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The ptolemaic astrological tradition in the seventeenth century: An example from Rome

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Abstract

This article describes a unique early seventeenth-century project at the monastery of Santa Prassede in Rome to adapt and prove the validity of Ptolemaic astrology by an empirical study of the lives and deaths of both eminent personages and common people in the neighborhood. In contextualizing this effort, it focuses on the life and career of the astrologer Orazio Morandi, abbot of the monastery and one-time general of the Vallombrosa order. On the basis of the activities of Morandi and the other monks, it then draws some conclusions regarding the fortunes and misfortunes of the Ptolemaic astrological tradition in the period.

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References

  1. Rome, Archivio di stato, Governatore, Processi, sec. XVII, b. 251, henceforth referred to asMorandi trial. The bibliography on Morandi is not long: Germana Ernst, “Scienza, astrologia e politica nella Roma barocca,” in Eugenio Canone, ed.,Bibliothecae Selectae, da Cusano a Leopardi (Florence: Olschki, 1993), pp. 217–52; in addition, Antonio Bertolotti, “Giornalisti, astrologi e negromanti in Roma nel secolo XVII,”Rivista europea 5 (1878): 478–9; Luigi Fiorani, “Astrologi, superstiziosi e devoti nella società romana del Seicento,”Ricerche per la storia religiosa di Roma 2 (1978), pp. 97ff.; Annibale Fantoli,Galileo per il Copernicanesimo e per la Chiesa, Studi Galileiani 2 (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993), pp. 142, 272, 302, 309, 389 (English as:Galileo for Copernicanism and for the Church, tr. G. V. Coyne, S. J., 2nd ed., Studi Galileiani 3 [Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana; Notre Dame, IL: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996], pp. 168, 336, 372, 382, 486); passing mention as a friend of Galilei's in P. Redondi,Galileo eretico, Microstorie 7 (Torino: G. Einaudi, 1983), p. 123 (English as:Galileo Heretic (Galileo eretico), tr. R. Rosenthal [Princeton: NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987], p. 101). Still useful are B. Benigno Bracciolini,Oratio.. de laudibus… Horatii Morandi Romani (Rome: Francesco Corbelletti, 1626); Torello Sala,Dizionario storico-biografico di scrittori letterati ed artisti dell'ordine di Vallombrosa, 2 vol. (Florence: Istituto Gualandi, 1929), pp. 76–77; D. F. Tarani,L'Ordine Vallombrosano. Note storico-cronologiche (Florence: Scuola Tipografica Calasanziana, 1920), p. 127; Antonio Favaro,Galileo Galilei e lo Studio di Padova, 2 vols. (Florence: Le Monnier, 1883), 1: 7–8. For further details, see myThe Last Prophecy of Morandi: Politics and the Occult in Baroque Rome (Princeton, forthcoming).

  2. For instance, D. P. Walker,Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (London: Warburg Institute, 1958), pp. 205–11; and various testimonies noted by Luigi Amabile,Fra Tommaso Campanella ne' Castelli di Napoli, 2 vols. (Naples: Morani, 1887), 1: 280–2. Astrological themes were featured in Barberini projects outlined in John Beldon Scott,Images of Nepotism: the Painted Ceilings of Palazzo Barberini (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991).

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  3. I should like to thank Dr. Marina Venier of the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emmanuele in Rome for this information. See also Giovanni Baccelli,Relazione della commissione d'inchiesta sulla biblioteca Vittorio Emmanuele in Roma, 6 gennaio-21 aprile 1880 (Rome: Eredi Botta, 1880).

