Phytognomonica

BOOK ONE.

C

demonstrate. For indeed, there is a method of demonstrating through similarity, by which the highest Maker of things is very often accustomed to reveal divine and hidden matters, so that they might reflect the supreme likeness of his ideas. Nor could he have done so in a more excellent or fitting way. For if we were to imagine a plant speaking, wishing to bring forth the secret benefits of its nature in which it excels, it would not be understood by everyone, regardless of the language or the manner in which it spoke. This is because both spoken languages and writing characters are specific and peculiar to individual nations; hence, it would have been necessary to speak either to one nation alone or in an infinite number of tongues. Thus, the sharp ingenuity of nature, through its own similarities of things, speaks to everyone at once, both briefly and clearly enough. For similarity is a "painted speech," or a "speaking picture," which is more powerful than any words or any signs. Even the mute, who use gestures instead of speech, and animals lacking speech, indicate their feelings through the movements of their bodies. Pliny tells of certain peoples without tongues, for whom nods and the movement of limbs serve as speech. Similarity, though it always maintains the same appearance, carries such weight that it surpasses the very power of speaking, and nothing is more deeply fixed in the mind than a skillfully made picture. It is commonly said that "a picture is the speech of the unlearned." To these should be added the similarities and the specific "faces" of things by which the Egyptian sages expressed the concepts of their minds—which they called hieroglyphagrammata original: "hieroglyphagrammata"; these are hieroglyphs or sacred carvings.—so that they would be visible to all. In this same way, nature speaks to the unpolished common folk, mountain dwellers, shepherds, women living in huts, and those born in the desert regions of the world, far from doctors and their advice. Through their own "pictures" designating a disease, nature shows them how they might heal themselves, lest, being destitute of help, they be slaughtered by illnesses. Therefore, it is less than right to reject this as being true. We can use this power of similarity in astrology, the interpretation of dreams, agriculture, and other sciences; and in a brief moment of time, it is not difficult to know those things which our ancestors discovered through long intervals of time with experience as their only guide, without knowing the causes.

THAT THE SCIENCE OF NATIVITIES IS DERIVED FROM THE

similarity of the stars. Chapter IX.

A decorative woodcut initial letter D. Inside the letter, a scholar or astronomer is depicted sitting in a study or library, surrounded by large books and possibly tools of his trade, representing the pursuit of knowledge. Indeed, the immense Creator of things demonstrates to us, by no small similarity, what the stars can portend by their color, motion, shape, and magnitude—should anyone wish to pursue the stars more deeply and inquire into the causes of birth from on high, even if we ourselves might approve of these things less, and though they are not the primary argument of this work. To the world, the orbits of the lights seem foul and portentous in the principal stars, the Sun and the Moon; therefore, their eclipses portend foul and monstrous things for the world: wars, plagues, deaths, slaughters, and high grain prices. No less horrible is the appearance of comets, especially if they bristle with rusty and bloody "hair." Likewise, "mock suns" parhelia Atmospheric optical phenomena consisting of bright spots in the sky, often on a luminous ring or halo on either side of the sun., fiery beams, and "trumpets" are seen; from the duration of these, the duration of events is predicted, and from the similarity of their colors, diseases and outcomes are foretold. For if they are infected with a dark color or paleness, they will warn you of Saturn; if with a bloody or fiery color, Mars: whence come burning fevers, inflammations, and profusions of blood. Likewise, from the similarity of their configurations and their gait, the rest are learned in the same way. The star of Saturn glints with a stiff, leaden paleness that offends the eyes; in those whose births it prevails, it easily renders them livid, cold by nature, full of humors, phlegmatic, and subject to such diseases. The star of Mars is fiery, bloody, and foul with a dark paleness, horrific and threatening, so that it pierces the eyes; it makes men reddish or dark, and promises leprosy, fierce rashes, mange, and similar "black bile" melancholic diseases; it threatens wounds from fire, bloody excretions, fluxes, burning fevers, plague, death, and dire things. They are contrary to our nature, both being called "malefics" infortunae In traditional astrology, Saturn and Mars were known as the "Greater" and "Lesser" Malefics because their influence was thought to be challenging or harmful to human life.. But the light of Jupiter, flashing from white into dark, is received by the eyes with the greatest cheerfulness. Likewise, Venus, the rival of that same star, commends its appearance with a very pleasant and rosy glow; because they are almost of the same color, they therefore promise very similar effects. It renders people charming and venerable in face: it grants life, wealth, glory, and splendor—nothing but healthful goods,