In this episode of the serial I’m going to consider medieval directions. Or to be more precise, I begin to consider medieval directions.
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I considered the Hellenistic method of primary directions in two previous posts Primary Directions: the story of calculations (vol.1 and vol.2). Most Hellenistic astrologers directed this way. But there is a very important exception. This exception is Ptolemy.
Ptolemy was an eminent scholar of his time, the level of his knowledges and abilities was much higher than the level of a common astrologer of that time. Ptolemaic method of directions is much more advanced with respect to mathematics and astronomy, than the Hellenistic method I considered before, but his method wasn’t spread among Hellenistic astrologers.
Let’s consider the Ptolemaic method of primary directions as it is described in Tetrabiblos III,10.
Just a quotation about some fixed stars and hight social position from “De fixis stellis commentarius” (The Commentary On Fixed Stars) by Johannes Stadius:
Lyra [Vega, α Lyrae] in the second house or mixed with Jupiter, Venus or the Part [of Fortune] promises immeasurable wealth.
The Right Shoulder of Orion [Betelgeuse, α Orionis] or of Auriga [Menkalinan, β Aurigae] with Jupiter promises the famous fortune and increase of faculties.
Italian astrologer of XVII century Andrea Argoli (also known by the Latin version of his surname as Argolus) gives in his book a natal chart of the famous French cardinal Richelieu (see Andreae Argoli… De diebus criticis et aegrorum decubitu, Patavij 1652, page 172, 173). The charts in this book are rectified. The rectification mostly made with primary directions. From the other hand, there is a nativity of Richelieu in the book of the famous French astrologer Jean-Baptiste Morin (see his Astrologia Gallica, Hagae 1661, page 612). The version of Morin is not the same as the version of Argoli.
I examined the system of ascensions of the Zodiacal signs used by Hellenistic astrologers. You can find it in the previous post of this line. This time we consider Hellenistic method of primary directions. Let’s consider an example of calculation of primary directions from the text of Paulus Alexandrinus.
I wrote two posts on story of primary directions. It was couple years ago, and now these posts are buried deeply in the archives of Angelicus Merlin Group. Therefore I decided to repeat that stuff and perhaps to develop the subject.
First of all, because primary directions are based on daily rotation of celestial sphere, we must have a mathematical model of this rotation to calculate directions. The first model of this rotation was made in Babylon, but astrologers of Hellenistic period mostly call it “according to Egyptians”.
Recently I read “De fixis stellis commentarius” (The Commentary On Fixed Stars) by Johannes Stadius.
Johannes Stadius (1527 – 1579) was a Dutch (his Dutch name was Jan Van Ostaeyen) from Belgium (Flemish). He was astronomer, astrologer, historian and mathematician. Stadius lived in Turin, Cologne, Brussels and Paris. He worked as professor of mathematics in the University of Leuven, and also he worked as a mathematician for the Duke of Savoy.
Along with common astronomical and astrological information about the most famous fixed stars, this text contains some rare and interesting details for astrological gourmets. One of them is the fixed star of the place.
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