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  6. Texts referred to, in the most probable editions, include: Aristarchus,De magnitudinibus et distantiis solis et lunae, tr. Federico Commandino (Pesaro: Camillo Franceschino, 1572);Hipparchi Bithyni in Arati et Eudoxi Phaenomena, ed. Pietro Vettori (Florence: Giunti, 1567); Ptolemy,Almagestum, Latina lingua donatum, tr. George of Trebizond (Venice: Giunti: 1527); Copernicus,De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (Nuremberg: Petreius, 1543); Galileo Galilei,Sidereus Nuncius (Venice: Baglioni, 1610); Johannes Kepler,De cometis libelli tres (Augsburg: Aperger, 1619–1620); Idem,De stella nova (Prague: P. Sessli, 1606); Idem,Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae, 7 v. in 3 (Linz: J. Plancus, 1618–22); Erasmus Reinhold,Tabulae Prutenicae (Wittenberg: Welack, 1585); Isaac ben Said et al.,Tabulae astronomicae [i.e., the Alphonsine Tables] (Venice: Hamman, 1492); Johannes Kepler,Tabulae Rudolphinae (Ulmae: Jonas Saur, 1627); Johann Stoeffler,Ephemeridum opus … ab anno 1532 in alios XX subsequentes (Tübingen: Morhart, 1531); Giovanni Antonio Magini,Tabulae generales (Bologna: Rossi, 1609); and Andrea Argoli,Ephemerides … ab anno … 1621 usque ad 1640 (Rome: Facciotti, 1621).

  7. For instance, Ptolemy,Libri quattuor, tr. by Joachim Camerarius et al. (Nuremberg: Petreius, 1535); Idem, Ptolemy,Operis quadripartiti in latinum sermonem traductio, tr. Antonius Gogava (Louvain: Batius, 1548) or Idem, Ptolemy,Quadripartitum iudiciorum opus, tr. Johannes Brittuliano (Paris: Porta, 1519); Julius Firmicus Maternus,De nativitatibus (Venice: Bevilacqua, 1497); Aratus Solensis,Phaenomena et prognostica, either in the version by Philip Melanchthon (Wittenberg: Lotther, 1521), or by Aldus Manutius (Venice: Manutius, 1499); Abenragel,De iudiciis astrorum, ed. Bartolomeo de Alten de Nusia (Venice: Sessa, 1503); Henricus Lindhout,Speculum astrologiae (Frankfurt: Richter, 1608); Henrik Rantzau,Tractatus astrologicus de genethliacorum thematum judiciis pro singulis nati accidentibus (Frankfurt: Wechel, 1593); Rudolph Goclenius,Uraniae divinatricis, quoad astrologiae generalis, libri II (Marburg: Egenolphi, 1614). In addition, Valentin Naibod,De annui temporis mensura in directionibus, et de directionibus (Venice: Damiano Zenari, 1607); Joannes Regiomontanus,Tabulae directionum profectionumque (Wittenberg: Welack, 1574).

  8. Owen Gingerich,The Great Copernicus Chase and Other Adventures in Astronomical History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), title essay; and the articles in Massimo Bucciantini and Maurizio Torrini, eds.,La diffusione del Copernicanesimo in Italia, 1543–1610 (Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1997).

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  9. Cyprian Leowitz,De coniunctionibus magnis (Lavgingae ad Danubium: Salczer, 1564); Philip Melanchthon, “Epistola nuncupatoria ad Senatum Noribergensem,” contained inRudimenta astronomica Alfragrani … Albategnius astronomus peritissimus de motu stellarum … omnia cu[m] demonstratio[n]ibus geometricis et additionibus Ioannis de Regiomonte (Nuremberg: Petreius, 1537). For Camerarius, see above. For Melanchthon cf. W.-D. Müller-Jahncke, “Philipp Melanchthon und die Astrologie—Theoretisches und Mantisches,” in: G. Frank and S. Rhein, eds.,Melanchthon und die Naturwissenschaften seiner Zeit, Melanchthon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten 4 (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1998), pp. 123–135, for his part in the Alfraganus (=al-Fargãnĩ) etc. edition of 1537, K. Reich, “Melanchthon und die Mathematik seiner Zeit,” ibid. G. Frank and S. Rhein, eds.,Melanchthon und die Naturwissenschaften seiner Zeit, Melanchthon-Schriften der Stadt Bretten 4 (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1998), pp. 105–121 (p. 111, no. 10).

