At the beginning of the thirteenth century this superstition suddenly appeared in the foreground of Italian life.The Emperor Frederick IIalways travelled with his astrologer Theodorus; and Ezzelino da Romano with a large, well-paid court of such people, among them the famous Guido Bonatto and the long-bearded Saracen, Paul of Baghdad.In all important undertakings they fixed for him the day and the hour, and the gigantic atrocities of which he was guilty may have been in part practical inferences from their prophecies.Soon all scruples about consulting the stars ceased.Not only princes, but free cities, had their regular astrologers, and at the universities, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, professors of this pseudo-science were appointed, and lectured side by side with the astronomers.The Popes commonly made no secret of their stargazing, though Pius II, who also despised magic, omens, and the interpretation of dreams, is an honorable exception.Even Leo X seems to have thought the flourishing condition of astrology a credit to his pontificate, and Paul III never held a Consistory till the stargazers had fixed the hour.
It may fairly be assumed that the better natures did not allow their actions to be determined by the stars beyond a certain point, and that there was a limit where conscience and religion made them pause.In fact, not only did pious and excellent people share the delusion, but they actually came forward to profess it publicly.One of these was Maestro Pagolo of Florence, in whom we can detect the same desire to bring astrology to moral account which meets us in the late Roman Firmicus Maternus.His life was that of a saintly ascetic.He ate almost nothing, despised all temporal goods, and only collected books.
A skilled physician, he only practiced among his friends, and made it a condition of his treatment that they should confess their sins.He frequented the small but famous circle which assembled in the Monastery of the Angeli around Fra Ambrogio Camaldolese.He also saw much of Cosimo the Elder, especially in his last years; for Cosimo accepted and used astrology, though probably only for objects of lesser importance.
As a rule, however, Pagolo only interpreted the stars to his most confidential friends.But even without this severity of morals, the astrologers might be highly respected and show themselves everywhere.
There were also far more of them in Italy than in other European countries, where they only appeared at the great courts, and there not always.All the great householders in Italy, when the fashion was once established, kept an astrologer, who, it must be added, was not always sure of his dinner.Through the literature of this science, which was widely diffused even before the invention of printing, a dilettantism also grew up which as far as possible followed in the steps of the masters.The worst class of astrologers were those who used the stars either as an aid or a cloak to magical arts.
Yet apart from the latter, astrology is a miserable feature in the life of that time.What a figure do all these highly gifted, many-sided, original characters play, when the blind passion for knowing and determining the future dethrones their powerful will and resolution!
Now and then, when the stars send them too cruel a message, they manage to brace themselves up, act for themselves, and say boldly: 'Vir sapiens dominabitus lustris', the wise man is master of the stars--and then again relapse into the old delusion.
In all the better families the horoscope of the children was drawn as a matter of course, and it sometimes happened that for half a lifetime men were haunted by the idle expectation of events which never occurred! The stars were questioned whenever a great man had to come to any important decision, and even consulted as to the hour at which any undertaking was to be begun.The journeys of princes, the reception of foreign ambassadors, the laying of the foundation-stones of public buildings, depended on the answer.A striking instance of the latter occurs in the life of the aforenamed Guido Bonatto, who by his personal activity and by his great systematic work on the subject deserves to be called the restorer of astrology in the thirteenth century.In order to put an end to the struggle of the Guelphs and Ghibellines at Forli, he persuaded the inhabitants to rebuild the city walls and to begin the works under a constellation indicated by himself.If then two men, one from each party, at the same moment put a stone into the foundation, there would henceforth and for ever be no more party divisions in Forli.A Guelph and a Ghibelline were selected for this office; the solemn moment arrived, each held the stone in his hands, the workmen stood ready with their implements.Bonatto gave the signal, and the Ghibelline threw down his stone on to the foundation.But the Guelph hesitated, and at last refused to do anything at all, on the ground that Bonatto himself had the reputation of a Ghibelline and might be devising some mysterious mischief against the Guelphs.Upon which the astrologer addressed him: 'God damn thee and the Guelph party with your distrustful malice! This constellation will not appear above our city for 500 years to come.' In fact God soon afterwards did destroy the Guelphs of Forli, but now, writes the chronicler about 1480, the two parties are thoroughly reconciled, and their very names are heard no longer.
