets, and if the Copernican system is true, astrology is outlawed along with the Ptolemaic astronomy. Ptolemy makes the absurd statement that the planet Saturn is cold because so far from the sun, and is dry because it so far removed from the vapors which rise from earth, as if such vapors would reach any planet. After questioning whether the nativity should take into consideration the moment of birth or of conception or when the mother first feels the embryo moving, Saumaise asks why not begin to predict anew from each new period of human life, such as childhood, adolescence and youth. Or, if twins have different horoscopes, why should there not be a different nativity for the child who emerges head first, from that whose feet are first to appear?

In the body of the text, Saumaise holds that climacteric years depend upon the horoscope and so stand or fall with it, that sixty-three is not necessarily the grand climacteric, and that even twins have different climacteric years, as they do horoscopes. He argues that the art or science of physiognomy is possible without astrology, and that the tract on astrological medicine according to the position of the moon in the signs should not be ascribed to Hippocrates. He criticizes the use and meaning of technical terms like hyleg and aphetes at considerable length, and displays a fairly wide acquaintance with medieval Latin and Arabic authors, as well as with classical and more recent writers, upon astrology.

The arguments of Saumaise against astrology were, on the one hand, fresher and more original than were those of most opponents of that art, and, on the other hand, more historical and scholarly, attacking astrology from a factual and linguistic, instead of a primarily rational or religious, standpoint.

Saumaise might attack astrology, but he still believed that there were "marvelous secrets" of chemistry and medicine, and praised his friend, Johann Elichman of Silesia, for his knowledge of them….

The astrological point of view is still prevalent in the large folio history of the maritime world and events by Claude Barthélemy Morisot of Dijon, where the book was printed in 1643 with a dedication to Louis XIII. He affirms that many are called by the stars to a nautical life and naval victories, and that sailors are born rather than made. Among the Chaldeans Berosus, among the Greeks Eudoxus of Cnidus, Aratus, Aristotle and Empedocles, among the Egyptians Ptolemy, among the Latins Julius Firmicus and Marcus Manilius state that persons born under Pisces or the Dolphin are excellent sailors and divers. The lack of spleen is a great advantage to swimmers and divers. Under Aries are born sailors, towmen, and shipbuilders. Morisot even notes that among the seals of Solomon is a stone with the image of a ship under full sail, carved when the sun was in Leo, with Saturn and Mars to the south. One wearing it becomes a good sailor and fortunate in navigation. He who has Pisces in his horoscope will win naval battles, seek out new worlds, and be a wonderful shipbuilder, pilot, and forecaster of winds and tempests.

Father Octoul, who was a Minime, published Inventa astronomica at Avignon in 1643, with diffuse dedicatory epistles to the Virgin and Louis XIV, then a child of five. The brief book is primarily chronological and states that the Church puts the birth of Christ 5199 years and nine months after creation. But it contains some astronomy and astrology: a catalogue of astronomical observations with the Tables of Lansberg, the construction of a thema caelestis for the observation of two sun-spots, and a discussion of the restitution of the celestial houses, which is its chief, if not sole, astrological feature.

Jacques Alleaume was a pupil of Vieta and, although a Huguenot, prominent at Paris in mathematical and scientific circles. Snellius in his Eratosthenes Batavus, 1617, said that he owed the mechanical division of the circle by compasses to "our most illustrious and ingenious friend, Jacobus Alealmus." Peiresc wrote with admiration of his burning glasses, his machine for shaping parabolic lenses, and other scientific apparatus. He drew up tables of longitudes and in 1624 is spoken of as royal engineer. He was a friend, too, of Paolo Sarpi, to whom he sent a manuscript copy of his work on perspective, which, however, was not printed until 1643, sixteen years after his death in 1627. Yet he also was interested in astrology and translated into French the sixteenth century book of Rantzovius or Rantzau on nativities, which had five Latin editions between 1597 and 1615. Alleaume's French version did not appear until 1657, but this shows that the interest in astrology still continued at that date.

Turning now from France to Italy, we first note discussion of climacteric years and critical days….

