NAJERA, Antonio de.

by Antonio de Najera

£2,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

.A good, clean copy of this scarce work, in Spanish, on weather prediction based on planetary observations the first astrological primer printed in Portugal. The Castilian Antonio de Najera (fl. C17), of whom little is known, was a cosmographer in Portugal, a skilled mathematician, and the author of works on navigation and astrology. The lack of printed astrological manuals in the Portuguese and even in the Spanish languages in the early decades of the C17 made almanacs [ reportorios ] the main source for astrological knowledge for those who could not read Latin. The reportorios were a genre somewhere in between a specialist ephemeris and a basic popular almanac. The combination of the common language, popularity, and astrological doctrine made the reportorios of particular concern for the inquisition because of the wider range of readership (Ribeiro, 64). Summa astrologica berates weather prognostications in such almanacs, produced by ignorant astrologers and charlatans . It defends instead the value of correct judicial astrology in answer to the accusations of vagueness and uncertainty moved by science. This Najera opposes incorrect predictions, which are made without method, without science; which defy current knowledge, and utter, like gipsies, vain and monstrous things, in order to charm the people, who will believe them to be oracles . Prognostications properly done, and their ancient tradition, he believes most important, the correct knowledge of meteorological phenome

• Binding: Hardcover

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