ASTROLOGY, PROPHECY AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN SCIENCE SEEN THROUGH THE LENSES OF RENAISSANCE ART

Abstract

As a follow-up to my previous studies in astrological representations in the XV-XVI century art of Veneto, I will shed light on the fil rouge connecting different experiences like the planning of astrological frescoes in Montagnana by Galeottus Martius, the collaboration between Giovan Battista Abioso and Giorgione in the painting of the famous Castelfranco Frieze and the visual prognostication of Giulio Campagnola‟s Astrolo- ger, namely the artistic representation of highly complex astral theories applied to world history. This com- mitment to mundane astrology mixed with prophetic and apocalyptic doctrines emerges from an analysis of the whole catalogue of astral artworks in the Italian territory: 10 out of 240 of them reveal this unmistakable character and all are concentrated in the northeastern territory. There are many additional evidences that the recurring theme of astrological divination was in fact a widespread enterprise among humanists, philoso- phers, theologians and artists of the “Venetian Terraferma” at the time. Its discussion, reverberated across several generations and in nearby territories, reveals an informal “web” of study and research that goes well beyond the lecture halls of the local University, including poets, physicians, painters, heretics, goliardic se- cret societies and would-be revolutionary astronomers like Copernicus. In many features of the cited in- stances we find the typical rationalistic approach of the Aristotelian-Averroistic Paduan school inextricably linked to mysticism, neo-platonic magic and theology, a tradition going back at least to Pietro d‟Abano and Biagio Pelacani. The same tradition, reinforced by a growing penchant for mathematical modelling and care- ful measuring, that will lead to the materialism of Pomponazzi, Telesius and Vanini and ultimately to the mature science of Galileo. Instead of considering this process a slow but glorious liberation from superstition as too many historians still do, I will try to argue that the interest in astrological divination has been a fertile breeding ground for the Scientific Revolution and in particular for the rebirth of Heliocentrism, a controversial thesis in the vein of Dame Frances Yates, akin to that recently advocated by Robert Westman in his debated “The Copernican Question” (2011).