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223 8 Planetary Order, Astronomical Reform, and the Extraordinary Course of Nature asTronoMiCal reforM and The inTerpreTaTion of CelesTial siGns Attention to the science of astronomy, already so well sustained in the Wittenberg cultural sphere, received an unexpected boost with the dramatic and unheralded arrival of two apparitions in the skies of the 1570s. One of these was a brilliant entity—represented variously as a meteor, a comet, or a new star—that appeared in 1572 and remained until May 1574; the other—represented almost universally as a “bearded star” or comet—could be seen for just over two months between November 1577 and January 1578. These unforeseen appearances , taken to be evidence of God’s extraordinary capacity to intervene in the orderly course of nature ,1 attracted interest across Europe at a time when German popular practica and prognostica were filled with the most dire warnings about the anticipated closure of all closures: the arrival of the Antichrist (embodied by the Turks and the Roman Church), desertion of the true faith (again, represented by the Catholic Church), the rise of deviant sects (Calvinists, Anabaptists, Enthusiasts , Antitrinitarians), and the conversion of the Jews. Not surprisingly, for many Lutheran preachers, physicians, and theologians, the new apparitions became occasions not just for astronomical study and astrological judgment but also for gleaning eschatological meanings from key apocalyptic passages in the New Testament, prophetic writings, and the works of the Church fathers .2 And there was no shortage of biblical passages to feed the pessimism believed to be written in the heavens. Around 1570, for example, Simon Pauli (1534–91) helped himself to the prophetic material in Luke 21:25–26 for a sermon preached at Rostock: “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.” He also foresaw “many comets and blazing lights.”3 Interpretations of the recent heavenly messengers easily fitted this wide frame of meaning, heralding the impermanence of the natural world and the imminent breakup of the creation. Coincident with this intensification of apocalyptic attitudes and hermeneutical practices, a new sort of social triangulation began to take shape. A small group of celestial practitioners began to forge a new space of possibility. They shifted the space of discussion of these “unpredictables” exclusively to the heavens, writing about the new happenings as heavenly events in their own right rather than as meteorological events below the Moon that were responding to astral influences. These practitioners defined themselves as superior in mathematical skill to those whom they regarded as run-of-the-mill prognosticators; and they confidently began to map out a new set of discursive rights for themselves, asserting claims about the nature of the heavens—the customary and exclusive domain of traditional commentators on Gen- 224 unanTiCipaTed, sinGular novelTies regard, he had a special advantage: he was the son of the ephemeridist Gemma Frisius, and this connection may have helped to prepare him to become Ordinary and Royal Professor of Medicine at Louvain. Another filial prognosticator was Elias Camerarius, the son of the prolific Nuremberg astrological humanist Joachim, who became professor of mathematics at Frankfurt an der Oder. Less common was the concatenation of chairs held by Jerónimo Muñoz (1517?–91) at valencia: Hebrew (1563) and mathematics (1565).6 Although rulers had long supported the “bridge” figures who taught mathematical subjects in the university and prepared nativities or annual prognostications for the ruler, the emergence of the noble or exclusively court-based practitioner marks a critical moment in the evolution of the astronomer’s role. The social privileges of nobility and court practitioners without pedagogical responsibility opened new spaces of rhetorical, authorial, and material possibility. Because these practitioners’ primary commitment was not to pedagogy, their position fostered a new freedom of literary form. Each court had its own character and traditions; no one was expected to write school manuals. Hapsburg imperial patronage in the sixteenth century, especially during the Rudolfine era (1576–1612), was, beside the Danish court of Frederick II, perhaps the outstanding source of support for celestial studies in Europe. In Prague, this was not simply a matter of financial support but what R. J. W. Evans has aptly called the “cosmopolitan freedom...

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