Excessively Rare Condemnation of Astrology

(ASTROLOGY). P[ARPERA], G[IACINTO].

DISINGANNO ASTROLOGICO, ET ASTROLOGIA VERACE.

(Genoa: Per Antonio Casamara, 1686]). 127 x 76 mm (5 x 3"). 336 pp. FIRST EDITION.

Old (contemporary?) speckled paper wrappers, paper title and library labels on flat spine, title inked across tail edge of book block. Small portions of backstrip perished because of tears and abrasions, otherwise extremely fine, the fragile wrappers still doing their job, and THE TEXT REMARKABLY CLEAN, FRESH, AND BRIGHT.

Written by a learned Catholic monk who presents himself as an enlightened and broad-minded thinker, this modest volume contains a condemnation of the pseudoscience and occult practice of astrology. Translated as "Astrological Deception and True Astrology," the work relies for its main arguments on church doctrine propounded by popes Sixtus V (1585-90) and Urban VIII (1623-44). A member of the Congregation of the Oratory and author of "La Monica Istruita" ("The Educated Nun"), our author, Giacinto Parpera (or Perpera, ca. 1645-1700), reveals himself in the present work as an advocate of instruction. The first of the work's three parts argues that God alone can know the future, and heavenly bodies are not causes of events. Parpera mentions the recent and lamentable Turkish siege of Vienna (1683) and reminds us that such events cannot be foretold by the stars. It is contrary to the Catholic doctrine of free will, he points out, to believe that prophecy is encoded in heavenly bodies. The book's second part argues that astrology has ever proved fallacious. Demonstrating his learning, Parpera refers to the doctrine of the Great Year, a phenomenon now known as the precession of the equinoxes, which skews astrological predictions. He even mentions the Copernican heliocentric theory, asserting that we know so little of the workings of heaven that we cannot decide whether the Copernican or Aristotelian picture of the motions of the heavens is correct (although he hastily adds that Rome has censured the Copernican system, and he always submits to Rome). The dire, alarmist predictions of astrologers, he feels, cause needless anxiety and are often proved incorrect. Parpera finished his work by urging on us in the third part those tenets and pursuits which will root out credence in astrology: the belief in free will and the operation of God's grace as well as the strengthening of the mind with a good, rational education and the study of Greek and Roman authors, from which virtue can be learned. This is a very rare work: OCLC, COPAC, and KVK locate only three institutional copies (one at the Wellcome Library and the other two at Italian libraries), and ABPC records no copy at auction since at least 1975. (ST11739)