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Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer
Girolamo Cardano was an Italian doctor, natural philosopher, and mathematician who became a best-selling author in Renaissance Europe. He was also a leading astrologer of his day, whose predictions won him access to some of the most powerful people in sixteenth-century Europe. In Cardano’s Cosmos , Anthony Grafton invites readers to follow this astrologer’s extraordinary career and explore the art and discipline of astrology in the hands of a brilliant practitioner.
Renaissance astrologers predicted everything from the course of the future of humankind to the risks of a single investment, or even the weather. They analyzed the bodies and characters of countless clients, from rulers to criminals, and enjoyed widespread respect and patronage. This book traces Cardano’s contentious career from his first astrological pamphlet through his rise to high-level consulting and his remarkable autobiographical works. Delving into astrological principles and practices, Grafton shows how Cardano and his contemporaries adapted the ancient art for publication and marketing in a new era of print media and changing science. He maps the context of market and human forces that shaped Cardano’s practices―and the maneuvering that kept him at the top of a world rife with patronage, politics, and vengeful rivals.
Cardano’s astrology, argues Grafton, was a profoundly empirical and highly influential art, one that was integral to the attempts of sixteenth-century scholars to understand their universe and themselves.
Renaissance astrologers predicted everything from the course of the future of humankind to the risks of a single investment, or even the weather. They analyzed the bodies and characters of countless clients, from rulers to criminals, and enjoyed widespread respect and patronage. This book traces Cardano’s contentious career from his first astrological pamphlet through his rise to high-level consulting and his remarkable autobiographical works. Delving into astrological principles and practices, Grafton shows how Cardano and his contemporaries adapted the ancient art for publication and marketing in a new era of print media and changing science. He maps the context of market and human forces that shaped Cardano’s practices―and the maneuvering that kept him at the top of a world rife with patronage, politics, and vengeful rivals.
Cardano’s astrology, argues Grafton, was a profoundly empirical and highly influential art, one that was integral to the attempts of sixteenth-century scholars to understand their universe and themselves.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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About the author
Anthony Grafton
105 books65 followersAnthony Thomas Grafton is an American historian of early modern Europe and the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he is also the Director the Program in European Cultural Studies. He is also a corresponding fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Balzan Prize. From January 2011 to January 2012, he served as the President of the American Historical Association. From 2006 to 2020, Grafton was co-executive editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 17, 2025
Libro davvero interessante, Grafton ha una penna splendida che unisce conoscenza e humor. La lettura è stata piacevole anche se alcuni paragrafi mi hanno annoiato a morte, di rado mi capita di saltare qualche parte leggendo ma qui purtroppo è successo...
Ho apprezzato la figura di Girolamo Cardano, seppur complessa e discutibile.
Tutto sommato è una buona lettura.
Ho apprezzato la figura di Girolamo Cardano, seppur complessa e discutibile.
Tutto sommato è una buona lettura.
December 12, 2018
If the name of Girolamo Cardano (1501 – 1576) is recognized today at all, it’s for the various contributions that he made to science and mathematics, which were both wide-ranging and impressive. He was one of the first mathematicians to make important advancements in the fields of probability and algebra, especially the use of binomial coefficients, the binomial theorem, and the introduction of general solutions to both cubic and quartic equations. He was also one of the first mathematicians in history to ever acknowledge the mathematical need for i (the square root of -1) to solve polynomials that don’t have real zeroes. True to the title, though, Grafton’s current book focuses solely on Cardano’s work in the field of astrology, combined with plenty of discussion of peripheral topics like trends in sixteenth-century trends in print and print culture, the practice of collecting books and curios, and the general rebirth of antiquity that astrology necessitated.
Perhaps one of the biggest tasks that this book takes on is trying to introduce astrology to the 21st century reader who almost certainly is accustomed to it as nothing more than vague prognostications about personality read in a newspaper or palm reader. The dismissive attitude that we hold today toward activities that modern science considers superstitious or mumbo-jumbo can sometimes cloud our judgments about the work as it was actually practiced in context.
To be clear, in no way am I expressing support or validation of astrology. It is obvious that no person with a scientific education would today think that the location of stars and planets has anything to do with the destiny or character of a human being born on a particular day. All I’m arguing is that Cardano – and the vast majority of his contemporaries – did in fact believe this, treated it as a fundamentally correct way of looking at the universe, and then proceeded to build upon that assumption in ways that are clearly rational and rigorous. To confuse matters even further, just as five centuries ago, the natural sciences and philosophy were still fused into a single discipline, so were astrology and astronomy. The notion of one being “rational and legitimate” and the other being “irrational or superstitious” would have been completely incoherent to Cardano.
