Venus and beauty over the centuries (part VI)
(Read part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V)
In the sixth part of this series, we will continue to analyze the correlation between the charts of the greatest instants of Venus’s passage over the Sun with how beauty was perceived in the early period of the scientific revolution.1
For the years 1518 and 1526, the two pairs of data of Venus’s passage over the Sun, based on the calculations made by Fred Espenak, NASA / GSFC2, are:
- May 26, 1518 GMT 02:15 (Series 3)3
- May 23, 1526 GMT 18:47 (Series 5)
The ascendant of the chart from 1518 is in Taurus, a fixed and feminine sign indicating that the events of this new Venusian age will have a long-term impact and will bring a conservative and stabilizing character to the society.
Venus, as ruler of the Ascendant and of nations, in general, is in the 2nd house, of finances and business, of trade and economy, meaning that after previous crises, the people have become more and more preoccupied with the accumulation of resources and material wealth, with stability and security.
The 2nd house in the sign of Gemini and Mercury, as the significator of wealth in his own domicile, tell us that there had been an upward trend regarding welfare which was supported by more than one social category.
I was not surprised to learn that this era established the mercantilism as school of economic thought, where the economic system was regarded as a zero-sum game. Any gain of one part meant the loss of another. The mercantilist doctrine encouraged many European wars and had undoubtedly fueled European expansion and imperialism throughout the world until the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
We notice how the concerns of leaders, symbolized by the Sun, and that of the scholars of the time, symbolized by Mercury, were related to any type of economic transaction meant to bring more cash into the treasury.
Both Venus and Mercury are in the heart of the Sun4, in Cazimi, a special position that gives the planets an immense power as they are supported by the Sun’s stellar force.
Both planets are in the term5 of Venus and in the triplicity of Mercury. Out of the two, Mercury is stronger, a sign that his influence had been highly intensified. Venus brings people the pleasure of exact sciences by becoming the universal goddess of knowledge. The famous quote from René Descartes may symbolize the entire era: „Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum” (lat. = I doubt therefore I think, I think, therefore I am). Uranus in the Ascendant speaks about the innovating character of the people, about how the planet of changes in Taurus had brought progress while upholding the traditions.
One of the most remarkable moments of this historical period was the scientific revolution and the theory of the heliocentric system promoted by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) which overturned the Ptolemaic astronomy and the geocentric theory of the Solar System6.
In Italy, Copernicus comes in contact with the writings of ancient astronomers: Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 BC) and Seleucus of Seleucia7 (190-150 BC) who supported the heliocentric hypothesis and described three types of Earth’s movement: around its axis („rotation”), around the Sun („revolution”) and in relation to the Ecliptic plane.
The mathematical model of the heliocentric system was continued by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) later in the 17th century, and we will analyze how this period correlates with the astrological charts from 1631 and 1639.
Also, in Italy, Luca Pacioli (1447-1517) becomes the first person to publish in the field of Accounting, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) creates the first thermometer, Conrad Gesner (1516-1565) invents the pencil and Gerolamo Cardamo (1501-1576), one of the most important mathematicians and an astrologer who revolutionized ancient astrology, a true universal spirit, sets the basis for the complex numbers theory and probability theory in gambling.
All of these inventions leads us to think of Mercury who influenced not only science – Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, but also Accounting and Medicine, as well as Art, Literature and Divination – as Mercury likes to get involved in as many things as possible.
In Art, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), the greatest artists of all time, compete for the medal of the „Universal Genius”. With their innate curiosity and effervescent imagination, they became the embodiment of mercurial expression in its purest form.
In Literature, William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the national poet of England, the bard of Stratford-upon-Avon, delighted the audience throughout the centuries until today, when his works are translated in all Earth’s languages, and performed most often than of any other playwright.
As for Divination, we cannot forget Nostradamus (1503-1566), who published his work entitled “The Prophecies” in 1555, becoming extremely popular among the public after he predicted most important events of his time.
The 16th century was considered by historians the century in which the West became the maritime power of the world. With their powerful fleets, Spain and Portugal explored the world’s seas and opened new trade routes: America, Asia and Africa were connected by intense trade exchanges between the two economic powers.
It is not by chance that Saturn in Capricorn, as the symbol of supreme authority, is in conjunction with MC, in the 9th house of maritime transport, in general, of transport over longer routes.
