Cardano, a Dignidade e Influência Astrológica e o Espírito Crítico: Exemplo Textual

Ernst, G. 2001, “ ‘Veritatis amor dulcissimus’: Aspects of Cardano’s Astrology” in Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, 48-9.

  Cardano felt compelled to admit that the situation was genuinely difficult and that the critics of astrology had it all too easy. The discipline had in fact been discredited and corrupted, and by its own practitioners. Cardano condemned not the art, but the artisans: they were the ones who failed to bring to its study the attention, effort, and mental profundity a discipline of its nobility and difficulty required. Moved either by greed or by ambition, they claimed to possess knowledge that they did not have and promised to give answers that an astrologer could not provide. They continually invented new expedients, taking shameless advantage of the ambiguous and profitable area of “elections and interrogations.” One particularly greedy and ignorant astrologer, for example, had forced Ludovico Sforza to follow minute rules, even making him and his courtiers ride horseback in rain and mud. 

   Astrology, Cardano admitted, was not an “absolutely precise” form of knowledge, endowed with absolute certainty and rigor. But that did not mean that it was “a superstition, a form of prophecy, magic, vanity, an oracle or a presage.” It was a natural, conjectural art that set out to formulate probable judgments about future events. There was no reason to deny the legitimacy of doing so, especially when it was granted to doctors, sailors, farmers, and miners. 

   The one basic presupposition on which astrology rested was the reality of the influence that the celestial bodies exercised on the sublunary world.These influences, obvious in the case of the sun and the moon, which werethe supreme rulers of the life of the universe, undeniably also belonged by extension to the planets and the stars, which had the same basic nature. Cardano discussed the question of these influences at length. He tried bothto prove their existence, with a plethora of examples, and to identify the paths by which they were propagated and the ways in which they affected the sublunary world. Only repeated observations could provide the basis for a body of theory as elaborate as that of Ptolemy, which could be confirmed, enlarged, and corrected in its turn by the observation of further facts.

Ernst, G. 2001, “ ‘Veritatis amor dulcissimus’: Aspects of Cardano’s Astrology” in Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. W. R. Newman & A. Grafton, 39-68. Cambridge, MA/ Londres: The MIT Press.

Apresentação das Consultas de Astrologia e Tarot

 

Saturno e a Melancolia - A Origem das Qualidades Saturninas: Exemplo Textual

 

Klibansky, R., E. Panofsky & F. Saxl, 1979, Saturn and Melancholy,137-8.

The Greeks at first developed the planetary doctrine transmitted to them in classical times in a purely scientific direction. In this, an astrophysical viewpoint seems from the beginning to have been adopted simultaneously with the purely astronomical. 

Epigenes of Byzantium, who is thought to have lived in early Alexandrian times and therefore to have been one of the oldest mediators between Babylon and Hellas, classified Saturn as "cold and windy". The epithet "cold", according both with the planet's great distance from the sun and with the god's great age adhered to Saturn throughout the years and was never questioned. The property of dryness, implied by "windy", on the other hand, came into conflict with the fact that Pythagorean and Orphic texts described the mythical Kronos as just the opposite, namely, as the god of rain or of the sea; and this accounts for the fact that in later, especially in astrological literature, we so often encounter the singular definition "natura frigida et sicca, sed accidentaliter humida", or something of the sort - a contradiction which can only be explained, if at all, with the help of laborious argumentation. 

Whether it was really Posidonius who reduced the elemental qualities of the planets to an orderly system, we would not venture to decide, but it would be safe to say that it was, within the framework of the Stoic system that the doctrine was efldowed with its full meaning. Not till the formation of a cosmological system in which the opposites heat and cold determined the basic structure of the universe, did the qualities hitherto more or less arbitrarily tributed to the stars reveal a general and universally applicable law of nature, valid for both heavenly and earthly things and therefore establishing for the first time a rationally comprehensible connexion between the one set and the other. To Saturn, which was cold because of its distance from the sun (whether the Stoics thought it moist or dry we do not know), everything cold on earth was first related and finally subordinated ; and it is clear that this embodying of planetary qualities in a universal framework of natural laws must have brought the basic tenet of astrology, namely, the dependence of all earthly things and events upon the "influence" of the heavenly bodies, considerably nearer to Greek thought. 

Klibansky, R., E. Panofsky & F. Saxl, 1979, Saturn and Melancholy. Nendeln/ Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint.

Mimésis (Poesia)

Rembrandt, Harmenszoon van Rijin, Scribe sharpening his quill by candlelight, c.1635.
Weimar: Kunstsammlungen.
https://www.wga.hu/

Mimésis

Textualizada a viagem

Da palavra um êxtase

E de chegada o verbo

Corria da letra a sílaba

06/06/2020

RMdF

A Roma Imperial de Augusto e a Ascensão do Signo de Capricórnio: Exemplo Textual

Barton, T. S., 1994, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Medicine and Physiognomies under the Roman Empire, 40-1.

Astrology was firmly constructed as a legitimator with Augustus’s establishment of the principate. The Iulium sidus belonged to the realm of traditional omens, but the princeps’s publication of his birth sign on coins to be seen all over the empire accorded astrology a new, superior status. Suetonius says that Augustus made his horoscope (thema) public and issued a silver coin with Capricorn, his birth sign, on it. He attributes Octavian’s confidence to a consultation with the astrologer Theogenes in 44 b.c. and sets the publication of the horoscope some unspecified time soon afterward. As Libra was Augustus’ Sun sign, there has long been some debate about the role of Capricorn: both signs are given prominence by the poets. Bouchd-Leclerq and others argue that it was the “chronocrator” of the month of conception (the sign designated as presiding over that month), despite Suetonius’ specification that it was his birth sign. Meanwhile, Riess (1896) and others argue that, as the sign in which the Moon was at the hour of the birth, it was the determining “birth sign.” Gundel (1926) argues that it was the sign in which Augustus’s “Lot of Fortune” was to be found as well as where the Moon was, which would help explain the cases in which Capricorn is to be found portrayed with the attributes of Fortune and Manilius’ use offelix of Capricorn. 

