Discussion apologétique pour l'astrologie contre un certain médecin (review)

The Spanish physician and theologian Michael Servetus arrived in France sometime in 1532, to escape prosecution in Spain for the publication of two treatises against the dogma of the Trinity published in 1531 and 1532. In France he assumed the new name of Michel de Villeneuve and embarked on the study of medicine, first in Lyon and then in Paris. In the fall of 1537, a year after arriving in Paris, he made astrological weather predictions for the upcoming winter. A year later, having observed an eclipse of the moon by Mars on the night of 12 February, he made bold astrological prognostications about the future of the church, the princes of Europe, and forthcoming epidemics. At this time, Servetus was enrolled in the medical course at the University of Paris, but, as was common practice, he also lectured and offered private tuition to less advanced students, and he lectured in astronomia (the science of the stars) at the College of Lombards where he lived.

From antiquity to the late Renaissance the term astronomia could indicate both astronomy and astrology, and indeed the former was often seen as subservient to the study and application of the latter. Astrology comprised many practices such as medical astrology, mundane astrology (including astro-meteorology), historical astrology (namely, the prediction of historical events on the basis of planetary conjunctions), and other forms of judicial astrology like interrogations and elections. Particularly after the publication of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputations against Divinatory Astrology (1496), however, all these practices came under closer scrutiny and many were seen as superstitious or unorthodox, both within and outside universities. Judicial astrology, in particular, was seen unfavorably among the Parisian faculty, and Servetus was admonished more than once to stop teaching it. By ignoring these admonitions he provoked the hatred of the dean of the Medical Faculty, Jean Tagault, and other faculty members, who eventually launched an injunction against him to the Parlement of Paris asking them to prohibit the printing and distribution of Servetus's Michaelis Villanovani in quendam medicum apologetica disceptatio pro astrologia (henceforth referred to, more simply, as Apologia), and to formally ban him from teaching astrology. The prosecutors accused him of heresy, citing Pico's opinion that "l'astrologie judiciaire est le pire des poisons pour la science et la religion" (p. 26). Servetus's defender claimed that his client taught natural and not judicial astrology, and that he never argued in favor of any form of astrological determinism that would diminish God's power. The trial that ensued in March 1538 yielded the results that Tagault hoped for: Servetus was barred from teaching and practicing judicial and conjectural astrology, he was ordered not to publicly offend again any member of the Faculty, and all copies of his Apologia were withdrawn from sale.

This is the context in which Servetus's Apologia—which was clearly conceived with Tagault and his accolytes in mind—was written. Many of the events summarized here are provided in the introduction to Servetus's text, which is beautifully edited and translated by Jean Dupèbe. Dupèbe provides the reader with an excellent concise history of Servetus's life and studies in Paris, and the publication history of his Apologia (1538) (pp. 7–29). His introduction is clear and useful for understanding the text, which is presented in its Latin original (following its second edition, but with variants from the first included in the notes) accompanied by a skillfully rendered, fluid French translation and a rich critical apparatus of footnotes.

The book is most obviously directed to a...