Dear Folk,
Today is the celebration of devotion to Our Lady of Ransom and the birthday of a remarkable mathematician, gambler and astrologer. Ladies first.
Peter Nolasco was born in 1189 at Mas-des-Saintes-Puelle in France. He joined Simon de Montfort (not the founder of democracy and caller of the first parliament but his father, the Elder) and the crusade against the Albigenses (see "Unto the Pure"). Peter was appointed tutor to young king, James of Aragon, who had inherited the throne when his dad Pedro II was killed at the battle of Muret. Incidentally, that battle was considered a smashing success for Simon.
Peter followed James back to Barcelona in 1215. It was there he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin. She directed him toward a group of noblemen, first joining together in 1192, whose purpose was to care for the sick and to ransom Christian captives away from the heathen Moors. The BVM told Peter he better help them. They needed to form an actually recognized order within the Church and to get some cash flowing. Peter's father confessor thought it was a great idea and helped out. The first monks of the Order were the original noblemen, their headquarters was the convent St. Eulalie of Barcelona. They were charged to use up all funds they had or could get to rescue prisoners.
On August 10, 1223, the Order became known as the Mercedarians and were given King James' seal of approval and Pope Gregory IX said go for it on January 17, 1235. August 1, 1233 is pretty special for them, too, in that Peter Nolasco was shown by the Blessed Virgin what the guys should be wearing: a white habit. Not that white was that easy to get clean nor did it go with everyone's complexion. Fortunately most of the early monks were winters and could wear that primary stuff. Encouraged them to eat sparingly, also; we do know how big white makes most of us look. Anyway.
Peter was the first superior, with the title of Commander-General; he also filled the office of Ransomer, a title given to the monk sent into the lands subject to the Moors to arrange for the ransom of prisoners. The holy founder died in 1256, seven years after having resigned his superiorship; he was succeeded by Guillaume Le Bas.
Christopher Columbus took some members of the Order of Mercy (Mercedarian) with him to America, where they founded a great many convents in Latin America, throughout Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Ecuador. These formed no less than eight provinces, whereas they only had three in Spain and one in France. This order took a very active part in the conversion of the Indians.
The feast day was sort of a local one. By the 17th century it was extended to the entire Latin Church. The actual day celebrated has been moved around a bunch but it has settled in to when most think Peter had his first visitation by the BVM, September 24. Our Lady of Ransom became the patron saint of Barcelona. Peter got himself canonized and became a saint. Good for him, really. Tending sick folks and getting them out of captivity are worthwhile causes. Gunching Albigenses is not very nice but I doubt that Peter took time from teaching to do much of that.
One final note, in England the devotion to Our Lady of Ransom was revived in modern times to obtain the rescue of England from captivity of the Anglican Church as Our Lady's Dowry. Mercy, mercy, mercy!
Today is also the birthday celebration of Girolamo Cardano on September 24, 1501 in Parvia, Italy. He was a mathematician and astrologer, a gambler and quite a guy: a soul determinded to be here.
He wrote an autobiography, De vita propria liber (The Book of My Life) , which we still have so we know lots about him. He said that he was born despite several attempts at aborting him. He was the illegitimate son of the jurist Fazio Cardano and Chiara Micheri. He was not a happy youth. He was sick quite a bit and his folks really let him know he wasn't wanted. Can you imagine telling your kid that you tried to abort him a couple of times? Yow!
At nineteen he got away from his family by going to school, first in Pavia and then University of Padua. He got a doctorate in medicine and set up shop near Padua. In 1531 he found someone to love, Lucia Bandarini, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. He started his studies of astrology there. He was happy.
In 1534 he took his family to Milan and got a teaching gig in Greek, astronomy, dialectics, and math. He really started digging into math then. They say teaching does make one a better student. In 1539 he wrote his first big paper: Practical Arithmetic. In 1545 he pumped out his big hit, Ars Magnae (The Great Art) which took the mathematics world by a storm. He got into a pushing match with Niccolo Tartaglia about it. It was the first major Latin work about algebra. It had stuff on negative roots and even square roots of negative numbers. As an inveterate gambler, Cardano wrote a gambler's manual in which some interesting questions on probability are considered. He loved his piquet games.
He was still foremost a medical doctor. His rep was second only to Andreas Vesalius. He even treated the Archbishop of Edinburgh in 1552.
Life was not all Twinkies and Yoohoo for him. His eldest son was arrested for attempting to murder by poison his (the son's) wife right after she gave birth. That landed the son in prison where he was beheaded fifty three days later. This disgraced Cardano and his family. They left Milan and went to the University of Bologna where he taught medicine. There he got in trouble again. The Inquisition accused him of heresy because he cast the horoscope of Jesus Christ. Resigning his chair in Bologna he moved to Tome and became a distinguished astrologer, receiving a pension as astrologer to the papal court. So there!
Having cast his own horoscope and having predicted that he would live to the age of seventy-five, Cardano committed suicide on September 21, 1576.
What have we learned? The Blessed Mother wants us to ransom captives? Children can be a great disappointment and so can parents? Even kids from the worst upbringing can become shining stars? Astrologers should not do their own charts? How about trust a nerd to figure out a mathematical system to beat the house?
So if you are out there casting the natal chart of a holy guy, teaching some young king, bathing the sores of lepers, or just predicting your own death and you want to forward these Musings, please do. Do leave my name and sig. attached. And if you know of any syndicate wanting to publish these let me know immediately.
Happy birthday to the best boss a scientist and astrologer could have: Robert Snyder. I -- along with many others -- am very glad you were born. Hang in there, Sir!
Not predicting mine or any other death,
Your astrology guy,
J. Ellsworth Weaver
SCA – Sir Balthazar of Endor
AS – Polyphemus Theognis