Villani’s account.
Villani adds a number of further details. He states that it was the Commentary on the Sphere which had caused Cecco’s condemnation at Bologna, that he had been forbidden to make further use of it, and that at Florence it was charged that he had violated this prohibition. But Cecco denied this and attributed his arrest at Florence to the hostility of a Friar Minor who was both bishop of Aversa and chancellor to Charles of Calabria, who was at that time duke of Florence and whose astrologer Cecco seems to have become after leaving Bologna. In this new position, Villani says, Cecco had made many true predictions of political events, but although a great astrologer he was a vain man and of worldly life. The friar-bishop-chancellor regarded Cecco’s presence at Florence as court astrologer as an abomination. Villani, however, like Cecco himself, does not appear to regard his practicing astrology at Florence as necessarily a violation of the decree of the inquisitor at Bologna; but if the Riccardian manuscript correctly reproduces the Bologna sentence, Cecco would certainly seem to have violated it. Villani volunteers more information than the Riccardian manuscript as to the respects in which Cecco’s teaching or practice of astrology was found objectionable. He makes the general assertion, which is too vague to be of much value, that Cecco was too bold in exercising his science in things prohibited and untrue, “since the influence of the stars does not constrain of necessity” nor against human free will and divine prescience. Villani, indeed, perhaps added this qualification, after having stated that Cecco made many true political predictions, in order to save himself from possible censure. But he more specifically states that Cecco ascribed the force of necessity to the stars; that in his treatise on the Sphere he asserted that there were evil spirits generated in the sky who could be coerced by incantations under certain constellations to perform many marvels; and that he taught that Christ came to earth in accordance with the will of God and with the principles of astrology, and ought from his nativity to live with His disciples come poltrone and to die the death that He did, while Antichrist would come according to the courses of the planets in rich raiment and power. Cecco also, Villani vaguely adds, taught “many other idle things and contrary to the Faith.”
The later manuscripts.
The later manuscripts incorporate these charges of Villani in the inquisitorial sentence against Cecco, using suspiciously similar wording in the passage concerning Christ and Antichrist, and charging that Cecco has taught his work on the Sphere in the schools contrary to his promise and oath. These manuscripts further assert that Cecco has confessed to teaching publicly that men born under certain constellations must necessarily be rich or poor or decapitated, that God would not change the course of nature, and that in the fourth and eighth sections[2959] of his Commentary on the Sphere he said that under certain constellations happy divine men would be born like Moses, Hermes, Merlin, and Simon Magus. Like Villani the later manuscripts mention Cecco’s political predictions at Florence and state that he had prophesied concerning “the Bavarian.”[2960] They also mention the stress laid by Cecco upon the importance of the constellations that cities are founded under. Such of the statements of these late manuscripts[2961] concerning Cecco’s astrological teachings as are not found in Villani will be found to rest upon certain passages in his own works or upon a misapprehension of them.[2962] They also mention his Commentary on Alcabitius, whereas the older form of the sentence condemns only one Latin book on astrology by him. Another suspicious circumstance about the longer form of inquisitorial sentence preserved in these late manuscripts is that the Inquisition is represented as itself condemning Cecco to death[2963] instead of handing him over to the secular arm.
Astrology for cities.
Let us next turn to Cecco’s two commentaries in Latin and see what foundation there is in them for the astrological teachings ascribed to him by Villani and the longer form of inquisitorial sentence preserved only in very late and suspiciously worded manuscripts. It is true that Cecco emphasizes the control exercised by the stars over the fate of cities. The laying of the first stone of a city is a moment as influential over all its future history as is the date of conception in the case of an individual. Romans and Tuscans are so corrupt because of the ascendancy of Venus over them, the Lombards are scientific through the influence of Mercury.[2964] If cities are to endure, they should be built under the fixed signs.[2965] It is best for a man to live in a city with the same guiding star as his own planet.[2966]
The fate of individuals.
In the notes which I took on the astrological statements in Cecco’s commentaries there seems to be no single direct assertion that under certain constellations men must necessarily be rich or poor or decapitated. Cecco does tell his students, however, “You ought to know another thing, that when Jupiter is in the signs of Mars, forsooth Aries or Scorpion, the person born will be bound with the girdle of poverty, infamous, and injured by the powerful.”[2967] The word “decapitated” perhaps is reminiscent of an anecdote which Cecco tells in discussing the fulfilment of dreams and their dependence on the constellations. A certain malefactor went to a meadow with his associates with a scythe to cut down grass and saw beetles rolling up dung in the road. This reminded him of a dream which he had had the night before that these beetles would decapitate him, and he started in to kill them. But as he struck at them with the handle of the scythe, the blade which was over his own neck cut off his head. “And the moon was in Taurus in conjunction with the fixed star which is called Aldebaran; such is the story told me by my master whom may God pardon.”[2968] This conjunction, however, would seem to have been that prevailing when the malefactor had his dream and not the constellation under which he was born. Cecco in another passage, however, not only cites Zael to the effect that a horoscope when Mars is lord of the ascendant and in a favorable angle of the sky bestows power and dignity along with impiety and the greatest cruelty, and, unless he is regarded by some favorable planet, will cause the possessor of the horoscope to lose his power soon; but Cecco also adduces the recent tyrant of Ascoli, John Venibene, as a specific example who ruled for three years very cruelly and then was expelled and died abroad.[2969] In the case, on the other hand, of a constellation under which are born lords of the whole earth, such as emperors, kings, and princes, Cecco warns that the sons born to peasants in this constellation will not become kings but simply leaders among men of their class, “since the intractability of the material weakens the celestial force” and “the vices and virtues of the parents are transmitted to their heirs.”[2970] Elsewhere he states that certain planets called superior are especially appropriated to kings, nobles, and magistrates, while the inferior planets signify concerning the populace.[2971]
Influence of stars and signs.
Cecco grants that the celestial bodies are inanimate but holds that by virtue of their substances and the mediation of the intelligences moving them they “have properties in different parts of the sky in which they are said to rejoice and sadden effectively in us, that is, by disposing us to good and to evil.”[2972] Cecco believes that each herb has its appropriate planet and sign, and that doctors should be careful to note the positions of planets in administering herbs.[2973] The parts of the human body and regions of the globe he also parcels out among the signs.[2974] In connection with the common topic of the influence of the stars upon the formation of the child in the womb he makes the less common observation that sometimes the influence of the stars is too strong, as is seen in the case of infants who talk when only two months old or have marvelous discretion beyond their years—or rather, months—and die young.[2975]