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Re: VMs: Jung and Modern/Traditional Astrology?



Hi Pamela,

FWIW, the argument running through the literature I've been relying on is that by 1490, the leading group of Florentine intellectuals lost faith with astrology - that was the year that Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's announced that he intended to fire a theoretical broadside against astrology in defence of Christianity (extracts of this finally appeared in 1495, the year after his death), and that salvo is thought by some to have been the central impetus for Ficino (della Mirandolla's former teacher!) to change his approach. Wikipedia has a nice (though short) article on him:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Pico_della_Mirandola


Also, here's a link to an online article summarising this general tradition that I've posted to the list before, which also quote Francis Bacon's views on astrology (essentially, that it doesn't work for individuals, but its effects on populations or nations ~might~ be worth studying) - Paula Wagner's (2000) "The Decline of Astrology" [with Nick Campion as advisor]:-
http://www.kepler.edu/articles/student/2q2000wagner.html


Reading it back again, it does seem that the filaments claimed to connect Ficinian thought forward to present-day astrology are indeed somewhat lacking in substance: this aspect does support your assertion that there was no break in the (already declining) tradition at that time. Your claim that some modern authors appropriated Ficino's work as a kind of retrospective apologia for Jung is a very interesting one - is there one particular writer who seems to be mainly responsible for this?

And yet... medieval astrology had always enjoyed protection because of its status as a subject taught within universities (because of its centrality to medicine) even though universities were typically administered by the Church, but [so the argument runs] its intellectual aegis was withdrawn circa 1500, and so astrology ended up with few active proponents. While its decline had clearly already begun, was 1480-1520 the "tipping point" where its boat sank? I used to think that argument was an open-and-shut case, but now I'm not so sure...

BTW, here's a nice page on medieval universities, science, and astrology (it discusses Cecco d'Ascoli's career clearly, for example):-
http://www.bede.org.uk/university.htm


Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....


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