Yesterday’s announcement of the date for the Coronation was apparently made following discussions so as to avoid a clash with religious and secular festivals and celebrations or major sporting events. I doubt however if the date was chosen with the help of a Magus and his forecast based on studying the King’s horoscope. However in 1558-9 that was exactly how Queen Elizabeth I came to choose her Coronation date of January 15th. The horoscope was the work of her astrologer, Dr John Dee. Several of his pieces of equipment and manuscripts survive in the British Museum and the collections in Oxford..
One of his surviving instruments - indeed possibly the most famous - is his “Magic Mirror” or “Spirit Mirror”, that is, his scrying glass for making prognostications. It is now in the British Museum.
This has now been shown to have originated in pre-Conquest Mexico and to be similar to other Aztec obsidian ‘mirrors’. Dee at have acquired it in the 1580s whilst he was at the Habsburg Court of the Emperor Rudolf II in Prague.
The Archaeolgist has an illustrated article about the mirror which can be seen at Obsidian ‘Spirit Mirror’ Used by Elizabeth I’s Court Astrologer Has Aztec Origins
Wikipedia has an account of the extraordinary life of this most famous English Court astrologer at John Dee
For more information about him and his milieu I would recommend Benjamin Woolley’s very readable The Queen’s Conjuror: The Life and Magic of Dr Dee.
No comments:
Post a Comment