Pico Della Mirandola, Giovanni
natal chart (Placidus)
natal chart English style (Equal houses)
natal chart with Whole Sign houses
| Name |
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| born on | 24 February 1463 Jul.Cal. (5 Mar 1463 greg.) at 20:38:56 (= 8:38 PM ) | ||||
| Place | Mirandola, Italy, 44n53, 11e04 | ||||
| Timezone | LMT m11e04 (is local mean time) | ||||
| Data source |
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| Astrology data |   14°47'   25°28 Asc. 17°14'
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Biography
Italian humanist philosopher and scholar. Among his writings, he accused astrology of being the enemy of the Church. Born into nobility as a Count, his intent was to give away all his worldly belongings and wander barefoot on a path of self-abnegation, but he died at the age of 31 of a fever, 11/17/1494, Florence.
Events
- Other Death 17 November 1494 Jul.Cal. (26 Nov 1494 greg.) at 12:00 noon in Florence (Fever, age 31)
chart Placidus Equal_H.
Source Notes
Cirkels quotes Gettings, February 24, 1463 OS. The time is given as 7:54:38 PM GMT so has either been rectified or corrected from an LAT time of 7:40. Moreover, the date is that which was at a time when the Annunciation calendar was in use and whether the correction has been made to a New-Years-Day of January 1st, is not designated. Therefore, both the date and time are unconfirmed.
Lescaut gave the same date with 8:40 PM LMT as "archives," apparently meaning that he has it written down inasmuch as he has no specific mention of whose archives or where. Bordoni has the same date with 2:42 AM, no source.
Larry (?) writes, "I got Pico della Mirandola's published chart from Ken Gillman, who said it appears in: Collection of Nativities, John Gadbury, 1662, p. 50-51.
The chart is given in the square style on the bottom of page 50, along with a sidebar of personal description and interpretation. The interpretation continues on the whole of page 51.
The date given in the center of the chart is February 24, 1464, which is Julian, as to the day. But the year is wrong, which is a typo. The year should be 1463. The planets' longitudes are given for the year 1463.
However, the longitudes are in places a degree to four degrees off, due to the usual accuracy of the time.
The given MC is 20Cn58; the given AS is 17Li12. I have rectified the MC to about 21Cn16. I feel very confident from looking at his events and looking at his synastry to important charts, that the time and date are right.
I can email you a chronology at a later date, which I am still putting together from the Italian.
The given time is: 2h. 42 m. Post occasum Solis (this is Latin for "after sunset").
The latitude of birth is given as: Polus, 45 deg. (the actual latitude north is 44N53, and the longitude is 11E04), from The International Atlas, Thomas Shanks, ACS, 1985.
Below the time and latitude data, it reads: "From Lyndholt." I assume that Lyndholt is some earlier English astrologer who got the chart elsewhere.
Apparently the one who drew up the chart was Girolamo Benivieni, a personal friend of Pico. I got this information from Grazia Mirti, who publishes the Italian astrological journal LINGUAGGIO ASTRALE. Her email address is: mirti@venco.it
The time of 2:42 past sunset is in unequal hours. The corresponding times are:
GMT 19hr 54mn 40sc
LMT 8hr 38mn 56sc pm (past noon)
LAT 8hr 26mn 47sc pm (past noon)
The corresponding NS date is March 5, 1463.
Girolamo Benivieni to have been a friend of Pico's was likely a well-educated man. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the birth date is correct in terms of the year, in the event that Mirandola used the Florentine or Pisan Incarnation style starting on March 25.
It is reasonable to assume that the birth time was accurate given that Pico came from a fairly wealthy family, so could have afforded a good clock.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911, Mirandola was subsumed into Modena at some later date following Pico's birth. It might have been the case, given this historical circumstance, that Mirandola used the same calendar style as Modena. (The historical reference, Cappelli, does not give any entry for Mirandola).
The neighboring cities were Parma, Reggio Emilia, and Modena:
The calendar situation was confused in this region of Italy. Cappelli, the standard reference says the following about these surrounding towns:
Parma: both Incarnation and Nativity
Reggio Emilia: Incarnation to 1177; Nativity from the 13th century;
Circumcision from 1379.
Modena: Incarnation and Nativity
I am awaiting word from Grazia Mirti about more accurate translation of the above three town from Cappelli.
Finally, there is no problem with your current record for Pico. The Bordoni time given of 2:42 has the time right, but it is not AM, these are hours and minutes after sunset, which was almost universally, apparently, the start of the day in Italy in medieval and Renaissance times, regardless of the style used for the beginning of the year.
The 8:40 pm time you give from De Lescout (8:40 PM) is very close to the LMT that I calculate, which is 8:38:56 PM. The difference comes about from how one defines sunset, whether it is the center of the sun, or its upper or lower limb reaching the horizon. The Gettings reference you cite is the following: The Book of the Zodiac, Fred Gettings, Triune Books, London, 1972, p.136.
Gettings does not cite the source of this chart. It is also the square chart form. It gives the same time of 2:42 and has the identical MC and AS to the minute of arc as the Gadbury, 1662, chart. The planets' longitudes are all the same. But the Gettings chart has the correct year of 1463, and it has the intermediate cusps to the nearest minute instead of to the whole degree. The Gettings chart has "2 42 N. S." for the time. The expression "N. S." is not defined, but must be another expression for after sunset. Both of these charts are cast in Regiomontanus houses, which was pretty much universally used in England until the Placidus system displaced it.
Pico was not against astrology, per se. He was against predictive astrology. He said in one of his disallowed 900 theses that: "no science affords better assurance of the divinity of Christ than magia (knowledge of the secrets of the planets) and Kabbalah". Unfortunately, his Adversus, published by his nephew just after Pico's death, was a broad attack on predictive astrology, as opposed to spiritual astrology, and it is this information that cast the minds of those of his times who were opposed to astrology on Christian grounds.
Larry
Categories
- Personal : Religion/Spirituality : Philosopher/ Humanist (Philosopher)
- Notable : Famous : Royal family (Italy)
