We continue from our previous post…“Some men have peculiar symptoms, according to their temperament and crisis, which they had from the stars and those celestial influences, variety of wits and dispositions, as Anthony Zara contends… plurimum irritant influentiæ cœlestes, unde cientur animi ægritudines et morbi corporum. One saith, diverse diseases of the body and mind proceed from their influences, as I have already proved out of Ptolemy, Puntanus, Lemnius, Cardan, and others, as they are principal significators of manners, diseases, mutually irradiated, or lords of the geniture, &c. Ptolomeus in his centiloquy, Hermes, or whosoever else the author of that tract, attributes all these symptoms, which are in melancholy men, to celestial influences; which opinion, Mercurialis… rejects; but, as I say, Jovianus Pontanus and others stiffly defend.
“That some are solitary, dull, heavy, churlish; some again blithe, buxom, light, and merry, they ascribe wholly to the stars. As if Saturn be predominant in his nativity, and cause melancholy in his temperature, then he shall be very austere, sullen, churlish, black of colour, profound in his cogitations, full of cares, miseries, and discontents, sad and fearful, always silent, solitary, still delighting in husbandry, in woods, orchards, gardens, rivers, ponds, pools, dark walks and close: Cogitationes sunt velle ædificare, velle arbores plantare, agros colere, &c. To catch birds, fishes, &c., still contriving and musing of such matters.”
Robert Burton, THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, 1621
50 Moons of Saturn
Curator: Daniel Birnbaum
Torino Triennale
6 November 2008 – 1 February 2009
http://www.torinotriennale.it/
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