Introduction

Peter Adamson looks at Renaissance magic and astrology. In the 1420s, a number of astrologers warned of a great flood owing to a conjunction of Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter in the sign of Pisces. Martin Luther pointed out that this had not happened - there was a huge peasant uprising instead. Nowadays most people over the age of 10 chuckle at the idea that astrological predictions could be accurate. But in the 15th and 16th centuries, as in antiquity in the Middle Ages, there was widespread belief in the efficacy of astrology with closely related practice of magic.