Gaurico, Luca (1476-1558).  Annotated by Paul Haintzel (1527–1581 

Tractatus astrologiae judiciariae de nativitatibus virorum & mulierum, compositus per D. Lucam Gauricum Neapolitanum, ex Ptolemaeo & alijs autoribus dignissimis, cum multis aphorismis expertis & comprobatis ab eodem. Addito in fine libello Antonii de Montulmo de eadem re, cum annotationibus Ioannis de Regiomonte, hactenus nusque impresso.

Nuremberg: Apud Johan. Petreium, 1540.                        Price SOLD

Quarto 20.5 x 15 cm. Signatures: a-e4 f6 (LACKING PART TWO ‘Addito in fine libello Antonii de Montulmo de eadem re, cum annotationibus Ioannis de Regiomonte, hactenus nusque impresso. A-N4  )  With contemporary annotations of astronomer and friend of Tycho Brahe, Paul Haintzel (1527-1581) throughout. This copy was the Harrison D. Horblit copy, with a description from H.P. Kraus, inserted. This is bound in modern half calf with boards covered in faux parchment. First Latin edition, preceded by an Italian version published at Rome in 1539. part one of two Only. With the exlibris of Owen Gengerich.

Paul Hainzel’s annotated table of contents: organizing Gaurico as a working astrological text. His annotations begin before the text itself and show him organizing and interrogating the book. 

Gaurico’s Tractatus first appeared in Italian in 1539, followed by this first Latin edition in 1540, at a time of renewed interest in genethliacal astrology—the interpretation of a person’s life and character from the configuration of the heavens at birth. Such judgments depended upon the accuracy of the geniture, or natal horoscope, but also upon the astrologer’s ability to interpret it, and consequently invited comparison between prediction and the subsequent facts of an individual life. Only three years after the present work, Johann Petreius published at Nuremberg Girolamo Cardano’s Libelli duo (1543), containing sixty-seven genitures of emperors, popes, scholars, reformers, artists, and other celebrated figures. Cardano used such individual cases not merely as illustrations but as evidence with which astrological judgments could be examined and corrected.


The resulting dispute between Cardano and Gaurico was both methodological and personal. Cardano repeatedly attacked Gaurico’s calculations and interpretations, most famously his horoscope of Martin Luther. Gaurico assigned Luther’s birth to 1484, the year of a significant conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, and interpreted that configuration in accordance with Luther’s disruptive religious career; Cardano insisted upon 1483 and rejected both Gaurico’s dating and his judgment. The disagreement became part of a wider culture in which astrologers compared competing genitures with the known lives of their subjects. Gaurico eventually answered Cardano in his Tractatus astrologicus of 1552, identifying in turn errors in Cardano’s horoscopes and predictions that events had subsequently proved wrong. Astrological authority was thus not simply received: calculations, interpretations, and predictions were repeatedly confronted with other authorities and with the evidence of individual lives.

Above, Hainzel enters planetary symbols into Gaurico’s printed astrological diagrams, using the book’s schematic figures as working instruments for the application of its rules.

It is within this culture of comparison, correction, and testing that Paul Hainzel’s densely worked annotations should be understood: he is himself a participant in it. Hainzel repeatedly supplements Gaurico’s aphorisms with other authorities, calculations, planetary configurations, and apparently individual cases; in places he seems to compare the printed predictions with personal or familial experience.

Hainzel testing Gaurico’s rules against particular configurations: alongside the printed judgments for Mercury and for the twelve signs in the ascendant, he records planetary symbols and numerical notations, while fuller manuscript comments supply qualifications and comparisons. The page shows astrology being worked through case by case

This copy thus preserves material evidence of critical astrological practice in the sixteenth century: printed rules confronted with cases, experience, calculation, and competing authorities.
Hainzel’s subsequent association with Tycho Brahe places this working copy at an especially suggestive point in the changing relationship between astrological prediction and astronomical observation. In Augsburg in 1569, Hainzel and his brother Johann Baptist assisted Tycho in the construction of an enormous quadrant, some nineteen feet in radius, erected on Hainzel’s estate for the precise measurement of stellar positions; Tycho also supplied Hainzel with a portable sextant. Hainzel later made observations with the great quadrant and independently checked astronomical parallax for Tycho.

Densely annotated throughout by Paul Haintzel (1527–1581), Augsburg patrician, mayor, and astronomer, a correspondent of Tycho Brahe who participated in observational work including parallax measurements and the construction of large astronomical instruments. The annotations—frequent, structured, and often computational in character—transform the present copy into a working document, illustrating the practical use of astrological texts by a figure actively engaged in the emerging culture of precision observation in the later sixteenth century.

In the above Image Paul Hainzel includes himself and his family among the individual cases used to test and supplement Gaurico’s astrological aphorisms.

(see William B. Ashworth Jr.’s March 12, 2024 “Scientist of the Day” essay, published by the Linda Hall Library: https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/luca-gaurico/). See also Anthony Grafton’s Cardano’s Cosmos: The Worlds and Works of a Renaissance Astrologer (1999).

VD 16, G-558; Adams, G-291; BM STC German, 1455-1600, p.333

JAMES GRAY BOOKSELLER

Links to recent catalogues:
Catalogue CC3 Printed books 1470-1501  New
Century Catalogue Nº 2\ 1501-1599  New
17th Century books MMXXVI  New
Twenty Books by, for, or about Women  New

For university and special collections purchases, I am accustomed to working within committee timelines and budget cycles. Titles may be placed on hold during review, and flexible invoicing arrangements can be discussed where appropriate. I welcome inquiries at jamesgray2@me.com.

I am always happy to arrange a brief Zoom or FaceTime appointment to view this or any other of my books.

JAMESGRAY2@ME.COM

Short link: https://wp.me/p3kzOR-a9c