Codronchi composed a defense of climacteric years in 1609, but deferred publishing it until 1620 in order to get others' criticisms of it first. Meantime at Padua in 1612 appeared the treatise of Ambrose Floridus, on climacteric years and critical days, "in which a marvelous doctrine, taken from sources astrological and philosophical, is revealed; how the whole course of human life, regulated by groups of seven years, is at diverse times seriously disturbed and distorted according to varied conjunctions of the planets." The book is dedicated to cardinal Boniface Cajetan, and closes with the statement that, if anything has been said which does not conform to the edicts of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, "that we completely reject and reprove as false." Floridus abandons any resort to Pythagorean Pythagorean theory of number in favor of a purely astrological explanation. The fifty-fourth year of one's life is very perilous because of the lordship of Mars, and the fifty-sixth year because of the rule of Saturn. Astrologers say that humidity reaches its height in one's twenty-first year, heat at forty-two, dryness at sixty-three, and cold at eighty-four. The last part of old age is governed by Venus whose mild and placid influence preserves men of that age in marvelous wise, so that they rarely die then, but the sixty-sixth year is dangerous for the phlegmatic, the sixty-eighth for the choleric, sixty-ninth for the sanguine, and seventieth for all temperaments. Then decrepitude or the last age of man sets in, which is under the rule of the sun to seventy-seven, and of Mars to eighty-four. After dealing with critical days, which are governed by the moon, Floridus asks what aspects and conjunctions of the planets are more fatal in the whole regimen of human life; why Saturn, when in the terrestrial triplicity, always portends some calamity, especially in one's sixty-third year, the grand climacteric, if in its own house and dignity. And if death comes during that year, one ought to render immortal thanks to God for His kindness in prolonging one's life that far.

In the next year Florido published a brief work on the sea and tides in the form of a dialogue in which a philosopher and a Philonauticus were the interlocutors, and the tides were attributed to the influence of the sun as well as to that of the moon. This was likewise the contention of two other treatises, which were bound together with that by Florido in the copy that I consulted. One, by Marcus Antonius de Dominis, archbishop of Spalato, was addressed to Cardinal Barberini and printed at Rome in 1624; the other, in Italian rather than Latin, by Sempronio Lancione, a Roman doctor of philosophy and theology, was addressed to the archbishop of Salzburg and apostolic legate, and printed at Verona in 1629. De Dominis in his treatise speaks favorably of the aspects of the planets.

Giulio Cesare Claudini, who taught the practice of medicine at Bologna from 1578 to 1618, had questioned the astrological explanation of critical days in 1612, but Hyppolitus Obicius, in the appendix to his Iatroastronomicon of 1618, held that Claudini had not rightly understood Galen. The work of Claudini, however, was printed again, this time at Basel, in 1620.

The work which Silvaticus published in 1615 against the doctrine of climacteric years strikes one as labored and inferior to that of 1605 on the unicorn, bezoar stone, emerald and pearls…. There is excessive citation of Hippoc rates, Galen and other ancients, while his list of recent writers on the subject does not include the treatise by Ambrose Floridus of 1612, or even that by de Rossi of Sulmona back in 1585. The most recent book cited by him is that of Federigo Bonaventura on the eighth month's child from the previous century. Sometimes it is adduced in favor of Silvaticus's own contentions. Thus he says that Federicus Bonaventura, a most erudite and learned writer in the fiftieth chapter of De octimestri partu ridiculed and confuted those who placed the cause of climacteric years in numbers and boasted that he had found an evident natural cause. In another passage Silvaticus says that he will not go into the astrological argument for climacteric years because Pico delle Mirandola and many since have condemned it, and Bonaventura has demonstrated more particularly that Mercury is not their cause. But in Bonaventura's work itself we find him defending Galen on critical days against Pico, Fracastoro and others, while the evident natural cause which he had found was the stars. And Silvaticus says towards the close of his treatise: "I say against Bonaventura … that, just as critical days do not mark diseases by reason of number as number, as has been demonstrated, so neither have numbers any force in climacteric years."

Baptista Codronchi, whose credulous book on witchcraft and cures therefor had appeared in 1595, finally published his treatise on climacteric years and how to avoid their dangers at Bologna in 1620. It was also printed at Cologne in 1623, and at Ulm in 1651. For several pages he gives lists of the names of men who have died at such ages as 94, 77, 63, 49 and 42. But one reason for his writing the book is his belief that climacteric years are not merely dangerous but may mark a change for the better in one's health. He argues that Hippocrates believed in climacteric years, treats of their causes from astrologers, whose doctrine he defends, and then from philosophers and medical men, and finally answers a celebrated recent writer who had attached them, possibly Silvaticus. The second part of his book then deals with avoidance of their perils. Codronchi included even the patriarchs of the Old Testament among his examples, reckoning their grand climacteric as 910, or seven times 130, instead of 63, which is seven times nine.

