The stars and the life of man. Tommaso Campanella's astrological pamphlets

This paper show Campanella's increasingly sophisticated efforts to demonstrate the legitimacy of the astrological practice with respect to both natural knowledge and Christian doctrine. In Campanella's life and thought, astrology plays a crucial role. Of striking interest are the three pamphlets that he wrote in Rome between 1628 and 1632. They are closely linked to the notorious politico-astrological affaire regarding the death of pope Urbano VIII, a death that many astrologers at the time thought imminent. In the first tract, De siderali fato vitando, Campanella suggests the effective remedies against negative astral aspects and describes the actual practices of astrological magic that he perfomed together with the pope himself. Being forced to defend himself against the accusations of heresy and superstition that followed from the publication of the 1629 pamphlet, Campanella writes the Apologeticus to demonstrate that the suggested practices are in full accord with both nature and the Christian teaching. When in 1631 the pope promulgates the severe bull Inscrutabilis against any kind of divination, Campanella writes a Disputatio in which he tries to mitigate the condemnation of astrology by rejecting the fatalistic implications of the astrological doctrine and by defining the limits within which it can be accepted as a natural doctrine.