Note 1165 — Chapter IV · MIXTURE OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SUPERSTITION.

The father of Piero Capponi, himself an astrologer, put his son into trade lest he should get the dangerous wound in the head which threatened him. Vita di P. Capponi, Arch. Stor. iv. ii. 15. For an instance in the life of Cardanus, see p. 334. The physician and astrologer Pierleoni of Spoleto believed that he would be drowned, avoided in consequence all watery places, and refused brilliant positions offered him at Venice and Padua. Paul. Jov. Elog. Liter. pp. 67 sqq. Finally he threw himself into the water, in despair at the charge brought against him of complicity in Lorenzo’s death, and was actually drowned. Hier. Aliottus had been told to be careful in his sixty-second year, as his life would then be in danger. He lived with great circumspection, kept clear of the doctors, and the year passed safely. H. A. Opuscula (Arezzo, 1769), ii. 72. Marsilio Ficino, who despised astrology (Opp. p. 772) was written to by a friend (Epist. lib. 17): ‘Praeterea me memini a duobus vestrorum astrologis audivisse, te ex quadam siderum positione antiquas revocaturum philosophorum sententias.’