The following is an abstract of the lecture kept in Sophia at the New Bulgarian University on the 19th November 2009 by Prof. Antonio Panaino, the famous Italian Orientalist, Professor of Alma Mater Studiorum and Isiao – the Italian Institute for Africa and East.
I should thank Dimitar Kozhuharov who kindly sent me the file; bibliography and pictures mine.
Everybody believes to know what astrology is, but even between scholars there is a lot of confusion about the real meaning of this word, so it’s necessary to give some basic definitions about words like astrology, astral divination, astrolatry which are not necessary connected. In the same time we can shed some light on the idea that astronomy derives from astrology, being the latter the modern and rational offspring while the former is irrational and primitive source.
It is not like that.
Heaven astrolabe: Traditional, hellenistic & medieval astrology 