Septimius Columbus, a member of the Academy of Insensati, in 1625 addressed to Cardinal Francesco Barberini a brief tract on climacteric years. He contended that they were not superstitious, but were supported by both authorities and experience, and by analogy with critical days in disease and with the division of man's life into seven-year periods, marked by teething at seven, puberty at fourteen, and so on. The most reverend bishop (of Volturara), Simon Maiolus, in his work on dog-days had already listed six hundred instances of death in climacteric years. There was considerable difference of opinion as to which climacteric year—49, 63 or 81—was most critical and perilous, but Columbus regarded 63 as the most crucial. He also, although writing as a philosopher and physician rather than astrologer, and suggesting other possible causes for climacteric years, tended to select the stars as the chief cause, the order of the planets reverting every seventh year to Saturn. But the fact of their existence was enough for him.

We turn from the subject of climacteric years to other writings for or against astrology by Italians, and shall treat of those from the same city together.

Ilario Altobelli of Montecchio in Piceno received the doctorate in 1591, was made historian (chronologus) of the Franciscan Order in 1617, and died in 1628. He also was interested in astronomy. He wrote on the new star of 1604, in 1610 addressed a letter from Ancona to Galileo on the satellites of Saturn, and in 1615 published a treatise on the occultation of Mars. A letter in Italian by him, in which he opposed the Aristotelian doctrine of comets, was printed at Venice in 1627. In the last year of his life appeared his Tables for dividing the heavens into the twelve signs, and the year following a Demonstration that Regiomontanus's method of directions and determining astrological houses did not agree with that of Ptolemy. The last two works also indicate an interest in astrology, and a prediction from the stars by him in 1607 as to the destiny of the republic of Venice is preserved in a manuscript at Paris, and has already been mentioned in connection with the motion of Mars in our chapter on Kepler. The use of the words inclinatio and conjectura in its title show a desire to avoid any appearance of attributing fatal necessity to the influence of the stars. At the same time horoscopes or themata coeli are given for the foundation of Venice about noon on March 25, 421; for the great conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter at 10.32 P.M., December 19, 1603—which is compared with that of March 2, 411, which preceded the founding of Venice; for the first appearance of the new star at Verona at 5.35 P.M., October 9, 1604; for the solar eclipse at 2.36 P.M., October 12, 1605; and for Leonardo Donato, the present doge of Venice, and it is predicted that he will meet with a violent death either in 1611 at the age of 75 or in 1614 at 78. Four unfavorable astrological directions are also noted between 1607 and 1612, and it is held that two very strong movements, never before made in the heavens since the origin of Venice, are about to threaten its destruction. God is angry at the violation of religion by Venice, but if she amends her ways, she will be renewed like the eagle; "alioquin ad extremum." It is noteworthy that the work is addressed to one of the cardinals.

Father Redento Baranzani was a Barnabite from Vercelli. His Uranoscopia was described in the long Latin title as "a new work, necessary, pleasing and useful to natural philosophers, astrologers, medical men and all professors of good arts," and his students seem to have set great store by it. A letter by John Baptista Murator, dated at Annecy on February 20, 1617, states that, because of war, he had left his native place for Annecy, Savoy, where there was a school of the Paulist fathers. But when his teacher in philosophy there, Baranzani, came down with fever, he feared that hope of a path-breaking, methodical work of philosophy, and especially astrology, by the intervention of his genius, was gone. But Baranzani recovered and dictated solely from memory his very rare and out-of-the-way (peregrinae) opinions, seldom heard in courses of philosophy, although Murator realizes that the space of only two months cannot attain the heights of his teacher's archetype, and he has had to omit most of the citations. A few pages later is given another letter from Ludovicus des Hayes of Paris, who is also editing the work. And when the second part begins with a new pagination, there is another prefatory letter by both Murator and Hayes, dated at Annecy on March 28, 1617, in which they explain that Baranzani followed a twofold way in saving all the celestial phenomena, following Copernicus in some respects and Aristotle in others. Two years later, Baranzani himself, in his New Opinions in Physics, advises reading his Uranoscopia which has been printed again in an enlarged and revised edition at Paris by his dearest disciple of subtle genius, Ludovicus des Hayes.