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  10. Resumés of these arguments can be found in Eugenio Garin,Astrology in the Renaissance: The Zodiac of Life trans. Carolyn Jackson and June Allen (London: Routledge, 1983; repr. London and New York: Arkana, 1990) (orig. Idem,Lo Zodiaco della vita. La polemica sull'astrologia dal trecento al cinquecento, Universale Laterza 349 [Rome and Bari: Laterza, 1976]). Still useful is Lynn Thorndike,A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923–58), 6.The Sixteenth Century (1958), chaps. 33–34; 7.The Seventeenth Century (1941), chap. 5. In addition, Mary Ellen Bowden,The Scientific Reolution in Astrology: The English Reformers, 1558–1686, PhD thesis, Yale, 1974, Prologue and chap. 1; S. J. Tester,A History of Western Astrology (Bury St. Edmonds: Boydell Press, 1987); Ann Geneva,Astrology and the Seventeenth-Century Mind. William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995) (on which see Wolfgang Hübner’s review article, “Seventeenth-Century Astrology—in England”, in this journal [IJCT], 6.2 [Fall 1999], forthcoming); Anthony Grafton,Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, forthcoming), chap. 2.

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  11. Giambattista Della Porta,Coelestis Physiognonomica, ed. Alfredo Paolella (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche, 1996). Orig. edition published in 1603. Concerning his system, see the articles inGiambattista Della Porta nell’Europa del suo tempo (Naples: Guida, 1990), especially those by Gioacchino Papparelli and Hélène Védrine; as well as Cosimo Caputo, “La struttura del segno fisiognomico (Giambattista Della Porta e l'universo culturale del Cinquecento),”Il Protagora 22 (1982): 63–102.

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  12. Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum Sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum Taurinensis Editio, 24 vols., vol. 8:Gregorius VIII—Sixtus V, 1572–1588, ed. Luigi Bilio (Turin: Seb. Franco, H. Fory et H. Dalmazzo, 1869), p. 649.

  13. For the tortured history of Campanella's manuscript on astrology, see the entry by Luigi Firpo inDizionario biografico degli Italiani 17 (1974): 372–401.

  14. Keith Thomas,Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York: Scribners, 1971), chaps. 1–2. Compare Roy Porter,Health For Sale. Quackery in England, 1660–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), chap. 2. In general, for what follows, Gianna Pomata,La promessa di guarigione. Malati e curatori in antico regime: Bologna, 16–18 sec. (Bari: Laterza, 1994); as well as Leslie Clarkson,Death Disease and Famine in Pre-Industrial England (New York: St. Martin's, 1975).

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  15. Laurie Nussdorfer,Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), chaps. 3, 6; Peter Partner,The Pope’s Men: The Papal Civil Service in the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); Renata Ago,Carriere e clientele nella Roma barocca (Rome: Laterza, 1990), and Maria Antonietta Visceglia, “Burocrazia, mobilità sociale e ‘patronage’ alla corte di Roma tra 5 e 600: alcuni aspetti del recente dibattito storiografico e prospettive di ricerca,”Roma moderna e contemporanea 3 (1995): 11–55.

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  16. Kepler’s comment was inOpera omnia, 8 vols., ed. Ch. Frisch, (Frankfurt: Heyder u. Zimmer, 1858–71), 6 (1858): 666.

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  17. Carl B. Boyer,A History of Mathematics (New York: John Wiley, 1968), pp. 342–5; and especially, Charles Naux,Histoire des logarithmes de Neper à Euler, 2 vols. (Paris: Blanchard, 1971).

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  18. Paola Zambelli, “Many Ends of the World. Luca Gaurico Instigator of the Debate in Italy and in Germany,” in Zambelli, ed.,“Astrologi Hallucinati”: Stars and the End of the World in Luther’s Time (Berlin-New York: de Gruyter, 1986), pp. 239–63. In addition, Robin Bruce Barnes,Prophecy and Gnosis. Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran Reformation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). Concerning the structure of astrological belief, Franz Boll, et al.,Sternglaube und Sterndeutung. Die Geschichte und das Wesen der Astrologie (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1931; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1974), especially chaps. 4–6; but compare Eugenio Garin,Astrology in the Renaissance: The Zodiac of Life (London: Routledge, 1983), chap. 1.

