(IX.) HISTORY - Success - And The Beginning Of Failure

During the 16th century astrology more than ever commanded the attention of the Popes. Just after the turn of the century, Julius II was receiving predictions from Antonio Campanazzo.

Leo X (1513-21, the son of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent) relied greatly on his personal astrologer, Franciscus Priulus, who wrote a whole book about his patron's birth chart, and had apparently been able to tell the Pope many facts about his childhood which only he had known. Leo always claimed that Priulus was able to make predictions accurate to the very day; and all in all it must have been a considerable shock when the astrologer killed himself - an act in the commission of which he showed great determination, for failing to drown himself, jump into a fire, cut his throat with a scythe and jump out of a window, he finally starved himself to death.

Leo then turned for advice to Pellegrino Prisciano of Ferrara, Thomas Philologus, Castaneolus, Nifo and Bernard Portinarius.

Leo's successors, Adrian VI and Clement VII, at the least allowed astrological almanacs to be dedicated to them.

Paul 111(1534-49) positively encouraged astrologers to come to Rome and work under his protection, and on assuming the pontificate installed as unofficial astrologer to the papacy the well-known practitioner Luca Gaurico, who he made a bishop. Gaurico engaged in various minor controversies about the life of Jesus (the date of the crucifixion, the number of hours between it and the resurrection, and so on), but was used by the Pope in the main for such practical matters as electing the precise time at which the cornerstone of new buildings in the neighbourhood of St Peter's should be laid (the astrologer turned up in great pomp, with a splendidly robed assistant, Vincentius Campanatius of Bologna, to cry out in a loud voice when the moment had arrived, when a cardinal laid the marble slab).