The book of Baranzani is more astrological than either philosophical or astronomical. An astronomical foundation is laid, but then astrological definitions and rules are given, the substantial influx of the celestial bodies is set forth, and such questions are discussed as whether metals, herbs and plants are produced by the heavens, whether celestial influences are impressed in an instant, how long they last, whether the sky is the cause of some fortuitous events. Furthermore, whether celestial form is nobler and more perfect than any other, whether the heavens are the cause of animals born of putridity, whether there is any occult force from the heavens, whether astrologers can divine human actions and how, whether uncertain knowledge is prohibited by recent canon law? In the second part, with a new pagination and beginning with the empyrean heaven, it is soon asked whether in the primum mobile there are triplicities, houses, exaltations, and other dignities of the planets; and, with regard to the heaven of libration or tenth sphere, whether it is visible, influences sublunars, and what that influence is. Soon the question is raised how to draw up a horoscope, and it is noted that Firmicus, Avenezra, Campanus, Alcabitius and Ptolemy differ as to this. After some discussion of direction, significator and promissor, pages 66-122 and, after discussion of the planetary spheres, pages 153-176 are devoted to Tables, some of which are astrological, such as the regions subject to each sign of the zodiac, and of diseases under each planet. Then comes what is called "a last question," whether the fixed stars exert more influence than the planets, the superior planets than the inferior, and the moon than any other planet except the sun. But it is followed by one more question, whether all the planets make critical days. Appendix I then deals with climacteric years, and Appendix II inquires whether the sun is the center for Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. Here Tycho's hypothesis is called more improbable, because that of Copernicus is simpler. This is immediately followed by the theory of the planets according to Copernicus and Magini reduced to Tables. A Prooemiolum then says:

While Tychonic Tables are being worked out, Keplerian already happily initiated from the movement of Mars are being perfected, Marianae against Copernicus are awaited, others of Magini with a view to restricting Venus, Mercury and the sun to a single sphere are being prepared, and many others are being composed by the most learned mathematicians of this astrological age, try these (of mine) too, though they may not agree with the proximity of the perigee of Mars to the earth.

There follow tables of the effects of the moon on agriculture, of prognostics from thunder attributed to Bede, of signs of rain, and of fair weather; a golden booklet instructing how to draw up an Almanach and predict crops and sterility, and yet other appendices.

A seventeenth century manuscript at the Vatican contains a defense of judicial astrology by a Ferrante de Septem, which seems to have been composed soon after the opening of the century. Astrology rests upon the assured basis of the influence of the heavens over inferior bodies. "It is certain that the sun by heating, the moon by moistening, Saturn by chilling, and Mars by drying, are natural causes." Consequently an astrologer may predict as to length of life and the constitution (complexio) of the human body. "For those effects neither happen fortuitously nor are dependent upon the air." If they were, persons born in July would be of a hot nature, and those born in January would be very cold. But popes Urban VII and Innocent IX came into the world while the sun was in Leo, yet were very cold by nature, while Sixtus (V) and Clement (VIII), whose horoscopes were in winter while the sun was in Capricorn, were of warm and moist physical constitutions. Astrologers cannot predict purely rational effects and can note only inclination in those mixed events dependent on both soul and body. It appears difficult for them to forecast a violent death or the hour of death, yet Ptolemy treats at length of violent death and was borne out in the cases of Pier Luigi Farnese (natural son of Paul III who was killed on September 10, 1547) and Sebastian, king of Portugal (slain in the battle of Alcazarquivir, August 4, 1578). Many writers, like Pico della Mirandola, Sixtus ab Hemminga, and Benedictus Pererius (1535-1610), do astrologers an injustice by accusing them of what they do not teach or of what they even reject. One should observe astrological conditions in all one's actions. The Bull of Sixtus V against astrology is no deterrent to Ferrante. Ptolemy may seem to predict with certainty events which are dependent upon human free will, but he says to begin with that the stars only incline and do not necessitate. Ferrante's closing words are that not merely is astrology not unworthy of a Christian but that it is fitting for every good and pious man. His defense is followed in our manuscript by astrological figures for such years as 1552 and 1536, or, more recently, 1603 and 1604, 1606 and 1607. These are sometimes accompanied by daily statements of the weather.

An astrological prediction for the year 1618, which was addressed by Gioanni Bartolini to the Cardinal of Santa Susanna, Scipione Cobelluzzi, is preserved in another manuscript at the Vatican. It is written in Italian and calculated for the meridian of Rome according to the observations of Tycho Brahe. The four seasons of the year are taken up in turn, beginning with winter, which is to open on December 22, 1617, at 22.27 and 23 seconds, and with an astrological figure for the moment when each season opens. Prediction is limited to the weather, which is noted for each month, adding changes dependent upon the fixed stars, and to agriculture, crops and vintages, navigation—including days unfavorable for sailing, sickness and medicine, and such astronomical occurrences as eclipses. Bartolini thus keeps roughly within the limitations fixed by the Bull against astrology of Sixtus V in 1586.

