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Cardano's Cosmos : The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer

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When examining the practice of astrology from a contemporary scientific viewpoint, the entire enterprise initially strikes one as anachronistic. Figures such as Nostradamus lend the impression that aspiring fortune-tellers played upon the public's hopes, expectations and fears in order to further their own personal and monetary gain. Given this impression, it becomes important to ask how astrology as a scientific discipline fits into the overall history of science, particularly in relation to the disciplines of optics and medicine. In his book "Cardano's Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer" (1999), Anthony Grafton extensively describes the social and political milieu within which the practice of astrology took place during the sixteenth century as experienced by the Italian astrologer Giorlamo Cardano (1501-1576).

As Grafton makes clear, astrology is an ancient yet durable discipline. Irrespective of time or place, astrologers "worked from the same cosmological premises, projected the same beneficent and threatening images into the heavens, and used for the most part the same mathematical techniques" (p. 5). Consequently, the "continuity of the astrological tradition is, perhaps, unmatched in the intellectual history of the West" (p. 6). The origins of European astrology drew from Mesopotamian celestial interpretation as well as ancient Greek cosmology. To the extent which astrology permeated sixteenth century society, Grafton describes an "omnipresence of astrology" that does not distinguish between "high and low, [or] elite and popular culture" (p. 10). In this deeply pervasive picture, we find that "as in the Hellenistic and Roman world, no one escaped the celestial economy" (p. 11). It was in the new social context of the Renaissance, coupled with the advent of the new media of widespread publishing, that allowed astrology to permeate all aspects of society.

For Grafton, providing an account of this society by way of a figure like Cardano is a potentially problematic enterprise. The very field of the history of astrology is what renders the project difficult. Some historians will take an internalist approach, while others will attempt to explain the cultural impact of early modern astrology. Grafton wants to combine both of these approaches, so as to allow the reader to gain a wholistic picture of the history of astrology. Ultimately, Cardano becomes for Grafton the ideal subject with whom to explore this history, as his work "forms a great, constantly changing screen, on which the reader can watch an expert in several ancient divinatory arts blending their surviving texts in order to recreate what the textual record did not reveal" (p. 20).

A potential sequel to Grafton's book might easily explore the legacy of sixteenth century astrology on subsequent generations. Writing in 1933, the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung argued that the psychological void produced by the spiritual loss experienced by the modern European individual was filled in part by a "return" to astrological beliefs. Prior to the twentieth century, the advent of Enlightenment thinking had presumably reduced the need for political leaders and other educated individuals to seek out astrologers for advice. Yet we are aware that former First Lady Nancy Reagan regularly consulted an astrologer for advice with regard to White House affairs during the 1980's. Grafton records that a "papal bull" of 1586 forbade the practice of astrology and denied the influence of the stars. Clearly this act did not succeed in eliminating belief in astrological interpretation from the public consciousness.

partial in the sense that it leaves stuff out that is maybe interesting.

It was only after finishing this that I realised that Girolamo Cardano was the same Cardan who crops up in any one volume history of mathematics in the discussion about calculating the roots of polynomials and the development of complex numbers. Cardan was not really a major mathematician, but he did more than carry a spear in an important episode (note added in proof: in fact I've just learned from the current NYRB that Richard Feynman regarded it as catalytically important for western science) - and in the end it was that role, not an entertaining memoir, that makes him important; it's a strange lapse on Grafton's part - especially since he does manage to get in that Cardan invented a neat mechanical coupling.

Still, for all that, this is a splendid exercise in historical empathy, and well worth a read.