ABSTRACT
The power to predict the future was an attractive prospect, with numerous divinatory methods being employed since antiquity. This chapter focuses on the most long-lived of these, the science of astrology. Well into the Renaissance, the existence of a relationship between the celestial and terrestrial realms, and the notion that planetary motions above exercised some infl uence on activities below, were accepted by many.1 Observation of extraordinary events in the heavens combined with traditional astrological lore to constellate either a passionate belief in a coming new era or intense anxieties about the approach of cataclysmic events. From vast political organisms to lone individuals, all were potentially infl uenced by the course of the stars. It was, perhaps, inevitable that some would not simply be content with predicting such futures, but would actively attempt to infl uence their outcome, be that to ward off the effects of the sudden appearance of a comet or an eclipse, or to promote a harmonious way of living according to the stars (Schmitt 4, 8-9).
