THE OCCULT SCIENCES. 211 



in astronomical science, must have modified at their will the science of which 

 they were the boldest interpreters. Hence, no doubt, arose the fondness of 

 the Jews for astronomy, which they resorted to principally for drawing 

 horoscopes and predicting the future. This was why the Jewish astrologers 

 were in such good odour during the Middle Ages. They were admitted 

 into the presence of kings and princes, who loaded them with honours and 

 riches, while the Israelitish race generally was being treated with such great 

 contumely. 



The famous Arab geographer Edrisi, who was the favourite of Roger II., 

 King of Sicily, at the close of the eleventh century, owed rather to astrology 

 than to geography the favour in which he was held by that prince, and it has 

 been asserted that the two circular tables of silver which he engraved with 

 great skill for the King were not meant for a terrestrial globe, but for a 

 celestial sphere which reproduced the motions of the stars and their 

 conjunctions from an astrological point of view. It is well known how 

 eagerly, in the thirteenth century, Alfonso X., King of Castile, surnamed the 

 Learned, took counsel with the rabbis in his investigations of astronomy and 

 astrology. Two centuries later, John II., King of Portugal, whom Queen 

 Isabella of Castile called the man par excellence, had in his suite a Jew, Master 

 Rorigo, who perfected the astrolabe (Jacob's staff), and who, doubtless, took 

 part in the plans for the great maritime expeditions to the East Indies which 

 his Royal Highness dispatched at about the same time as Christopher 

 Columbus, by the aid of his own knowledge of astronomy, discovered the 

 fourth quarter of the world. 



The history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries records the doing of a 

 great number of astrologers, who were as famous during their lifetime as 

 they are now unknown, though they composed many curious and some 

 remarkable books. Without recalling the numerous compilers of almanacs 

 and predictions who lived during the sixteenth century, but amongst whom 

 may be mentioned Francois Rabelais, who had but little faith in astrology, 

 we may cite the names of Luke Gauric, the learned Neapolitan prelate (born 

 in 1476), who drew the horoscope of the cities, popes, and kings of his day ; 

 Simon Phares, the astrologer- in -ordinary to King Charles VIII., a converted 

 Jew, who has left a manuscript history of the most famous astrologers ; 

 Thiebault, the physician-in-ordinary and astrologer to Fra^ois I. ; Cosmo 

 Ruggieri, the Florentine astrologer, the confidant of Catherine de' Medicis ; 