According to Vettius Valens, Capricorn rules over the West and the South, as cardinal points, and the Mediterranean Sea, Spain, as geographical areas, meaning that political and administrative power was concentrated in those areas.
Saturn, in his own domicile together with Pluto highlight the importance of these commercial routes for the welfare of the population – the Taurus Ascendant makes a trine with Saturn in Capricorn.
Saturn rules the 10th house and is found in the term and in the face of Jupiter meaning that all these travels were aimed at gaining more prosperity and abundance and a high social status – things of great importance in those times.
Moreover, Saturn is found in the triplicity of the Moon who is in the last degree of Sagittarius in the 8th house – this could mean that these explorations were in the public’s attention as they were targeting profits from increased financial relations between countries, and also possible for hidden reasons, or simply because Europe’s monarchies, as their initiator, gained more power.
Returning to Venus, we notice how as the ruler of the 6th in the 2nd house, she brings to the fore the raised interest in well-being among the working classes and creates new trends that will dominate the society of today through globalization. But the 6th house of a mundane chart could also mean ships and sailors, warships, a sign that in this era, Venus becomes the goddess of the seas and oceans – the trine on air signs with Neptune in Aquarius in the 10th house emphasizing this further.
The eight years that pass between the two moments are fertile periods of processing the new ideas and changes, in which there is a progress of consciousness regarding the nature of the world.
The second chart, from 1526, has Scorpio Ascendant symbolizing the intensification of power struggles, but also destruction. We note that Mars, the ruler of the Ascendant, is in the 8th house with all the planets in the sign of Gemini: Venus, Sun, Jupiter, and Uranus.
Regarding international financial relations, this new chart reveals that almost all social categories: clergy, monarchies, aristocracy, magistrates, authorities of all kinds, including the armed forces, followed the power of money.
The sign of Gemini on the cusp of this house warns us that financial games lacked transparency, the main purpose being to obtain profits by any means – Mercury does not make any aspects with his own house and is also in Cancer, a water sign, cold and humid, with low capacity of manifestation being opposite to the innate curiosity and versatility associated with Mercury.
The five planets brought together in the 8th house represent financial relations that are very important to the activities of the 7th house, that of international alliances.
The 8th house could also signify the high interest of the population and the monarchs of that time in revealing the hidden aspects of reality. In particular, the practical aspects of alchemy, magic, and astrology were those who showed the greatest interest because of the power they promised.
A return to the esoteric theory from the writings of Plato and Pythagoras coagulated in a new vision of the world which came into collective consciousness through the writings of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) and Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494).
Many of the manuscripts from that time – most of them still unpublished – detail the in-depth study of the hermetic doctrine in which secrets are revealed to influence the planets and the forces of nature. Venus becomes the goddess of natural secrets, the queen of occultism and natural magic. She has left us the writings of great scholars, including Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), Paracelsus (1493-1541), John Dee (1527-1609), Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) and many others.
We see how this Venusian era brought a superior evolution to mankind, one that continues to our day, because is it not so… „That which is below corresponds to that which is above, and that which is above corresponds to that which is below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing.” (The Emerald Tablet)
ANCUȚA CATRINOIU,
Member of Romanian Astrologers Association
Articolul este disponibil în revista Astrele și în limba română.
- Although the earliest buds of the Scientific Revolution appear during the Early Renaissance (15th century), it reaches its peak in the 17th century and ends in England, with the birth of the industrial revolution, at the end of the 18th century. ↩
- https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/transit/catalog/VenusCatalog.html ↩
- These series of transits are similar to the Saros series for solar and lunar eclipses. They are delineated according to the 243-year period and planetary nodes of Venus (the points along the orbit of a planet at which she crosses the ecliptic either from South to North – North Node or from South to North – South Node). ↩
- According to Rhetorius of Egypt (6th -7th century BC), a planet is in Cazimi as soon as it comes within one degree of a conjunction with the Sun. Other authors, like Guido Bonatti (12th -13th century BC), consider a planet in Cazimi as soon as it comes within 16 minutes of a conjunction with the Sun. ↩
- Egyptian terms. ↩
- Ptolemy’s cosmological theory implied the existence of a Universe in which the Earth is fixed and immovable in the center of rotating concentric spheres along which the planets of the Solar System are found. ↩
- Hellenistic astronomer Seleucus of Seleucia adopted the heliocentric system of Aristarchus in Samos, and, according to Plutarch, he was the first to demonstrate the heliocentric system. ↩
