A short guide to Ptolemaic primary directions

Reading here and there I see that primary directions are seen as very difficult and occult. It is not like that.

Ideas which are behind are very easy to grasp, and modern software can do all the calculation for us: on the other hand people who have learned them generally use them as a way to show how clever and expert they are.

Andrea Argoli on decumbiture

Having explained signs of illness in solar return, Argoli  explains in his De Diebus Criticis how to judge illness from decumbiture, ie. the chart for the moment of the illness.

In these pages Argoli who studied medicine before becoming a lecturer of mathematics in La Sapienza (in the very University the gentle author of this article studied many, many years later 🙂 ) associates several kind of galenic fevers, hectic, quartan, ephemeral and so on to the planets.

Andrea Argoli:On the good and bad health according the solar Return of the year

Andrea Argoli, born in Tagliacozzo in 1570 is very famous for his book about primary directions, the Tables of the primum mobile,  (from which I took the picture )  (( Tabulae primi mobilis. Patavii, typis P. Frambotti, 1644) )).

The following is my translation from Latin from another of Argoli’s main works, Two books about critical days and  decumbiture of  diseases (( De diebus criticis et aegrorum decubitu libri duo: ab auctore denuo recogniti ac altera parte auctiores paeneq[ue] noui.  Patauii : apud Paulum Frambottum , 1651-1652. ))   revised and revisited by Lucia Bellizia of Apotelesma– traditional astrologer and University degree in  Classical languages and Literature (on the contrary the gentle author of this blog seems very allergic to Latin, she should study more, the lazy girl !!)

Argoli, the fox and the internet

Traditional astro-lists in the net are a precious source of  knowledge (and friendship), and I’d like to mention two different threads worthy to inquire about and mix a little how I like to do very often.

The first one appeared in The Real Astrology and it was about an Italian translation of two important works of Andrea Argoli, a well known mathematician, astronomer and astrologer- one about primary directions and the other about decumbiture and critical days.