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  19. Germana Ernst, “From the Watery Trigon to the Fiery Trigon. Celestial Signs, Prophecies and History,” in Zambelli, ed., “Astrologi Hallucinati”, pp. 265–80. In addition, Enrico De Mas,L'attesa del secolo aureo, 1603–25. Saggio di storia delle idee del secolo XVII (Florence: Olschki, 1982), especially chap. 1; and Ilan Rachum, “’Revolution’ in Seventeenth-Century Astrology,”History of European Ideas 18 (1994): 869–83.

  20. Text reproduced in Mario Pavone,Introduzione al pensiero di Giambattista Hodierna, 2 vols. (Modica: Setim, 1981), 1: 153.

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  21. Morandi trial, fol. 183r, deposition of Marcantonio Conti, August 6, 1630.

  22. Morandi trial, fol. 504r, deposition of Agostino Lamponi, November 5, 1630.

  23. Morandi trial, fols, IXv and 467r.

  24. Morandi trial, fol. Vr.

  25. Their activities at the monastery are recorded inMorandi trial, fols. 467r and 572r (Ghisleri), fols. 130r, 192r, 398r (Scaglia), fols. 110r and 123r (Usimbaldi). Scaglia’s nativity (for example) is at fol. 1062r

  26. The works in question are Johann Garcaeus,Astrologiae methodus, in qua secundum doctrinam Ptolemaei exactissima facillimaque genituras qualescunque iudicandi ratio traditur (Basel: Henricpetrina, 1576); Luca Gaurico,Tractatus astrologicus (Venice: C.T. Nauo, 1552); Girolamo Cardano,Libelli quinque quorum duo priores iam denuo sunt emendati, duo sequentes iam primum in lucem editi, et quintus magna parte auctus est, V:De examplis centum geniturarum (Nuremberg: Petreius, 1547). This book was included as Book VII of Hieronymus Cardanus,Opera omina… cura Caroli Sponii, vol. V:Astronomica, astrologica, onirocritica (Lyon: Huguetan and Ravaud, 1663).

  27. Advancement of Learning, ed. Edward Creighton (New York: Colonial Press, 1900), III: 4 (p. 90 in this edition). Not in the least Whiggish of course is Paolo Rossi,Dalla magia alla scienza (Turin: Einaudi, 19742); and especially see D. P. Walker, “Spirits in Francis Bacon,” inFrancis Bacon: Terminologia e fortuna nel secolo XVII (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1984), pp. 315–27. Of course, I am not confusing Bacon's empiricism with the “empirics” whom he condemns. See Didier Deleule, “Experientia-experimentum chez F. Bacon,” inIbid., pp. 59–72.

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  28. Morandi trial, fols. 946r–959v.

  29. Here and below,Morandi trial, fols. 959r and ff.

  30. See, for instance, Charles B. Schmitt,The Aristotelian Tradiation and Renaissance Universities (London: Variorum, 1984).

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  31. Cl[audii] Ptolemaei Pelusiensis mathematici operis quadripartiti in Latinum sermonem traductio Antonio Gogava interprete (Louvain: Batius, 1548) (also in Hieronymus Cardanus,Opera omnia… cura Caroli Sponii, vol. V:Astronomica, astrologica, onirocritica [above, n. 26]).

  32. On Clavius, James Lattis,Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christopher Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology (Chicago: Universit of Chicago, 1994), chap. 1. Among other studies on the impact of heliocentrism there is Michel-Pierre Lerner,Tre saggi sulla cosmologia alla fine del Cinquecento (Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 1992).

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  33. Nifo's work wasDe diebus criticis (Venice: Ponti, 1504). On Girolamo Cardano's contributions concerning critical days, Nancy G. Siraisi,The Clock and the Mirror. Girolamo Cardano and Renaissance Medicine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), chap. 6. Pseudo-Ptolemy'sCentum Ptolomaei sententiae was published by Aldus Manutius in Venice (1519) and by others. Concerning astrology and humoral theory see Fritz Saxl, Raymond Klibansky and Erwin Panofsky,Saturn and Melancholy (London: Nelson, 1964), part 2, chap. 1.

