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Campanelliana
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H. Darrel Rutkin
Elide Casali's Le spie del cielo,' the rich results of thirty years of scholarly la
a vast and underexplored mine of primary source material, makes a signi
contribution to our understanding of the important but still imperfectly
stood roles astrology played in premodem Western Europe. Casali's high
bitious aim is to explore and map out many of astrology's locations in the
cultural map of Renaissance and Early Modem Italy, 1450-1800, primarily by
ing annual prognostications of various sorts. In this she succeeds admirab
The book is divided into three parts. In the first, I segretan delle stelle,
discusses the astrologer's profession and the various kinds of astrologica
nostications. In part two, I segni del cielo, she discusses comets, and the
astrology played in agriculture, medicine and politics. Each of these chapt
7) is a useful mini-monograph on its subject. The third section, Ciarlata
timbanchi, almanacchisti, treats popular astrology, satirical attacks and th
tual transformation of the almanacs into their modem form. The text is fol
lowed by an extremely valuable bibliography of primary sources (274-314) and
mostly Italian scholarship (317-331). Casali's mapping of this vast cultural terrain
and her extensive bibliography provide a solid foundation for the further re
search required to make astrology's historical and conceptual contours more
precise.
It is problematic, however, that a book of this sort full of minor and obscure
figures is provided with no indices whatsoever, not even an index of names.
Thus, anyone wishing to use this important book must read it in its entirety and
compile their own indices, surely an excessive reader-unfriendliness, especially
in this age of the computer generated index. Although this might be considered
a blessing in disguise in that the book amply repays a full reading, the omission
is unfortunate. Hopefully this defect will be remedied in the translations this
useful book richly deserves.*
I would also like to make a global methodological criticism. Although it is
obvious that Casali carefully read the works cited in her bibliography, she does
not quote enough of the primary sources at sufficient length if at all. This is
unfortunate given the rhetorical structure of many of her arguments, where she
makes a general claim and then draws a conclusion from it, citing only the bib
liographic information for the text she relies on, but without quoting the con
tents of the text itself. If these texts were more easily accessable, it would not
matter; but since they are all but completely unavailable, especially to scholars
outside Italy (or Europe more generally), there is simply no way to evaluate her
arguments without going to Italy and retracing her footsteps. I would be the last
1.E. Casali, Le spie del cielo : oroscopi, lunari e almanacchi nell'Italia moderna, Einaudi, Τ orino
2003,331 pp.
2. Likewise, in the translations such typographical errors as F. Yeats (for Frances Yates) and
Y. Curry (for Patrick Curry) should also be corrected.
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512 Bruniana &■ Campanelliana
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Sphaera 513
una cultura e un'interpretazione degli astri scandite dai saperi ereditati dall'antichità
pagana greca, araba, egizia, indiana, si fonde con le mitologie dei demoni astrali e
delle magie astrologiche, s'incontra con le teorie dei figli dei pianeti, della congiun
zionistica e dell'oroscopo delle religioni (vii-vni).
She then uses these imperfectly defined concepts as analytic catégories to sup
port her broader arguments conceming important historical developments.
Unfortunately, the distinction is neither obvious nor unproblematic, and thus
requires a detailed, properly historieized analysis. Only then will the arguments
based on this distinction be sound.
The issue is also problematic in that her brief description of judicial astrology
relates it directly to another conceptual problem area, the relationship of astrol
ogy to the so-called 'occult sciences', especially magic. To associate judicial as
trology closely with magical practices without a nuanced historieized under
standing of their complex relationship - which often has différent textures in
différent thinkers - can lead to misunderstandings. Perhaps it holds for Marsilio
Ficino, especially in book m of De vita, but Albertus Magnus in his profoundly
influential Spéculum astronomiae explicitly distinguishes the legitimate astrology
he promûtes from problematic astrologico-magical practices. As I have leamed
in my work on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino, none of these
issues are obvious to a modem sensibility. To import our own conceptions and
distinctions as virtually universal analytic catégories without a detailed, nuanced
and contextualized reading of primary sources - especially those that discuss
these issues explicitly - is a recipe for historiographie confusion. Unfortunately,
Casali's conceptual imprécision on this issue also affects her larger argument on
the changes that took place in relation to astrology during the Counter-Refor
mation, with the formation of what she calls «Catholic astrology».
Τ ο understand properly the distinction between judicial and naturai astrolo
gy, one must examine a range of authors' usages over time, say, fforn Albertus
Magnus's Spéculum astronomiae (c. 1270) to the article «astrology» in the first édi
tion of Ephraim Chambers's Cyclopedia (1728) which was translated Verbatim in
the first édition of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie (1751). Albertus clearly
distinguishes the two «sciences of the stars», what we would cali astronomy and
astrology, following Ptolemy's equally clear distinction in Tetrabiblos 1, 1. For
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5i4 Bruniana àr Campanelliana
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Sphaera 515
ly revealing. Ind
turies, ali of th
ical introduction
to construct hor
annual tables pr
gress into Aries
change only at t
Casali provides
structure of ann
stages. In the fi
tions, which had
cations. Althoug
teenth centuries
from the univer
change from lea
content from th
properly constr
into Aries with
prognostications
professors of as
Andreas Argoli
ular almanacs, o
generalized astr
astrological aspe
move the astrolo
rythm of the y
medicine, agricu
to our understan
literary genre.
Elide Casali's Le
tant and underu
politics, religion
losophy, and the
develop and refi
ommend it stro
brary's and mos
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