Giovanni Autonio Giuffi of Palermo dedicated "these my astrological lucubrations concerning eclipses" in March 1621. They appeared in print at Naples in 1623. The work purports, according to its full title, to discuss what should be considered in the prognostication of eclipses, when they begin to produce their effects, how long they will last, and when their influence will be at its height. How to find the lord or dispositor of the eclipse, in what lands and provinces its effects will occur, and in what sort of things, and if it will be good or bad? And what it signifies in each sign and house, "and some other points worthy of consideration." Ptolemy and Haly are much cited. Each planet is taken up for each sign of the zodiac and what it signifies when lord thereof. Many ills follow, when there is both a solar and a lunar eclipse in one month, especially in those places for which they have especial significance. The work is accompanied by Tables. At its close Giuffi refers to the Bull of Sixtus V against astrology and explains that he is writing only for physicians, sailors and farmers and so is not violating it.

Alexander de Vicentinis, in a treatise on heat and the influence of the heavens, printed at Verona in 1634, "never departing from the principles of Aristotle," was not ready to admit that heat was "of the substance of the heaven." He concluded that motion was the cause of heat and that no one, unless rash and demented, would deny that the heavens by light and especially by motion exerted great influence upon these inferiors. But he held that the heavens influenced only by light and motion, denied the existence of occult qualities, and rejected the details of astrological technique, of which he thought that Pico della Mirandola had sufficiently exposed the vanity. He held that the will was free, the mind divine, education potent, and that hence astrological predictions concerning individuals were undependable. He denied the contention of astrologers that dreams were caused by the stars, and the opinion of Albertus Magnus—and Dante—that a continuous effluvium from a celestial form affected the imagination of the dreamer, and the view that the Intelligences which moved the heavenly spheres were responsible for divining dreams. He seemed to think, however, that some divination from dreams was possible. In his final chapter, devoted to an argument that the fact that different things were produced in different places was not to be ascribed to occult virtue, he noted that Aristotle attributed spontaneous generation to the force of the heavens. But he denies that southerners are timid and short-lived because the planet Saturn rules over them, and northerners bellicose and long-lived because Mars governs them. The southerners are short-lived because the necessities of life are wanting there. "Also Saturn rules in India, and yet there they are long-lived." With which double-faced talk he terminates the treatise.

A prediction for the year, 1607, published by Lodovico Bonhombra at Bologna, takes up the four seasons of the year in turn, then in a closing paragraph states that the inclinations of the stars over this year are subject to answer to prayer by Divine Majesty, also to human prudence, and in all things subject to the Holy Mother Roman Catholic Church. Giovanni Antonio Roffeni of Bologna did not die until 1643 and had issued annual predictions for some thirty years before. Orlandi said that his explanation of meteorological matters extended to the year 1660. In 1614 he had published a work praising true astrology and against its calumniators. He corresponded with Kepler and Galileo, and defended the Sydereus Nuntius of the latter against the Bohemian, Martin Hork. Nor did astrological prediction at Bologna cease with Roffeni's death, since nine different Practicas for the year 1648 alone were issued there.

Cornelio Ghiradelli of Bologna, a Franciscan and a member of the Academy of Vespertini, published Discorsi Astrologici from 1617 on for a number of years, also Considerations on the Solar Eclipse of 21 May, 1621, Astrological Observations on the weather in 1622, a weather prediction for the year 1623, and a tract on leap-year of 1624, while a prediction for 1634 is found in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Buonaventura Cavalieri, professor of mathematics at Bologna and who was praised by Galileo, together with a Hundred Varied Problems to Illustrate the Use of Logarithms, published a New Practice of Astrology at Bologna in 1639. The license of his ecclesiastical superiors is dated July 31, 1636, and the dedication on April 1, 1637. The book deals especially with astrological directions and was composed for some of his students who, having visited his Direttorio Uranometrico, wished to use logarithms in finding directions. There are chapters on finding declinations, right ascensions, significator and promissor as well as directions.

The significator among astrologers is called that point, place or star in the celestial sphere which carries the lordship and signification of anything. Just as the promissor is that which promises any accident when it reaches the site of the significator.

Five customary significatores are the sun, moon, ascendent, zenith and Pars fortunae, adding the governing planet. Promissores may be the planets, their aspects, termini, antiscii, contra antiscii, fixed stars, beginnings of houses, and so on.

