[1197] This was the case with Antonio Galateo who, in a letter to Ferdinand the Catholic (Mai, Spicileg. Rom. vol. viii. p. 226, ad a. 1510), disclaims astrology with violence, and in another letter to the Count of Potenza (ibid. p. 539) infers from the stars that the Turks would attack Rhodes the same year.
[1198] Ricordi, l. c. n. 57.
[1199] Many instances of such superstitions in the case of the last Visconti are mentioned by Decembrio (Murat. xx. col. 1016 sqq.). Odaxius says in his speech at the burial of Guidobaldo (Bembi Opera, i. 598 sqq.), that the gods had announced his approaching death by thunderbolts, earthquakes, and other signs and wonders.
[1200] Varchi, Stor. Fior. l. iv. ([p. 174]); prophecies and premonitions were then as rife in Florence as at Jerusalem during the siege. Comp. ibid. iii. 143, 195; iv. 43, 177.
[1201] Matarazzo, Archiv. Stor. xvi. ii. p. 208.
[1202] Prato, Arch. Stor. iii. 324, for the year 1514.
[1203] For the Madonna dell’Arbore in the Cathedral at Milan, and what she did in 1515, see Prato, l. c. p. 327. He also records the discovery of a dead dragon as thick as a horse in the excavations for a mortuary chapel near S. Nazaro. The head was taken to the Palace of the Triulzi for whom the chapel was built.
[1204] ‘Et fuit mirabile quod illico pluvia cessavit.’ Diar. Parmense in Murat. xxii. col. 280. The author shares the popular hatred of the usurers. Comp. col. 371.
[1205] Conjurationis Pactianae Commentarius, in the appendices to Roscoe’s Lorenzo. Politian was in general an opponent of astrology. The saints were naturally able to cause the rain to cease. Comp. Æneas Sylvius, in his life of Bernadino da Siena (De Vir. Ill. p. 25): ‘jussit in virtute Jesu nubem abire, quo facto solutis absque pluvia nubibus, prior serenitas rediit’.
[1206] Poggi Facetiae, fol. 174. Æn. Sylvius (De Europa, c. 53, 54, Opera, pp. 451, 455) mentions prodigies which may have really happened, such as combats between animals and strange appearances in the sky, and mentions them chiefly as curiosities, even when adding the results attributed to them. Similarly Antonio Ferrari (il Galateo), De Situ Iapygiae, p. 121, with the explanation: ‘Et hae, ut puto, species erant earum rerum quæ longe aberant atque ab eo loco in quo species visae sunt minime poterant.’