Whatever Capricorn’s precise relation to Augustus’s birth, it is probably significant that it was seen as the birth sign of the Sun, in that the winter solstice takes place in Capricorn. According to Suetonius, he was bom just before the sun rose. As Dwyer (1976) points out, a clever astrologer could have suggested to the young Octavian that Capricorn was an auspicious sign for this reason. Given the associations the princeps cultivated with the sun and Apollo in the early years, it fits well Dwyer himself suggests that, on the basis of Nigidius Figulus’ commentary on the sign of Capricorn, it is to be associated with Pan and his role in restoring the rule of the gods, saving the world from the tyranny of the Titans. He goes further and suggests that, before Actium, the theme of the righteous revenge of the son is implied by the myth narrated by Nigidius. Thus, Capricorn may have first of all symbolized Octavian’s just revenge on the killers of his adoptive father, Julius Caesar, and, only after Actium, liberation from tyranny. Capricorn is also associated with rule over the West in the poets. Dwyer connects Capricorn’s rule over the West with Aeneas’ westward journey. In addition to all this speculation, it is worth noting that Augustus’s principate was inaugurated under Capricorn.

Kraft (1967), who provides photographs of several examples, argues that the appearance of Capricorn on coins from at least 41 /40 B.C. onward is to be linked in another way with Octavian’s careful self-presentation. He claims that the sign was used first of all against Mark Antony. The first surviving coin with the sign of Capricorn may have been minted by Q. Oppius, the praefectus classis (prefect of the fleet) based at Cyrene in 41/40, a partisan of Octavian, who set Capricorn by the head of the Venus of the Julian family, sometimes with the half-moon.Glass pastes and cameos with Capricorn on them, mainly Italian, were also produced before Actium. Examples show Capricorn with a bearded Octavian; or a young Octavian’s head over a ring (Caesar’s signet ring, pointing to his heirship), with Capricorn, com ears and a poppy; or with a child riding on its back over the waves, identified as Octavian and dated to the 40s. Hölscher even identifies one depiction of Capricorn on a glass paste as dating from the period of reconciliation with Antony, as Octavian’s head is placed above the intertwined signs of Capricorn and Leo, Antony’s conception sign. But the sign only played a small role in the public presentation of Octavian before Actium. The first appearance of Capricorn on Augustus’s own coins in 28 B.C. was on the obverse of a denarius (silver coin) from the Eastern mint, together with Augustus’s head, with the crocodile of Egypt and the legend Aegypto capta (Egypt taken), referring to the victory over Antony. Aurei (gold coins) and denarii of the same type followed, while from 27-20 b.c. tetradrachms (coins worth three denarii) from Asia showed Capricorn with a cornucopia on its back.

Barton, T. S., 1994, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Medicine and Physiognomies under the Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

No Trono de Eurínome (Poesia)

Francken, Frans II, The Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite. 

Private collection 

https://www.wga.hu/

No Trono de Eurínome

Arconte de espuma e voragem

Eleito senhor do mar sem rosto

Ó tridente servo da deusa ninfa

Rainha da água mãe do tempo

Libertai no nosso fim a origem

Memória longínqua da criação

Da senhora trono seu novo rei

Libertai no nosso fim a origem

Um uterino mar de nascimento

Ó equino servo da deusa sereia

Criadora do mundo do humano

Libertai no nosso fim a origem

04/06/2020

RMdF

Seleuco e a Prova da Antiguidade do Heliocentrismo: Exemplo Textual

Russo, L., 2004, The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn, 311-2.

   Seleucus of Babylon, already encountered on page 88 in connection with the infnity of the universe, was an astronomer from the second century B.C. about whom not much else is known. But Plutarch offers a very interesting testimonium, whose import appears to have been neglected by historians of science: 

Was [Timaeus] giving the earth motion . . . , and should the earth . . . be understood to have been designed not as confned and fixed but as turning and revolving about, in the way expounded later by Aristarchus and Seleucus, the former assuming this as a hypothesis and the latter proving it?

The passage refers to two types of terrestrial motion, rotation and revolution. The verb ἀποφαίνομαι appearing at the end of the passage allows different possibilities for what Seleucus actually did, but the contrast with "as a hypothesis" clearly implies that he found new arguments in support of these motions.

   To state, as Seleucus did, that the sun really is fixed and the earth is moving is equivalent to stating that planetary stations and retrogressions don't just disappear under the assumption that the sun is stationary, as Aristarchus said, but that they really don't exist. That retrogressions and stations are merely apparent is repeated by pre-Ptolemaic Latin sources, including Pliny and Seneca, suggesting that the notion of heliocentrism as a physical reality, far from being exceptional, was well-known. Thus we might hope to find traces of Seleucus' proof in the literature.

   One argument in favor of heliocentrism is what we reconstructed in Section 10.7 based on a passage of Seneca. With the sun as the reference, the planets' motion admits a simple dynamical description, where centrifugal force balances attraction. In a geocentric model this is not so easy to do: if the planets are attracted by the earth, why wouldn't they fall when they stop in the sky? And if not attracted by the earth, why don't they go off forever? One is tempted to deduce that only the motion around the sun is real. Since classical literature contains no other arguments in favor of heliocentrism, it is reasonable to conjecture that the proof that Plutarch attributes to Seleucus is based on the argument just given, which is reported by Seneca.

Russo, L., 2004, The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn. Berlim/ Heidelberg/ Nova Iorque: Springer Verlag)