Message #26773

[Bianca]

February 1524 passed in fair weather.

The astrologers of Bologna, where the university supported a strong astrological faculty, were distinctly surprised.

However, their mistake seemed to be one of timing, or perhaps it was simply that the effects of the conjunction were slow to be felt, for on 19 March there was heavy rain in the city, and from 12 May prayers were said continuously for three days in an attempt to stop the torrent. On 21 May, the citizens rang the bells in the steeples of Bologna in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the storms; four days later they were rung twice in one day, and on 12 June rung again. That night there was an hour-long storm of such ferocity that the citizens were terrified. On 30 June the bells once more fought the wind, and on 14 July the clergy struggled through a thunderstorm to ring them again. On 20, 22 and 23 July, they were rung in an attempt to break up a storm during which hailstones as big as hens' eggs pelted the streets.

At the end of August houses had to be abandoned because of the floods, which drowned much farm stock. There were prayers against rain in September, during October and November streams and rivers overflowed and dowsed the countryside, and it was not until December that the rains finally subsided.

Far from announcing that they had told the people so, the astrologers began to quarrel among themselves as to why they had not been able to predict more accurately the course of the storms.