History of Art - Arts of Astrology: Science and Belief from the Thirteenth to Seventeenth Century

Overview

Overview

This module examines images of astrology found in illuminated manuscripts, astrological charts and talismans, playing cards, prints, maps, paintings and tapestries, as well as in architecture in the broad global early modern world to explore their political, medical, divinatory, and magical use.

Considering the early modern Western astrology as the result of the intercultural exchanges from Greece, Babylon and India to the rest of the world via images and texts that translated diverse ideas on natural philosophy, the students will learn key concepts from Renaissance Neoplatonism and Hermeticism to discuss the reception of astrological knowledge in a variety of everyday objects.

Students will also reflect on the role of astrological images in the transmission of Western knowledge (deemed magical or scientific) via colonisation, as well as on the influence that early modern celestial observations taken forth by cutting–edge artifacts and novel circumnavigations around the world had on the global shaping of astrological imagery.

Time, Date, and Place

This lecture-only module comprises of two lectures per week over one term, commencing the week beginning 15 September 2025. Lectures take place on Trinity campus.