Alphonsus Pandulphus, bishop of Comacchio, had died in October, 1648, but his Disputations as to the End of the World were not printed until ten years later at Bologna. Since Raphael Aversa is cited in them, they would seem to have been written after 1625. Of these eight disputations, in which the views of philosophers were refuted and evangelical and prophetic doctrine alone received, only that on astrology will concern us, omitting the Pythagorean, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic and astronomical discourses which precede it, and the scriptural and theological sections which follow it. In a Disputatio Prooemialis Pandulphus lays claim to novelty of matter and treatment, but there is nothing very new in his arguments against astrology. He denies occult qualities to the heavens or that they are the cause of metals. The empyrean heaven does not act upon the inferior world; the heavens influence the intellect only indirectly; and critical days do not depend upon the moon. No change of kingdoms and empires may be inferred from the movement of stars from one sign of the zodiac into another, and astrological houses are rejected.

At Padua, Giacomo Filippo Tomasini (1595-1655?) both praised and practiced astrology. The first work listed under his name by Vedova is on the Revolution of the Year for 1614, 1615 and 1616. In his Eulogies of Illustrious Paduans, first published in 1629, Tomasini praised past devotees of astrology from Peter of Abano on, or affirmed, in the case of opponents like George of Ragusa, who died in 1622 at the age of only forty-three, that their deaths had been accurately forecast by that art, as has been occasionally noted in our previous volumes. Another instance, not previously noticed, was that of Hieronymus Capivaceus, who taught medicine at Padua from 1552 to 1589. When he was an old man, an astrologer advised him not to undertake any journey, but he persisted in going to Mantua to give medical attendance to its reigning prince. On his return he was suddenly taken ill and died.

The famous Aristotelian philosopher, Casere Cremonini (1550—1631) taught at Padua from 1590 to 1631. There is a manuscript in the library of St. Mark's at Venice dated 1628 of a treatise or lectures on the influence of the heavens by him which opens with the assertion that it is a tenet of Aristotle that sublunars are governed by the heavens. The manuscript is so poorly written, with a number of passages crossed out and marginal summaries or substitutions, that it is difficult reading. But it asserts that the first and last efficient cause is no other than the heavens, by which the elements are constituted, and inquires how motion heats, and especially how the motion of the sun acquires the power of heating by motion. Earlier Jean de Jandun came in for considerable criticism. Other works by Cremonini display a similar attitude as to the influence of the heavens. He maintained the view of Aristotle that they were a fifth substance, distinct from the elements, and that there were movers of the heavens. In a treatise on these Intelligences in a manuscript now at Florence he says that the treatment of separate substances is difficult because they are not perceptible to the senses. After setting forth the Peripatetic doctrine, he adds that the true opinion concerning all separate substances is to be had from the theologians.

Cremonini is said in Naudaeana to have lived in a magnificent palace at Padua with a maître d'hotel, valets de chambre and other servants, two coaches and six fine horses. When he died, he left four hundred scholars and two thousand crowns of securities. The Inquisition more than once took exception to the teaching of Cremonini, but he insisted that he was merely setting forth the philosophy of Aristotle, as he was hired to do, and, in the case of objection to his Apologia of 1616, that the book had already been approved by the Doge and Senate of Venice, and could not be altered.

The years of the birth and death of Andreas Argolus or Andrea Argoli are given by Zedler as 1570-1651, by Sudhoff as 1568-1657. He was born at Taghacozzo in the Abruzzi, was a student with Magini, and taught Wallenstein and his astrologer Giambattista Zenno at the University of Padua. Perhaps his earliest extant or recorded printed work was Tables of the Primum Mobile with the particular purpose of more easily determining astrological directions. Besides other Tables based upon the hypotheses of Tycho Brahe, Ephemerides for the years, 1631-1700, a dissertation on the comet of 1652-1653, and a Pandosion sphaericum, he composed a work on critical days in two books, of which Sudhoff has already given some account, and which we shall further consider here as an example of the continued prevalence of astrology in the seventeenth century. The title, De diebus criticis etc., somewhat obscures the real character and content of the work, which is concerned chiefly with astrology in general and astrological medicine in particular. Having in his early chapters asserted the influence of the stars, Argolus devotes the ninth chapter of the first book to instruction how to predict from one's nativity the coming train of events of the human body. The tenth considers the subjection of the external and internal parts of the body to the planets and signs of the zodiac, and the diseases which are attributed to particular signs and planets. The eleventh chapter maintains that the outcome of illness may be more rationally and evidently investigated by astrological method than by the medical art; the twelfth instructs how to forecast the nature and time of sickness from those superior causes. The thirteenth deals with determination of good or ill health from the revolution of the year, and it is only with chapter 14 that we at last come to critical days of which the discussion continues to chapter 21, where the first book ends. Even then the discussion continues to be primarily astrological, and we are assured that the crises in diseases do not follow a numerical order or proportion, and that a horoscope should be drawn up at the beginning of the illness.

