Category: Other

For straightforwardness, it is enticing to say that this paper on crystal gazing in the Renaissance starts with Petrarch (1304-1374) and closes with Shakespeare (1564-1616). Petrarch, "the principal man of the Renaissance," was no fanatic of soothsaying and jumped on its fatalistic leanings. "Leave free the ways of truth and life... these globes of fire can't be guides for us...