Message #108403

[Bianca]

Other, more sober analyses predicted an abundance of rain and snow.

Indeed it appears that it was a very wet and rainy year according to a day-by-day meteorological diary kept by a Bolognese astrologer.

Lynn Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science,
Volume V
(New York, Columbia, 1941)
page 231.


There was also much controversy among astrologers over the propriety of using the Great Conjunctions of Saturn and Jupiter as a predictive technique. This practice was criticized as an Arabic technique, improperly replacing the older Ptolemaic use of eclipses.

A number of astrological treatises on the conjunction of 1524 took the opportunity to decry not only the reliance on Great Conjunctions, but also the use of solar revolutions, neither of which was set forth in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. Nevertheless, despite a certain trend to Ptolemaic practice, most astrologers continued to use the techniques handed down from Arabic astrology.

We should note that modern astrological software reveals that the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter took place on January 30, 1524 before all of the seven planets were together in Pisces. On February 13, 1524 Mercury entered Pisces and all of the traditional planets were in Pisces, except for the Moon in Gemini.

On February 20, 1524 Venus entered Aries with the Moon in Sagittarius.