Poetic Structures of the Cosmos

Abstract

any possibility both for “astrological images” and for nativities, since the variation of intensity does not mean a change of the quality itself; a simple variation of intensity in a quality seems insufficient to establish the qualitative difference required for an individual horoscope. Later the physicians Arnald of Villanova and Pietro d’Abano will explicitly refer to this latitude of quality, but in a very different framework in which there will be a room for an individual/accidental occult property. In any case, DR’s appealing analysis forces us to clarify the terms of the issue. In chap. 6 DR tackles Roger Bacon’s attitude toward the same kind of practices such as talismans, the power of words and fascinatio. He rightly recalls that these practices, when they are based on true astrology and natural causes, are never called “magic”—a word which Bacon attributes to wrong and evil practices. The three first parts of this book, dedicated to a conceptual approach, essentially focus on three authors and an anonymous text of the 13th century. The last part, which addresses the following centuries (1300–1500), takes “an institutional, socio-political and cultural” approach. This shift of approach for the later period might seem curious, but DR thereby demonstrates his freedom of thought and accurate pragmatism, without claiming to be exhaustive. DR here seeks to contradict Paul Lawrence Rose who, in 1975, on the one hand rightly discarded the misconception of an opposition of humanists toward mathematics but, in the other hand, asserted that the humanists were “antagonistic [. . .] towards judicial astrology” (p. 364). Chap. 9 addresses the famous Regiomontanus and also the Paduan Pietro d’Abano, one of the medieval physicians who went far in theorizing the importance of astrology for the physician. Chap. 10 addresses the “institutional foundations” or universities, Chap. 11 other circles, such as the Italian courts. Darrel Rutkin is a leading expert on medieval astrology. This fascinating book, the first stone of an ambitious edifice, provides many fundamental elements for understanding the place of astrology in the philosophical, theological, and scientific worldviews of the Middle Ages. The reader is often led to see the question from unexpected angles and is thus strongly stimulated in his thought. Accordingly, we can only hope that the following volumes of this inspiring and extraordinary program will be published soon.