Jacques Gaffarel () (1601–1681) was a French scholar and
astrologer
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
. He followed the family tradition of studying medicine, and then became a priest, but mainly developed his interests in the fields of
natural history
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
and
Oriental
The Orient is a term referring to the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of the term ''Occident'', which refers to the Western world.
In English, it is largely a meto ...
occultism
The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mystic ...
, gaining fluency in the
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, and Arabic languages.
His most famous work is ' ("Unheard-of Curiosities concerning Talismanical Sculpture of the
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
ns, the
horoscope
A horoscope (or other commonly used names for the horoscope in English include natal chart, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial map, sky-map, star-chart, cosmogram, vitasphere, radical chart, radix, chart wheel or simply chart) is an ast ...
of the
Patriarchs
The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and in ...
, and the reading of the Stars), which was published in French in 1629 (and translated into English in 1650, by
Edmund Chilmead
Edmund Chilmead (1610 – 19 February 1654) was an English writer and translator, who produced both scholarly works and hack-writing. He is also known as a musician.
Life
He was born in 1610 at Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.
He studied at Ma ...
). Gaffarel included in his work two large folding plates of "the Celestial
Constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The first constellati ...
s expressed by Hebrew characters", and asserted that the letters of the
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...
could be interpreted from the
constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The first constellati ...
s and that the heavens could be read as if a book.
His book enjoyed phenomenal success.
René Descartes
René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramou ...
read it with interest and the French physician and mathematician
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi, Petrus Gassendus; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he a ...
(1592–1655) defended it. ''Unheard-of Curiosities'' was one of 1,500 books in the
Library of Sir Thomas Browne and one of the varied sources of his encyclopaedia entitled
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
''Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths'', also known simply as ''Pseudodoxia Epidemica'' or ''Vulgar Errors'', is a work by the English polymath Thomas Browne, challenging and refuti ...
. Browne alludes to Gaffarel's astrology in
The Garden of Cyrus
''The Garden of Cyrus'', or ''The Quincuncial Lozenge, or Network Plantations of the Ancients, naturally, artificially, mystically considered'', is a discourse by Thomas Browne concerned with the quincunx—a pattern of five points arranged in an ...
thus:
:''Could we satisfy our selves in the position of the lights above, or discover the wisdom of that order so invariably maintained in the fixed stars of heaven......we might abate.....the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie Booke of Heaven.''
Gaffarel contributed to the debate between
Marin Mersenne
Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...
and
Robert Fludd
Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (17 January 1574 – 8 September 1637), was a prominent English Paracelsian physician with both scientific and occult interests. He is remembered as an astrologer, mathematician, cosmol ...
.
On the other hand, the
Sorbonne rejected Gaffarel's work and ridiculed him; however, he gained the protection of the powerful
Cardinal Richelieu
Armand Jean du Plessis, 1st Duke of Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a Catholic Church in France, French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence in civil and religi ...
, who made him his librarian and sent him off first to Italy, then to
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
and Asia to retrieve rare books (reportedly including manuscripts by
Pico della Mirandola
Giovanni Pico dei conti della Mirandola e della Concordia ( ; ; ; 24 February 146317 November 1494), known as Pico della Mirandola, was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, ...
).
Works
* Abdita divinae Cabalae mysteria contra Sophistarum logomachiam defensa. H. Blagaeart, Paris 1625.
* Profonds mystères de la Cabale divine. Beaudelot, Paris 1912.
* Nihil, fere nihil, minus nihilo: seu de ente, non ente, et medio inter ens et non ens (= Positiones. Vol. 26). Pinelli, Venice 1634.
* Quaestio pacifica, num orta in religione dissidia componi et conciliari possint per humanas rationes et philosophorum (= Principia. Vol. 44). C. Du Mesnil, Paris 1645.
* Le Monde sousterrein, ou Description historique et philosophique de tous les plus beaux antres et de toutes les plus belles grottes de la terre. C. Du Mesnil, Paris 1654.
References
External links
* Examples of Gaffarel's astrological writing
*
Charab in the Stars*
Bibliography
* Hiro Hirai (ed.)
''Jacques Gaffarel between Magic and Science''(Rome: Serra, 2014).
* Saverio Campanini, ''Eine späte Apologie der Kabbala. Die Abdita divinae Cabalae Mysteria des Jacques Gaffarel'', in T. Frank – U. Kocher – U. Tarnow (edd.), ''Topik und Tradition. Prozesse der Neuordnung von Wissensüberlieferungen des 13. bis 17. Jahrhunderts'', Göttingen 2007, pp. 325–351.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaffarel, Jacques
1601 births
1681 deaths
Christian Hebraists
French astrologers
17th-century astrologers
French librarians