Talk:Valentin Naboth

What is so interesting about this obscure 16th century scholar?
What led me to Valentin Naboth is the Mathematics Genealogy Project: What it shows is that Naboth is part of the intellectual heritage of most scientists alive today, including myself. So I asked myself: who was this person? What is known about him? It quickly became clear that the story of his death, originally told by Tommaso Campanella and by Giacomo Filippo Tomasini and retold by Josephus Hartzheim had kept him alive, so to speak, but that little else was known about him. I have managed to cobble together some bits and pieces from different sources, which are collected in this article. These original sources are mostly in latin, and it would be very helpful if someone who knows that language would make a translation. It appears that Naboth lived in that nexus in time that astrology spawned astronomy. Naboth was in the first place an astrologer, was obsessed by it, studied and reviewed its classical sources, and was ultimately consumed by it. But, interestingly, he was also the bridge between Copernicus on one hand, and Tycho, Kepler and Galilei on the other. Through his mentor, Erasmus Reinhold he knew about Copernicus' work even before it was published, and it is likely that he was working from De revolutionibus orbium coelestium when he wrote his astronomy textbook Primarum de coelo et terra. His drawing of the Capellan universe is seminal, as it served as an inspiration for Tycho JdH (talk) 07:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Enarratio elementorum astrologiae banned by the Roman Catholic Church?
Poggendorff mentions "Wegen dieser Schrift von d. röm. Censur verdammt", without any further explanation. It would be very interesting to find out why that was, but I have not been able to find out anything about it. The closest I get is from Claudia Brosseder's "Im Bann der Sterne", page 280. She points out that he questions the Catholic doctrine of "free will". He argues that sin does not originate within the framework of "free will", but through the remote influences of the planets instead. This puts Naboth on a collision course with not only with Catholic doctrine, but Lutheran doctrine as well. I wonder whether this conflict may be the reason that he left Cologne a few years later, but once again I cannot find anything about that. Another interesting possible connection is the fact that Jacobus Arminius was a pupil of his student Rudolph Snellius. Arminius was very much at the center of the conflict within the Reformed Church, the issue being once more that of "free will". It would be very interesting to explore these possible connections, but unfortunately biographical information about Naboth is very scarce indeed. JdH (talk) 18:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, that's taking it too far, I think. The Catholic Church had banned astrology, all of it, and a book that has Astrology in its title would automatically be put on the list of prohibited books JdH (talk) 07:03, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Birthdate
There is some confusion about Naboth's precise birthdate. Giovanni di Strassoldo , in a letter dated December 8, 1605 addressed to Giovanni Antonio Magini writes the following:
 * ... e' ha scritto contro l'Astrologia Giudiciaria Sisto ab Heminga nel discorso, che egli fa sopra la sua medesima genitura una nota tale: << Valentinus Nabodus Exphardiensis matheseos professor doctissimus in Accademia Coloniensi, natus anno 1523, 13 Februarij, Hor. 18, min. 32. Mercurium habuit iunctum Lunae in Aquario domo 12ma >> le hore s'intendono P. M. 

He continues to point out that Naboth was born St. Valentine's day. On the other hand, Lynn Thorndike has the following :
 * ''Moreover, at the close of the Sloane manuscript is a figure of his horoscope, indicating that he was born February 13, 1527 at 18.32 P.M., and a note which describes him as from Erfurt

The Sloane manuscript Thorndike is referring to is a transcript of the unfinished manuscript Naboth was working on at the time of his death, i.e. a new Latin translation of Ptolemy's Quadripartitum. It seems likely that Strassoldo and the Sloane manuscript are both based on Naboth's manuscript, but that somewhere along the line someone made a transcription error. It should be pretty straightforward to figure out which is correct, 1523 or 1527, i.e., if Naboth knew his planets: Mercurium habuit iunctum Lunae in Aquario domo can be easily verified by someone who is familiar with the planets. JdH (talk) 16:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Naboth's birth horoscope has actually been presented on Astrowiki. The horoscope for February 1523 shows Mercury conjunct with the Moon in Aquarius in agreement with Strassoldo's letter, confirming that 1523 is indeed the correct year. With thanks to Astro-rolf JdH (talk) 00:17, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * To make matters even more confusing, William Locke (1792) has the following: "The time of his birth was taken out of his Comment on Ptolemy, (a work we have got, that was never printed) and was Feb. 13, hor. 19° 1' P.M. 1523, sub Polo 52°. But there is another time given by Heminga, at 18 hrs. 32 min. the same day, p.180". As it happens, Strassoldo refers also to Heminga as the source of his information (permitting my understanding of Strassoldo's Italian), but Locke and Thorndike both refer to Naboth's unfinished manuscript, so it doesn't make sense why those two don't agree. btw, Locke presents a natal chart for Naboth which seems to agree with the one presented on Astrowiki.