  34. Of Offusus, note hisDe divina astrorum facultate (Paris: Royer, 1570). The work in question of Robert Fludd wasUtriusque Cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Tecnica Historia, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Oppenheim: Galler, 1617), Treatise 1, Book 2, pp. 45ff and Treatise 1, Book 5, chap. 10, pp. 146ff. A late example of astrological medicine, among many: Giovanni Antonio Magini,De astrologica ratione ac usu dierum criticorum (Venice: Zennari, 1607), present in the S. Prassede library. For what precedes, Bowden,The Scientific Revolution in Astrology, chap. 2; Lynn Thorndike,A History of Magic and Experimental Science (above n. 10), 6: 113 and 7: 98; on Fludd, Allen Debus,The Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, 2 vols. (New York: Science History Publications, 1977); William H. Huffman,Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance (London: Routledge, 1988).

  35. Germana Ernst, “Aspetti dell’astrologia e della profezia in Galileo e Campanella,” in:Novità celesti e crisi del sapere. Atti del convergno internazionale di studi galileiani, 1982, ed. Paolo Galluzzi (Florence: Giunti-Barbéra, 1984), pp. 255–66.

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  36. Johannes Kepler,Mysterium Cosmographicum (Tübingen: Georgius Gruppenbachius, 1596), chap. 9, translation modified from Kepler,The Secret of the Universe, tr. A. M. Duncan (New York: Abaris, 1981), pp. 115–116. Bowden,The Scientific Revolution in Astrology, p. 112. In addition to Gérard Simon,Kepler: Astronome, Astrologue (Paris: Gallimard, 1979), there is Fernand Hallyn,Structure poétique du monde: Copernic, Kepler (Paris: Seuil, 1987) all to be compared with Bruce Stephenson,Kepler's Physical Astronomy (New York: Springer Verlag, 1987).

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  37. Most probably, the book of Albumasar present in the library was theFlores Astrologiae first printed by Sessa in Venice, 1488.

  38. Morandi trial, fol. 949r. For the different chapter divisions in the various editions see Wolfgang Hübner's edition, more correctly entitledApotelesmatika, of Ptolemy’sTetrabiblos, sc. Claudius Ptolemaeus,Opera quae exstant omnia III 1:APOTELESMATIKA (Stuttgart and Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1998), “Praefatio”, pp. vii–li.

  39. Morandi trial, fol. 943r.

  40. Edizione nazionale delle opere di Galileo Galilei, 20 vols. (Florence: Giunti-Barbera, 19673), 14: 107, letter dated May 24. In addition,Morandi trial, fol. 572r.

  41. For the performance aspect of science in this period see Mario Biagioli,Galileo Courtier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).

  42. Grafton,Cardano’s Cosmos, chaps. 2, 6. In addition, Frederick H. Cramer,Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 37 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1954), p. 278; and, more recently, Tamsyn Barton,Ancient Astrology (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 39f., 42f., 44f., 50f.

  43. Bowden,The Scientific Revolution in Astrology, p. 110.

  44. On this subject, Auguste Bouché-Leclerq,L’astrologie grecque (Paris: 1899; repr. Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1979), pp. 416–28.

  45. Several versions of Urban VIII’s horoscope can be found inMorandi trial, with slight differences, at fols. 13r, 1050r, 1264r.

  46. Two copies of the document dated “Lyons, January 21, 1630” containing the prophecies regarding Urban VIII exist inMorandi trial, both in Morandi’s hand: a rough draft at fols. 90r and following; and a fine copy at fols. 486r and following.

