A Companion to Astrology in the Renaissance
A Companion to Astrology in the Renaissance

Author: Brendan Dooley

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-01-02

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 900426230X

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It has been called “the most singular centaur that religion and science have ever produced” (Franz Boll). Astrology as a cultural form has puzzled and fascinated generations of humankind. It reached its apogee in the European Renaissance, when it flourished in literature, political expression, medicine, art, and all the other areas of endeavor catalogued in this unique collection. Brill’s Companion to Renaissance Astrology brings together a wide array of expertise from around the globe to explain the method and matter of this cultural form, including the Arab and Classical heritage, the medieval tradition, the clash with organized religion, the influence on knowledge and the competition with newly emerging ways of knowing, summarizing the current state of research and suggesting new paths. Contributors include: Giuseppe Bezza, Dieter Blume, Claudia Brosseder, Brendan Dooley, William Eamon, Ornella Faracovi, Hiro Hirai, Wolfgang Hübner, Eileen Reeves, Steven Vanden Broecke, and Graziella Federici Vescovini.

A Companion to Astrology in the Renaissance
A Companion to Astrology in the Renaissance

Author: Brendan Maurice Dooley

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13:

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It has been called "the most singular centaur that religion and science have ever produced" (Franz Boll). Astrology as a cultural form has puzzled and fascinated generations of humankind. It reached its apogee in the European Renaissance, when it flourished in literature, political expression, medicine, art, and all the other areas of endeavor catalogued in this unique collection. Brill's Companion to Renaissance Astrology brings together a wide array of expertise from around the globe to explain the method and matter of this cultural form, including the Arab and Classical heritage, the medieval tradition, the clash with organized religion, the influence on knowledge and the competition with newly emerging ways of knowing, summarizing the current state of research and suggesting new paths. Contributors include: Giuseppe Bezza, Dieter Blume, Claudia Brosseder, Brendan Dooley, William Eamon, Ornella Faracovi, Hiro Hirai, Wolfgang Hübner, Eileen Reeves, Steven Vanden Broecke, and Graziella Federici Vescovini.

Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250-1800
Sapientia Astrologica: Astrology, Magic and Natural Knowledge, ca. 1250-1800

Author: H Darrel Rutkin

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-04-24

Total Pages: 591

ISBN-13: 3030107795

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This book explores the changing perspective of astrology from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. It introduces a framework for understanding both its former centrality and its later removal from legitimate knowledge and practice. The discussion reconstructs the changing roles of astrology in Western science, theology, and culture from 1250 to 1500. The author considers both the how and the why. He analyzes and integrates a broad range of sources. This analysis shows that the history of astrology—in particular, the story of the protracted criticism and ultimate removal of astrology from the realm of legitimate knowledge and practice—is crucial for fully understanding the transition from premodern Aristotelian-Ptolemaic natural philosophy to modern Newtonian science. This removal, the author argues, was neither obvious nor unproblematic. Astrology was not some sort of magical nebulous hodge-podge of beliefs. Rather, astrology emerged in the 13th century as a richly mathematical system that served to integrate astronomy and natural philosophy, precisely the aim of the “New Science” of the 17th century. As such, it becomes a fundamentally important historical question to determine why this promising astrological synthesis was rejected in favor of a rather different mathematical natural philosophy—and one with a very different causal structure than Aristotle's.

Astrology through History
Astrology through History

Author: William E. Burns

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2018-07-20

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13:

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Alphabetically arranged entries cover the history of astrology from ancient Mesopotamia to the 21st century. In addition to surveying the Western tradition, the book explores Islamic, Indian, East Asian, and Mesoamerican astrology. The field of astrology is growing rapidly, as historians recognize its centrality to the intellectual life of the past and sociologists and anthropologists treat its importance in a number of modern cultures. Despite the historical and cultural significance of the subject, most reference works on astrology focus on instructional techniques and are written by astrologers with little or no interest in the history of the topic. This book instead offers an objective treatment of astrology across world history from ancient Mesopotamia to the present. The book provides alphabetically arranged entries by expert contributors writing on such topics as horoscopes, court astrologers, Renaissance astrology, and comets. While it considers the Western tradition, it also treats Islamic, Indian, East Asian, and Mesoamerican astrology. In doing so, it explores the role of astrology in shaping science, literature, religion, art, and other defining cultural traditions. Sidebars offer excerpts from various historical texts, while entries provide suggestions for further reading.

From Masha' Allah to Kepler
From Masha' Allah to Kepler

Author: Professor Charles Burnett

Publisher:

Published: 2015-08-17

Total Pages: 552

ISBN-13: 9781907767067

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Astrology has recently become a subject of interest to scholars of the highest calibre. However, the tendency has been to look at the social context of astrology, the attacks on astrologers and their craft, and on astrological iconography and symbolism; i.e., largely looking on astrology from the outside. The intention of this book is to do is to look at the subject from the inside: the ideas and techniques of astrologers themselves. In both Western and Eastern cultures astrology was regarded as a pure science by most scholars, mathematicians, physicians, philosophers and theologians, and was taught in schools and universities. The greatest astronomers of the period under consideration, al-Kindi, Thabit ibn Qurra, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Galileo and Kepler, also wrote about and practised astrology. What did astrologers write about astrology and how did they teach their subject and practise their craft? What changes occurred in astrological theory and practice over time and from one culture to another? What cosmological and philosophical frameworks did astrologers use to describe their practice? What role did diagrams, tables and illustrations play in astrological text-books? What was astrology's place in universities and academies? This book contains surveys of astrologers and their craft in Islamic, Jewish and Christian culture, and includes hitherto unpublished and unstudied astrological texts.