Originally trained as a physician, Cardano quickly began to realize that astrology was a big business, for both laypeople and royals alike. To be sure, astrology had its historical detractors: Cicero, Augustine, and Luther himself all inveighed against the idea that the location of the planets and stars could determine the destinies of empires and the fates of human beings. But the vast majority of Cardano’s contemporaries were avid consumers of occult prophecy. Cardano’s horoscopes (or “genitures,” as they are more accurately called) that he composed for not only illustrious leaders but also historical figures (including Jesus himself – imagine the self esteem you need to possess to write the horoscope of someone who’s been dead for fifteen centuries!) put him contact with some of the most famous people of his day, including John Dee, the renowned advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, and the young King Edward. By 1534, he had become a professor of medicine, but was had no plans to limit his interests. He published a commentary on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, hoping that it would reform certain strains in the practice of astrology. Within a few years, he had made a name for himself composing genitures, as well as textbooks of aphorisms and rules for astrological interpretation. By 1543, the edition of one of his books had reached a total of sixty-seven genitures.
In subsequent chapters, Grafton looks at the market for such treatises, especially in Germany and Italy as well as the practice of cultivating private commissions to compose genitures. For those interested in the history of alchemy and other kinds of hermeticism, there’s a chapter that retells Cardano’s reevaluation of Ptolemy, which was in turn inspired by his medical knowledge of both Galen and Hippocrates.
Even if, with the benefit of modern science and rationality, we look back on Cardano as a little benighted for his interest in such topics, historians no less imminent than Jakob Burckhardt, that great Swiss scholar of Cardano’s age, acknowledged that Cardano’s autobiography as an example of self-reflection and criticism could not have taken place before the arrival of the Italian Renaissance. Grafton’s writing showed that, while he was earnestly convinced of the power of astrology, Cardano was also fighting to defend and improve upon his art form. It is for this that while he may never be ranked with the Eramuses and Pico della Mirandolas of the world, he was a humanist whose work and introspection repays close, careful study.
Perhaps one of the biggest tasks that this book takes on is trying to introduce astrology to the 21st century reader who almost certainly is accustomed to it as nothing more than vague prognostications about personality read in a newspaper or palm reader. The dismissive attitude that we hold today toward activities that modern science considers superstitious or mumbo-jumbo can sometimes cloud our judgments about the work as it was actually practiced in context.
To be clear, in no way am I expressing support or validation of astrology. It is obvious that no person with a scientific education would today think that the location of stars and planets has anything to do with the destiny or character of a human being born on a particular day. All I’m arguing is that Cardano – and the vast majority of his contemporaries – did in fact believe this, treated it as a fundamentally correct way of looking at the universe, and then proceeded to build upon that assumption in ways that are clearly rational and rigorous. To confuse matters even further, just as five centuries ago, the natural sciences and philosophy were still fused into a single discipline, so were astrology and astronomy. The notion of one being “rational and legitimate” and the other being “irrational or superstitious” would have been completely incoherent to Cardano.
Originally trained as a physician, Cardano quickly began to realize that astrology was a big business, for both laypeople and royals alike. To be sure, astrology had its historical detractors: Cicero, Augustine, and Luther himself all inveighed against the idea that the location of the planets and stars could determine the destinies of empires and the fates of human beings. But the vast majority of Cardano’s contemporaries were avid consumers of occult prophecy. Cardano’s horoscopes (or “genitures,” as they are more accurately called) that he composed for not only illustrious leaders but also historical figures (including Jesus himself – imagine the self esteem you need to possess to write the horoscope of someone who’s been dead for fifteen centuries!) put him contact with some of the most famous people of his day, including John Dee, the renowned advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, and the young King Edward. By 1534, he had become a professor of medicine, but was had no plans to limit his interests. He published a commentary on Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, hoping that it would reform certain strains in the practice of astrology. Within a few years, he had made a name for himself composing genitures, as well as textbooks of aphorisms and rules for astrological interpretation. By 1543, the edition of one of his books had reached a total of sixty-seven genitures.
In subsequent chapters, Grafton looks at the market for such treatises, especially in Germany and Italy as well as the practice of cultivating private commissions to compose genitures. For those interested in the history of alchemy and other kinds of hermeticism, there’s a chapter that retells Cardano’s reevaluation of Ptolemy, which was in turn inspired by his medical knowledge of both Galen and Hippocrates.
Even if, with the benefit of modern science and rationality, we look back on Cardano as a little benighted for his interest in such topics, historians no less imminent than Jakob Burckhardt, that great Swiss scholar of Cardano’s age, acknowledged that Cardano’s autobiography as an example of self-reflection and criticism could not have taken place before the arrival of the Italian Renaissance. Grafton’s writing showed that, while he was earnestly convinced of the power of astrology, Cardano was also fighting to defend and improve upon his art form. It is for this that while he may never be ranked with the Eramuses and Pico della Mirandolas of the world, he was a humanist whose work and introspection repays close, careful study.
January 9, 2026
bence mukemmeldi her sey istemsiz gelisti ama abi on numara mal simarikliktan belli kardesim
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