  47. TheCentiloquium Hermetis, ed. by Hieronymus Wolf asHermetis philosophi de revolutionibus nativitatum incerto interprete along with commentaries on Ptolemy’sTetrabiblos (In Clavdii Ptolemaei quadripartitum enarrator ignoti nominis, quem tamem Proclum fuisse quidam existimant etc. [Basel: ex officina Petriana, 1559], p. 205ff.), is not identical with the Pseudo-PtolemaicCentiloquium. Cf. W. Gundel—H. G. Gundel,Astrologumena. Die astrologische Literatur in der Antike und ihre Geschichte, Sudhoffs Archiv, Beiheft 6 (Wiesbaden, 1966), p. 24 with n. 35 and M. Ullmann,Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam, Handbuch der Orientalistik, I. Abt., Ergänzungsbd. VI (Leiden-Köln: E. J. Brill, 1972), p. 292 with n. 6 (the latter for an edition mistakenly referring to one of the Pseudo-PtolemaicCentiloquium instead).—I thank Wolfgang Haase for this information.

  48. Described by Campanella in hisDe siderali fato vitando, a pirate publication, printed as an appended Book 7 of the anauthorized edition of hisAstrologicorum libri VI (Lyon: I., A. & M. Prost [actually Rome: A. Bruggiotus], 1629), pp. 11bis, 12bis. See Germana Ernst,Religione, ragione e natura. Ricerche su Tommaso Campanella e il tardo Rinascimento (Milan: Angeli, 1991), chap. 1, and Francesco Grillo,Questioni Campanelliane: la stampa fraudolenta e clandestina degli “Astrologiscorum libri” (Cosenza: n.p., 1960).

  49. Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum… (n. 12 aboveSanctorum Romanorum Pontificum Taurinensis Editio, 24 vols., vol. 8:Gregorius VIII—Sixtus V, 1572–1588, ed. Luigi Bilio (Turin: Seb. Franco, H. Fory et H. Dalmazzo, 1869), vol. 14:Urbanus VIII, 1628–1639, ed. Francisco Gaude (Turin: Dalmazzo, 1868), p. 211, dated April 1, 1631, and entitledInscrutabilis.

  50. Morandi trial, fol. 753r.

  51. Atheismus triumphatus (Paris: Dubray, 1636), special section entitledDisputatio an bullae SS. Pontificum Sixti V et Urbani VIII … calumniam in aliquo patiantur, pp. 255–73.

  52. These comments of course are not intended as a substitute for a more detailed analysis of the complex trial of Galileo; for which Giorgio de Santillana,The Crime of Galileo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955) is still useful, but see Leonida Rosino, “IlDialogo come occasione per il processo e la condanna di Galileo,” in:Giornate Lincee indette in occasione del 350° anniversario della pubblicazione del “Dialogo sopra i massimi sistemi” di Galileo Galilei, Roma, 6–7 maggio 1982 (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1983); articles inNovità celesti e crisi del sapere (cited in n. 34 above); Mario D'Addio,Considerazioni sui processi a Galileo (Rome: Herder, 1985); Mario Biagioli,Galileo, Courtier; Eugenio Garin, “Gli scandali della nuova ‘filosofia’,”Nuncius vol. 8, n. 2 (1993): 417–31; Paolo Simoncelli, “Galileo e la curia: un problema,”Belfagor 48 (1993): 29–42; and Brendan Dooley, “Processo a Galileo,”Ibid. 51 (1996): 1–21.

  53. Compare explanations for the decline of seventeenth-century astrology in Ann Geneva,Astrology and the Seventeenth-Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), chap. 9 (cf. n. 10 above); Bernard Capp,Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs, 1500–1800 (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), pp. 276ff. Interesting comments on the historiography of astrology are in Cesare Vasoli, ed.,Magia e scienza nella civiltà umanistica (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1976), Introduction.

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  54. In Claudii Ptolemaei IV de astrorum iudiciis, aut, ut vulgo vocant, quadripartitae constructionis libros commentaria (Basel: ex officina Henricpetrina, 1554 and 1578; also in Hieronymus Cardanus,Opera omnia, vol. V [cited in n. 31 above]Astronomica, astrologica, onirocritica [above, n. 26] (Lyon: Huguetan and Ravaud, 1663))

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Dooley, B. The ptolemaic astrological tradition in the seventeenth century: An example from Rome. Int class trad 5, 528–548 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02701800

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