The first six chapter headings of Book II are all astrological: whether the disease is curable, short or long, signs of death, signs of convalescence, relation to the course of the moon, and precepts to be observed in medicine such as that one's nails are to be cut when the moon is waxing in Aries, Taurus, Leo or Libra with Venus or the sun in friendly aspect. After reprinting the latromathematica of Hermes Trismegistus to Ammon of Egypt, Argolus regales us with the horoscopes of the nativities and the falling sick of four recent popes, Sixtus V, Clement VIII, Paul V, and Gregory XV. Of the illnes of the last-named, who died in 1623, Argolus says that he was present almost daily with other physicians throughout the entire course of the disease. The new star of 1604 is said to have announced the election of Paul V. Argolus then gives similar data for Henries II, III and IV of France, connects a comet with the horoscope and death in battle on August 4, 1578, of king Sebastian of Portugal, then passes on to Gustavus Adolphus and the nativities of various other princes, cardinals and the like. In the later edition used by Sudhoff, Gregory XIII and Urban VIII (1623-1644) were added to the four popes above mentioned, showing in what light, with what qualifications, and within what limits we should interpret the bulls of Sixtus V in 1586 and Urban VIII in 1631 against astrology. We further see that astrology went on at the University of Padua in the seventeenth century as well as at Bologna and at Salamanca.

The wide currency of the conception, man the microcosm, is further attested by a work of Stephanus Rodericus Castrensis, or Estevan Rodrigues de Castro, of Portugal, first professor of medicine at the University of Pisa, on the Meteors of the Microcosm, in four books, dedicated to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and printed at Florence in 1621. The idea suggested by this title goes back at least to Severinus, Idea medicinae philosophicae, 1571, where it is said that fevers, epilepsy, dropsy, catarrhs, and so forth correspond to meteors in the great world. The representatives of the Inquisition, in their approbation of the work, note that Rodericus revives atomism and regards water as the principle of things, but only philosophically. The first book, after demonstrating the conformity between the world and man, and that there is a world soul—to which the inquisitors do not seem to have objected, and pointing out the similarity between it and the human soul, attacks Aristotle's arguments for four elements and argues for atoms. The second book inquires whether the origin of the microcosm has been correctly stated by others, considers the human anatomy, asks whether the blood and spirits are alive, and treats of the internal signature of the microcosm. With the third book we at length come to the meteors of the microcosm, and various kinds of fevers are dealt with, which are compared to the fiery impressions in the universe. Asking whether fever is a quality or a substance, Rodericus concludes that all diseases are substances.

The fourth and last book is miscellaneous in content. First it takes up the cure of fevers, then whence alexipharmaca or antidotes for poison derive their virtue. Antidotes from gold and pearls are given as well as from animals, plants and minerals in general. "Fires of Vulcan and other fiery meteors" are represented by such diseases as elephantiasis. Epilepsy, apoplexy and paralysis are the lightning and thunderbolts of the microcosm. Menstrual blood is called poisonous. After discussing the nature and causes of winds in the great world, we turn to wind in the microcosm. Sweat is the inundation of the microcosm; catarrh, its rain; and finally we consider its stones.

The same conception appeared again in the Anatomy of the Microcosm by J. S. Kozak, printed at Bremen in 1636, in which are chapters on meteors of the macrocosm, and both salutary and morbid meteors of the microcosm. Fortunio Liceto narrowed the comparison to lightning and fevers in particular. Paul Virdung and Genathius had applied it to winds.

Adrian Spigelius or Spiegel (1578-1625) in his anatomical work published posthumously at Venice in 1627, accepted the observation of Falloppia that in the case of deep wounds of the head the brain swelled at the full of the moon and subsided as the moon waned. Furthermore Spigelius held that from this it followed that greater inconveniences would result from a blow on the head when the moon was waning. For then veins were more apt to be severed because of the interval left between the cranium and the hard membrane. Epilepsy was apt to come on at the time of the new moon, because then the humors, denied mixture with humidity, grew sharp and lacerated the brain, especially in the case of melancholy.

