Richard Pellard: Pascal Charvet, you are a senior professor of classics. How did you become interested in Ptolemy, a scholar who lived in 2nd century AD and who was at the same time astrologer, astronomer, geographer and musician? Pascal Charvet: This is because for a very long time I have been passionate about ancient texts that have either not been edited, not translated or misunderstood. (...)

From son of a dog to seminarian Johannes Kepler was born on 17/12/1571 in Weil-der-Stadt in one of the most beautiful houses in a small village in southwestern Germany. His grandfather Sebaldus, a nobliau, was the mayor before his fortune took off and he was forced to survive by becoming a tanner. He reigns over a demented household where everyone hates, insults and watches each other. Her (...)

The astrological origin of prophecies In his preface to the famous prophetic centuries, dedicated to his son Caesar, Nostradamus leaves no doubt about his source of astrological inspiration: “Your late arrival, […] prompted me to print my long moments of continual nocturnal vigils, in order to leave the memory, beyond the death of your father, for the benefit of humanity, of what the divine (...)

From the early central Middle Ages (12th century) to the Renaissance (15th-17th centuries), Europe is rediscovering ancient Greek sciences and knowledge, ignored or lost sight of for a very long time, through the Latin translation of texts from the muslim scholars and Byzantines who had ensured its transmission. Two major characters then emerge, eclipsing their innumerable predecessors in (...)