The Eclectic Magazine By John Holmes Agnew, Walter Hilliard Bidwell

The Eclectic Magazine By John Holmes Agnew, Walter Hilliard Bidwell: "He would have comforted him by taking the horoscope of the world and proving to him that it would survive the iatal 1867 In this way Landino took the horoscope of religion and foretold that it would undergo an important change on the 25th of November 1484 in consequence of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn It is rather a singular coïncidence that Luther was born on the 25th of November 1483 or 1484 Such a happy guess would have made the fortune of Zadkiel at the present day "

The Eclectic Magazine By John Holmes Agnew, Walter Hilliard Bidwell: "Nor did Ficino stand alone in these fanciful ideas they were common to all the great men who lived at that period known as the Renaissance Cardan the mathematician tells us in his life that his genius appeared in the shape of a fly buzzing in his ear a volume of predictions was inspired by a wasp that entered his study one of these referred to his own death and he took care to verify it by abstaining from food Macchiavelli as a writer might be supposed to have risen superior to the superstitious feelings of his age and yet he tells us Discorsi lib i cap Ivi that the air is full of spirits which from a feeling of compassion to mortals warn them by sinister auguries of the evils which are impending over them Guicciardini the historian who lived at a still later period candidly expresses his belief that there are spirits of the air which converse familiarly with men for says he I have had such experience of them as appears to me to place the matter beyond all doubt These strange ideas were the direct result of the Neoplatonic philosophy the influence of which is perceptible in many expressions still employed long after the system itself has been exploded."