At the beginning of the thirteenth century this superstition suddenly appeared in the foreground of Italian life.The Emperor Frederick IIalways travelled with his astrologer Theodorus; and Ezzelino da Romano with a large, well-paid court of such people, among them the famous Guido Bonatto and the long-bearded Saracen, Paul of Baghdad.In all important undertakings they fixed for him the day and the hour, and the gigantic atrocities of which he was guilty may have been in part practical inferences from their prophecies.Soon all scruples about consulting the stars ceased.Not only princes, but free cities, had their regular astrologers, and at the universities, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, professors of this pseudo-science were appointed, and lectured side by side with the astronomers.The Popes commonly made no secret of their stargazing, though Pius II, who also despised magic, omens, and the interpretation of dreams, is an honorable exception.Even Leo X seems to have thought the flourishing condition of astrology a credit to his pontificate, and Paul III never held a Consistory till the stargazers had fixed the hour.
It may fairly be assumed that the better natures did not allow their actions to be determined by the stars beyond a certain point, and that there was a limit where conscience and religion made them pause.In fact, not only did pious and excellent people share the delusion, but they actually came forward to profess it publicly.One of these was Maestro Pagolo of Florence, in whom we can detect the same desire to bring astrology to moral account which meets us in the late Roman Firmicus Maternus.His life was that of a saintly ascetic.He ate almost nothing, despised all temporal goods, and only collected books.
A skilled physician, he only practiced among his friends, and made it a condition of his treatment that they should confess their sins.He frequented the small but famous circle which assembled in the Monastery of the Angeli around Fra Ambrogio Camaldolese.He also saw much of Cosimo the Elder, especially in his last years; for Cosimo accepted and used astrology, though probably only for objects of lesser importance.