Message #26775

[Bianca]

It must be admitted that Pope Paul III's personality was not such that his devotion to astrology can be claimed as contributing to its respectability, for he claimed the efficiency in amorous affairs of a unicorn's horn purchased for 12,000 gold pieces, was extremely superstitious, and addicted to chiromancy.

He also had the ill grace to die twelve years earlier than the year elected for that event by his last astrologer, Marius Alterius. Alterius' prediction that he would live to be a hearty 93 was no doubt part of a general scheme to keep the old man happy - how else to explain the prediction that a Pope in his 83rd year would experience in 1548 a year of success with women, who would bring him erotic diversions "which will overwhelm your spirit with singular pleasure?"

Paul's favourite, Gaurico, had a notable school of astrology at Ferrara, where he tutored many of the century's best-known astrologers.

Astrology was taught not only at private schools but at the universities; perhaps the best example of this in the 16th century was to be seen at Bologna, whence the professors sent forth many annual volumes of predictions.

Between 1501 and 1528 Jacobus Benatius lectured on astrology daily, together with a colleague, lacobus Petramellarius, a doctor in arts and medicine who had taught astrology there since 1496.