Course XXVI - Teaching 12: Astrological Oracles

Now, at this strange Court of Catherine of Médicis, in sixteen century, we shall refer to the most important astrological oracles of her time, and to Luca Gaurico and Nostradamus, closely related to the Médicis’ family.
Luca Gaurico –master of Julius Caesar Scaliger, a learned philologist of Padua– is a world-wide well-known scientific. Born in a poor family, on March 12, 1476, South of Italy, he earns his living as a teacher of great lords. Later he studies judicial astrology and the influence of the stars on the human destiny; he contributes to this science with a new method of forecast by the horoscope.
Gaurico becomes famous because of several fully-justified predictions, and the highest personages come and consult him. Giovanni II Bentivoglio, a tyrant of Bolonia, consults him about his destiny as Chief of State, and Gaurico goes into exile because of his oracle, but before it he must suffer seven times the torment of “mancuerda”, whose consequences he will undergo several years later. But on November 1506, when Bentivoglio opens the gate of the city to the Pope Julius II, again he approves the divinatory art of Luca Gaurico who becomes more popular. When he raises the horoscope of the Pope Paul III, Luca Gaurico foretells with surprising precision the sickness and death of this Pontiff, who dies the day indicated by Gaurico, on November 20, 1549. But Paul III does not wait for the fulfillment of this prophecy and grants to Gaurico the Bishopric of Civita Castellana and the grade of Knight, but four years after the death of this Pope, he abandons these duties and finally settles in Rome.
In Médicis’ family, astrologers are always welcome, and not surprisingly Catherine’s parents consulted Gaurico who, just as he predicted the Bishop Hamilton that the torment would be the end of his Bishopric, so he foretold to Giovanni de Médicis, great-uncle of Catherine, Cardinal at the age of fourteen, that he would become Pope, as in fact it occurred twenty years later, under the name of Leo X. To another uncle of Catherine (Giulio de Médicis) he predicted his extreme activities, important political struggles and numerous descendants. As you know, Giulio de Médicis, chosen Pope under the name of Clement VI, is famous as much for his fights with Charles V and Henry VIII, of England, as for his love affairs and his 29 bastards.
As the Apparent Heir of France, Catherine wishes to know the destiny of her husband. Following the rules of Ciocla-Avicenna triplicities, Gaurico sums up his observations and states that the Heir would exert the royal power, first marked by a duel, and finally by another duel that would put a stop to his reign and her life. Also he explains in detail the kind of wound that would produce the death of Henry II during this duel. But the danger of this duel was impossible because of the social condition of the Prince, and then this prediction of the famous astrologer was scarcely believed. But Gaurico insisted on his statements, printed in France in 1552, that is, seven years before the well-known duel in which Henry II would find his death. Also he had sent a letter to the King repeating with full details his prediction and advising him to avoid any single combat in closed field, over all around his 41 years of age, since a wound n his head, at this age, could produce his blindness or his death; this letter hardly affects Henry II.
But obsessed by this prediction, Catherine calls the most famous sages of her time whether to control the horoscope of the astrologer or to conjure the danger. So, she goes to Gabriele Simeoni, a Florentine astrologer and mediocre writer. But Simeoni was over all an ambitious pedant whose conclusions about Gaurico’s horoscope were trivial statements with the only purpose of maintaining the blind trust of Catherine in the astrological science.
But in Catherine’s court there is another being who, since the sixteen century until our days, has received the most enthusiastic admiration and the hardest epithets, author of certain strange “Centuries”: Michel de Notredame, better known by his Latin name Nostradamus.
Doubtless, the 80 printings of this mysterious book, “Centuries”, denote that it is the work of a little vulgar brain, not exempt of candid or clairvoyant readers. But beyond all doubt, apart from the superstition or exaggeration of Nostradamus’ apologists, his name really deserves to take part in the list of great intellectuals of the sixteen and seventeen century, beside Jean Aime Chavigny and Balthazar Guynaud.
Physician at the age of 22, in Montpellier, this close friend of Julius Caesar Scaliger lectures for long in the Faculty of Medicine.
Later, still in the field of medicine, get enthusiastic about astrology, studies old texts of literature, translates astrological documents of the antiquity and rectifies many astronomical calculations; so, his renown is such that the Duke and the Duchess of Savoy consult him in Salon-de Craux, his usual place of residence.
In 1555 he publishes his first three Centuries, and later he adds the 53 first quatrains of the Fourth Century, and a letter to Cesar of Nostradamus, his son.
The same year, Henri II learns of these “Centuries” and of his destiny predicted by Nostradamus in the book, and is amazed at the coincidence between this prediction and a previous forecast of Luca Gaurico. On August 15, 1555, he calls Nostradamus to the court, and the fortune-teller confirms these presages of death with the following verse whose translation reads more or less as follows:
The young Lion shall surpass the old lion
On the battlefield in a single combat
In golden box he will pierce his eyes
Two clashes, just one, later (rupture) to die
Of cruel death.
We must recognize that, in spite of this seemingly enigmatic writing, events proved to be so detailed and accurate like that of Gaurico.
Gaurico dies on March 15, 1558, and Nostradamus finally is appointed attaché to the Court of France as Physician-astrologer, becomes adviser of the King, and Catherine de Medicine, who is congenial to him, often consults him for personal matters and also for steps that Henri II has to take. Following the advice of the fortune-teller, she makes every effort day by day to watch over the safety of the King for his necessary protection. Also she is obsessed by those two predictions related to the life of her husband.
Preparations for two royal celebrations are about to end. They refer to the weddings of Isabel of France, elder daughter of Henri II and her daughter Marguerite with the King of Spain and the Duke of Savoy, Hilibert-Emmanuel, respectively. Meanwhile, violent political-religious discussions follow one another in the Parliament; relationships of Henri II with Diana de Poitier and occult practices of his wife are censured; as a result of it, Du Bourg, Du Faur and other three consultants and one president are arrested; a Bishop and the Inquisitor of Paris preside over a commission to judge the magistrates under arrest; and Henri II severely punishes those persons who are declared heretics.
On June 30, 1559, about 9 a.m., the King instructs to open the tournaments with bugle calls. After the lunch, he decides to take part in them as “tenant”, that is, as a defender, in combats in closed field, and sends for his weapons. After two fights, the one with De Savoy and the other with De Guise, it is the turn of the young Count of Montgomery, Lord of Lorges. After their three runs, the King asks De Veilleville, his subsequent “tenant”, permission to a complementary “revanche” with the Count of Montgomery. King and Count meet near the middle of the way. The spears collide against their chests and break. After they reach individually the opposite end to the respective entry, they have to come back galloping to the starting point, which forces them to a new encounter.
But when the two come back, the Count of Montgomery does not throw away the piece of the broken spear as usual, while the King has thrown his own. The Count advances quickly, with the broken spear ahead when suddenly the eye-shade of the royal helmet is raised and the spear hits with violence the head of Henri II; the piece of the spear enters the right eye of the king and goes out through his ear.
So, accidentally, “in a single combat”, the prophecies of Gaurico and Nostradamus are fulfilled, and the King dies on July 10, 1559, after 11 days of agony.
If Nostradamus is neither an astrologer nor a clairvoyant, and prophesies by means of magical mirrors, or is an “extra-lucid” seer, as certain authors state, it is true that his oracle is strictly real and thoroughly fulfilled by fatality in the form and time also foretold by Luca Gaurico in relation to the death of the King when Catherine of Médicis, always so anxious about the future, made her consult.