Note 483 — Chapter VI · SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. (continued 2)

The Sphæra of Sacrobosco is a remarkably lucid and scientific statement of all that was known, in the thirteenth century, about the earth in its cosmical relations. Although it accepts, of course, the current theory of the nine spheres, it indulges in no astrological reveries as to the influence of the signs and planets on human destiny. It remained for centuries a work of the highest authority, and so lately as 1604, sixty years after the death of Copernicus, and on the eve of the development of the new astronomy by Galileo, it was translated, with a copious commentary, by a professor of mathematics in the University of Siena, Francesco Pifferi, whose astrological credulity offers a curious contrast to the severe simplicity of the original.