Tomáš Nejeschleba:
Astrology and Mathematics. Interpretation of “Turkish prophecy” by Tadeáš Hájek z Hájku

Abstract

In 1560, the Expostion of the Turkish Prophecy was published in Prague by Master Tadeáš Hájek of Hájek. The edition adopts the so-called Turkish prophecy published by the Croatian thinker Bartol Jurjević (in the edition entitled as Bartoloměj Georgiević), which Hájek translates into Czech and adds to it an interpretation based in many points on Jurjević. The key passage, in which the prophecy states when the Turkish Empire will fall, is interpreted by Hagecius independently of the published prophecy. Hagetius here employs two methods of interpretation, one astrological, in which he follows his practice of publishing calendars and almanacs with astrological interpretation, and the other so-called Pythagorean, which he bases on his own, earlier Oratio de laudibus geometriae. In his interpretation of the Turkish Prophecy and in the Oratio he draws on a passage from Plato’s Republic on the so-called fatal number, which he interprets mathematically, apparently following the interpretation of Marsilio Ficino.

Language: czech

Keywords: prophecy; mathematics; astrology; fatal number; Turkish prophecy; Bartol Jurjević-Georgiević; Thaddaeus Hayek; Hagecius; Marsilio Ficino