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VMs: Correction: Jean Baptiste Morin de Villefranche
Hi, Nick!
My apologies. I re-read my post and caught an error:
Morin was born in 1583, not 1538! That little error
would probably have made him the world's longest-lived
astrologer, at any rate!
Smile.
Pam
--- Pamela Richards <spirlhelix@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi, Nick
>
> I think the historians you are reading are simply
> using different criteria for the vitality of
> astrology
> than I am.
>
> If the opinion of the intelligensia were the sole
> factor worth looking at, I guess the health of the
> art
> swayed and veered at different points in history.
> Astrology even had its detractors among the ancient
> Greeks, after all.
>
> I prefer to look at:
>
> 1) The success of the art as practiced at the time
> in
> accomplishing its aims: primarily, prediction
>
> 2) An adequately positive reception among patrons
> of
> astrology (in any class of society) who would make
> it
> possible for the artist to earn a living by
> astrology
>
>
> 3) Adequate access to tradition, technique, and
> teachers of astrology to permit the art to pass to
> the
> next generation
>
>
> Interestingly, astrology did not acheive its peak
> level of predictive accuracy until well after de la
> Mirandola's attack. Although I have not time at
> present to cite exhaustive sources, William Lilly
> (1602-1630) is commonly regarded as the greatest
> predictive astrologer in English history. Despite
> his
> peculiar personality, Cardano (1591-1576) of Italy
> was a fabulously sucessful mathematician,
> astrologer,
> and cryptologist. Jean Baptiste Morin de
> Villefranche
> (1538-1656) was a Frenchman who represented the
> pinnacle of the art as practiced in his native
> country.
>
> The vaunted success of astrology in the Renaissance
> period was partly due to the fact that the
> predictions
> of astrology can only be as accurate as the
> calculations which predict the movements of the
> planets. Therefore astrology continued to grow more
> successful at making accurate predictions during the
> sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, due in part to
> the practical application of the innovations of
> astronomy; many of the great strides in astronomy
> were
> made by men of science like Johannes Kepler who
> were
> also interested in furthering the predictive
> accuracy
> of astrology.
>
> Post-Luther, Protestantism also gave astrology a
> boost
> in countries where it held sway by permitting or
> even
> encouraging interest in "alternative" religious
> expression. Not that the stars were necessarily
> worshipped, but astrology was seen by many adepts as
> a
> means of recieving messages from God.
> Protestantism gave the serious practitioner the
> opportunity to explore a path to God which was not
> limited by his religious beliefs, fear of censure by
> the Church, or by a human intermediary such as the
> clergy.
>
> I wish I could continue, but my computer will crash
> if
> I don't send this now. Thanks for your patience,
> Nick! Part II soon.
>
> Warmly,
>
> Pam
>
>
>
>
> --- Nick Pelling <nickpelling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > 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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> >
>
>
> =====
> "I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to
> teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
>
>
>
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"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing, than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
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