Jesuit Astrology
Jesuit Astrology

Author: Luís Campos Ribeiro

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-06-12

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 9004548971

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Connections between the Society of Jesus and astrology used to appear as unexpected at best. Astrology was never viewed favourably by the Church, especially in early modern times, and since Jesuits were strong defenders of Catholic orthodoxy, most historians assumed that their religious fervour would be matched by an equally strong rejection of astrology. This groundbreaking and compelling study brings to light new Jesuit scientific texts revealing a much more positive, practical, and nuanced attitude. What emerges forcefully is a totally new perspective into early modern Jesuit culture, science, and education, highlighting the element that has been long overlooked: astrology.

A Kingdom of Stargazers
A Kingdom of Stargazers

Author: Michael A. Ryan

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2012-03-27

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0801463165

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Astrology in the Middle Ages was considered a branch of the magical arts, one informed by Jewish and Muslim scientific knowledge in Muslim Spain. As such it was deeply troubling to some Church authorities. Using the stars and planets to divine the future ran counter to the orthodox Christian notion that human beings have free will, and some clerical authorities argued that it almost certainly entailed the summoning of spiritual forces considered diabolical. We know that occult beliefs and practices became widespread in the later Middle Ages, but there is much about the phenomenon that we do not understand. For instance, how deeply did occult beliefs penetrate courtly culture and what exactly did those in positions of power hope to gain by interacting with the occult? In A Kingdom of Stargazers, Michael A. Ryan examines the interest in astrology in the Iberian kingdom of Aragon, where ideas about magic and the occult were deeply intertwined with notions of power, authority, and providence. Ryan focuses on the reigns of Pere III (1336–1387) and his sons Joan I (1387–1395) and Martí I (1395–1410). Pere and Joan spent lavish amounts of money on astrological writings, and astrologers held great sway within their courts. When Martí I took the throne, however, he was determined to purge Joan's courtiers and return to religious orthodoxy. As Ryan shows, the appeal of astrology to those in power was clear: predicting the future through divination was a valuable tool for addressing the extraordinary problems—political, religious, demographic—plaguing Europe in the fourteenth century. Meanwhile, the kings' contemporaries within the noble, ecclesiastical, and mercantile elite had their own reasons for wanting to know what the future held, but their engagement with the occult was directly related to the amount of power and authority the monarch exhibited and applied. A Kingdom of Stargazers joins a growing body of scholarship that explores the mixing of religious and magical ideas in the late Middle Ages.

An Astrologer at Work in Late Medieval France
An Astrologer at Work in Late Medieval France

Author: Helena Avelar de Carvalho

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-07-19

Total Pages: 435

ISBN-13: 9004463380

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This book offers an internalist view on the history of astrology by studying the case of S. Belle, an astrologer who lived in late fifteenth-century France. It addresses his methods of work, his process of learning, and his practice.

The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World
The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World

Author: Alessandro Arcangeli

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-01

Total Pages: 586

ISBN-13: 1000097919

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The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is a comprehensive examination of recent discussions and findings in the exciting field of cultural history. A synthesis of how the new cultural history has transformed the study of history, the volume is divided into three parts – medieval, early modern and modern – that emphasize the way people made sense of the world around them. Contributions cover such themes as material cultures of living, mobility and transport, cultural exchange and transfer, power and conflict, emotion and communication, and the history of the senses. The focus is on the Western world, but the notion of the West is a flexible one. In bringing together 36 authors from 15 countries, the book takes a wide geographical coverage, devoting continuous attention to global connections and the emerging trend of globalization. It builds a panorama of the transformation of Western identities, and the critical ramifications of that evolution from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, that offers the reader a wide-ranging illustration of the potentials of cultural history as a way of studying the past in a variety of times, spaces and aspects of human experience. Engaging with historiographical debate and covering a vast range of themes, periods and places, The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is the ideal resource for cultural history students and scholars to understand and advance this dynamic field.

Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar
Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar

Author: Phebe Jensen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-23

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1317034961

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Astrology, Almanacs, and the Early Modern English Calendar is a handbook designed to help modern readers unlock the vast cultural, religious, and scientific material contained in early modern calendars and almanacs. It outlines the basic cosmological, astrological, and medical theories that undergirded calendars, traces the medieval evolution of the calendar into its early modern format against the background of the English Reformation, and presents a history of the English almanac in the context of the rise of the printing industry in England. The book includes a primer on deciphering early modern printed almanacs, as well as an illustrated guide to the rich visual and verbal iconography of seasons, months, and days of the week, gathered from material culture, farming manuals, almanacs, and continental prints. As a practical guide to English calendars and the social, mathematical, and scientific practices that inform them, Astrology, Almanacs,and the Early Modern English Calendar is an indispensable tool for historians, cultural critics, and literary scholars working with the primary material of the period, especially those with interests in astrology, popular science, popular print, the book as material artifact, and the history of time-reckoning.