Luca Gaurico

Luca Gaurico (in Latin, Lucas Gauricus) (March 12, 1475 – March 6, 1558 in Rome) was an Italian astrologer, astronomer, astrological data collector and mathematician. He was born to a poor family in the Kingdom of Naples, and studied judicial astrology, a subject he defended in his Oratio de Inventoribus et Astrologiae Laudibus (1508). Judicial astrology concerned the fate of man (astrologia judiciaria; mundane astrology) as influenced by the stars. His most famous work is the Tractatus Astrologicus.

Gaurico's reputation was such that he served as an "astrological consultant" to Catherine de' Medici. Gaurico had predicted the accession to the papacy of Catherine's great-uncle Giovanni de Medici (when he was 14 – who later became Leo X) and predicted Catherine’s uncle Giulio de Medici involvement in important political struggles and numerous descendants. Giulio de Medici later was to become Pope Clement VII, who involved with disputes with both Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Henry VIII of England.

Giovanni II Bentivoglio, ruler of Bologna, consulted him about his destiny. Displeased with Gaurico’s prophecy, Bentivoglio subjected Gaurico to the torture of mancuerda, the effects of which he suffered for the rest of his life, and exiled the astrologer. When Bologna fell to Pope Julius II, Gaurico returned to general favor.

Gaurico became famous after predicting the ascension of Alessandro Farnese, a prediction that came true with Farnese's ascension as Paul III. Gaurico foretold also the sickness and death of this Pontiff, who died on November 20, 1549, the day said to have been indicated by Gaurico. Paul III obviously did not wait for his death in order to verify Gaurico's prediction. Paul III, who encouraged astrologers to come to Rome and work under his protection, made Gaurico his unofficial astrologer, and he was made a Papal Table Companion, knighted, and appointed bishop of Giffoni (Salerno province), and thus described as Episcopus Geophonensis, in 1539. Paul III made Gaurico bishop of Civitate (San Severo), in Capitanata, in southern Italy, in 1545. Four years after the death of Paul III, Gaurico abandoned these duties and settled in Rome.

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