Like many, if not most critics of astrology, Antonio Merenda was not an astronomer. A professor of civil law at Pavia, he published his work against astrology in Italian in order to convince those who could not read Latin of what theologians and philosophers had often demonstrated in Latin, the falsity of that art. His argumentation, however, is so quibbling, involved and difficult to follow that it may be doubted whether it would convince any average reader. His attack is directed especially against prediction as to particular individuals, which he stigmatizes as a diabolical art of divination, and contends that no superstitious art is more fitted to forward the aims of the devil than the astrology of Ptolemy. He objects that the influence of the stars at the time of conception or birth is not immutable but subject to change from subsequent celestial influences, and that the astrologers should stick to either the moment of conception or that of birth. He denies that the Bible supports astrology, declares that papal bulls detest it, and that the church fathers were unanimously against it. He repeats Augustine's argument from twins against astrology, and is careful never to cite Aquinas as favoring it. Yet a page which he finally quotes from him turns out to be his usual half-favorable attitude, saving free will but stressing the influence of the stars upon natural inclination. Merenda, on the other hand, had previously represented Aquinas (Secunda secundae, quaest. 95, artic. 5) as agreeing with Augustine (Genesis ad literam, cap. 17) that the devil, God permitting, interested himself in the predictions of astrologers.

Merenda grants that it is easier to predict the weather or the health of a community than the fortune of an individual. But astrologers do not know all the stars and so cannot foresee even their general influence. They have not yet had sufficient experience of the effects of a great variety of constellations to formulate rules as to these. Ptolemy rejected previous experience and method as too particular and in his Quadripartitum laid down general rules largely on the basis of reason and probability. And after him Arabic astrologers were divided into discordant sects. Why should a brief eclipse exert great influence, when daily we are deprived of sunlight all night long, and all day long of that of the moon? Merenda further attacks the doctrine that some one planet is lord of the year.

A birth may be delayed or hastened and so miss its proper and natural constellation. Moreover, few clocks keep exact time, and clocks are found chiefly only in such places as fortresses, monasteries, convents, hospitals and colleges, so that it is difficult to tell the precise moment of birth. Merenda further asks, perhaps sarcastically, why astrologers do not take the nativities of the father, brothers and sisters into consideration as the ancients did. But he above all objects to predictions of violent death, or a rich marriage, or obtaining an office, as violations of freedom of the will. He is much offended that astrologers promise even a cardinalate or the papacy to their clients. Merenda professes originality in his discussion and denies that his method of treatment will be found in other authors, but it has resemblances to that of John Chamber, while he admits that he has not read them all. He closes with a satirical parody, giving nine crafty rules for practical procedure on the part of predicting astrologers.

Urban VIII, who issued a bull against judicial astrology in 1631, appointed Caesar Carena an inquisitor. The latter has a good deal to say concerning astrology in his Treatise on the Office of the Most Holy Inquisition, printed at Cremona in 1636 and 1641, later at Bologna in 1668 and Lyons in 1669. He states that natural astrology, which conjectures what naturally happens from the aspect of the stars, and, if it considers the nativity, infers from it human temperaments and propensities, is licit. So say Suarez and Sanchez. But one should not consider the horoscope of Christ despite d'Ailly's doing so, nor predict concerning the pope and the church, which is forbidden by the papal bull of Urban VIII of April 1, 1631. An astrologer from the nativity may predict the child's temperament and future infirmities and when they will occur. "This conclusion is certain, nor can there by any doubt about it, because the stars act directly upon the body and its humors," as Aquinas well proved and many others of the Fathers of Coimbra. But actual prediction is an uncertain matter, and Carena does not agree with Hurtado that astrologers can know for certain a time beyond which a person cannot live.

It is licit to construct a figura coeli of the beginning of a disease and for the moment of taking to one's bed, of which Maginus treats in his work on the legitimate use of astrology in medicine. But such a figure alone by itself is unreliable, and Campanella in his medical works says that it is insufficient unless it agrees with the horoscope taken at birth. When an astrological direction occurs opposed to the person's temperament, the astrologer is justified in saying that illness threatens. But Carena disapproves of erecting figures for the parents from that of the son, although Cardan, Campanella and Regiomontanus in one of his problems do so. It is more difficult to predict inclinations than physical temperament. One cannot predict, for example, that a person will be a sodomite. And future contingents may have little or no connection with inclinations. Raphael de la Torre holds that predicting human inclinations is not superstitious nor forbidden by the bull of Sixtus V, but Carena insists that prediction of inclinations and of future contingencies are both bad and are forbidden by both papal bulls. The division of the zodiac into astrological houses is uncertain, and astrologers disagree among themselves as to directions and other points, so that there is no sure foundation for judgments, although Carena grants that the planets exert influence not only per se but according to their positions in the signs. But one cannot predict future contingent events for individuals, much less political changes. Campanella in his judicial astrology claims to have purged it from all superstition, but actually whatever is superstitious in all astrology is found in that book, which is only a compendium of Cardan's commentary on the Quadripartitum of Ptolemy.