ad Astra

This is episode 50 of the main podcast series! In this podcast we talk once more with researcher David Juste on his latest research on medieval astrological charts accompanied by their judgement. We discuss several aspects of the existing corpus of medieval charts. David Just has specialised in the study and cataloguing of astrological manuscripts and has published three volumes of the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Latinorum.

For more information on his work and publications see: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/team/4

David has collected a vast list of bibliography on the history of astrology that can be found at: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/astrobibl/start

In this episode we talk with Yael Kedar a specialist on Roger Bacon about his writings on astrology. Yael Kedar is a faculty member at Tel-Hai College, research fellow at the University of Haifa, and vice-president of the Roger Bacon Society.

For more details on Dr. Kedar’s works see: https://telhai.academia.edu/yaelraizmankedar or https://english.telhai.ac.il/faculty-members/single-faculty-member/user/12/

This episode of In Memoriam addresses another monumental figure of the history of science, who made invaluable contributions to the history of astrology: Otto E. Neugebauer (26 May 1899 –19 February 1990). Together with Professors Alexander Jones and Charles Burnett we discuss his life and work and become aware of the scholar, and also the man. Born in Innsbruck, Austria, he became one of the leading figures of the history of mathematics leaving behind a great amount of work ranging from the ancient world to the early modern period. Among his contributions is his short but famous defence of the historical study of astrology, “The Study of Wretched Subjects” (1951), that signals a change in the historiographic mindset on topics such as astrology, magic and alchemy.

A Biographical Memoir by N.M. Swerdlow: http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/neugebauer-otto.pdf

“The Study of Wretched Subjects” (1951) can be found here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/349279

In this episode we talk to Pietro Omodeo, historian of science and philosophy and historical epistemology specialising in the early modern period. He currently the principal investigator on the ERC Consolidator Project Institutions and Metaphysics of Cosmology in the Epistemic Networks of Seventeenth-Century Europe hosted by the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. In our conversation Pietro Omodeo presents his research of Johannes Placentinus, a seventeenth-century scholar whose astrological writings are in tune with the Cartesian ideas circulation in this period. An interesting example of an early modern adaptation of astrology to new emerging cosmological theories.

For more on Pietro Omodeo’s work, see: https://www.unive.it/data/people/14840389

For the the Institutions and Metaphysics of Cosmology ERC project, see: https://www.unive.it/pag/35129

In this episode we have as our guest Professor Richard Lynn Kremer. He is an emeritus professor of History of Dartmouth College, specialising in the history of science, medicine and technology. He is also the Curator of the Collection of Scientific Instruments at Dartmouth. Our conversation addresses one of Professor Kremer’s main research topics, mathematical astronomy, from Ptolemy to the early modern period. Currently he is part of the ALFA project at the Observatory of Paris and focuses on tables and computations in the medieval and early modern periods.

For more on his work see:

– https://history.dartmouth.edu/people/richard-lynn-kremer

– https://alfa.hypotheses.org

In this episode we talk with Darin Hayton, associate Professor of History and Chair of History Department at Haverford College. Professor Hayton has published several woks on the history of astrology and the mathematical sciences in the contexts of courtly politics, among which his book The Crown and the Cosmos. Astrology and the Politics of Maximilian I (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015). In this podcast he talks about his academic path in the history of astrology and presents his current research on the Greek version of Ptolemy’s Ὁ Καρπός (better known by its Latin title, Centiloquium or Liber Frutus).

For Darin Hayton’s work see: https://www.haverford.edu/users/dhayton

This episode of In Memoriam we are joined by Günther Oestmann to remember historian Peter Franz Schiller (29 November 1947 – 23 January 2013). Born in Düsseldorf, Schiller was musically and artistically talented, his vocation was art history and he studied this subject together with archaeology and philosophy as minor subjects. Catholic theology was added as a double degree course. His scientific œuvre is very narrow. Yet the originality and quality of his scientific work could have paved the way for a brilliant career. His doctoral thesis on the relationship between architecture and astronomy in Andrea Palladio’s work (1985) was already highly original and astute. His lecture on the iconography of the ceiling painting of the Sala di Galatea in the Farnesina in Rome at the conference “The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance” in Wolfenbüttel in 1988, was also very thorough and methodically sound. Schiller presented a precise analysis of the astronomical-astrological parameters and was able to show that the frescoes indeed represent a horoscope scheme and cannot be explained by ancient texts.

(adapted from the obituary by Günther Oestmann)

German publication: https://www.academia.edu/8488404/Obituary_Peter_Schiller_1947_2013_

In this episode we talk with researcher Michael Noble about his recent book: Philosophising the Occult. Avicennan Psychology and ‘The Hidden Secret’ of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (De Gruyter, 2021). This work is the result of Michael’s PhD research at The Warburg Institute and touches on many aspects of Arabic cosmology and astral magic. Michael is currently a post doctoral researcher at the Ludwig-Maximilans Universitat on the project The Heirs of Avicenna: Philosophy in the Islamic East from the 12th to the 13th Century (DFG funded project, 2016-19).

For Michael’s book see: https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/550156

In this episode we talk to Samuel Gessner about the armillary sphere, an interesting astronomic instrument with astrological applications. Samuel explains the role and functions of these spheres, often used as teaching tools in medieval universities. He demonstrates some of its applications in astrology. Samuel is a post doctoral researcher at the ERC ALPHA project, Observatoire de Paris.

We thank the IMCCE Observatoire de Paris for making available the armillary sphere

For the ALPHA project, see: https://alfa.hypotheses.org/

In this episode we talk with Jonathan Green, professor at the University of North Dakota, and a researcher of German medieval and early modern literature. We discuss his work on prophecy and its dissemination during the early modern period, as well as his current research projects. Jonathan Green has written two important books on prophecy literature. The first, Printing and Prophecy: Prognostication and Media Change 1450–1550 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012) deals with the role of printing in the dissemination of prognostications, many of them astrological or based on astrology. The second continues this line o research into the prophecies of Wilhelm Friess: The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess: The Paths of Prophecy in Reformation Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014).

For more details on his work, see: https://und.edu/directory/jonathan.green