Abstract Summary
In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the interpretation of comets acquired a peculiar dichotomous notion. As phenomena that originated in earthly realms, according to Aristotelian belief, comets were increasingly interpreted according to their accompanying celestial configurations. The apparition of a comet in 1506 heralded the emergence of a novel genre of astrological prognostications related to cometary interpretation. The set of subsequent astrological cometary pamphlets, the first printed in movable type, enjoyed high popularity and wide circulation. Prognosticators followed an Islamic tradition and enhanced cometary interpretation with astrological reasoning. How could their astrological interpretation relate events across the earthly and celestial sphere? The subsequent, different cometary apparitions of the ongoing sixteenth century entailed a growing effort among astrological prognosticators to overcome this apparent gap between distant Aristotelian spheres by an intricate causal structure. This talk explores the ontological amendment of cometary interpretations in the sixteenth century based on Islamic tradition, and analyzes the prognosticator’s endeavor to establish a causal structure that allowed comets to be absorbed into the broader astrological corpus.
