page_title: Luca Gaurico
section_title: Astrology and buildings
hierarchical_section_title: Luca Gaurico / Astrology and buildings
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Ephemerides recognitae et ad vnguem castigatae per Lucam Gauricum Neapolit. Eiusdem schemata &amp; praedictiones ad annum vsque virginei partus 1552. Eiusdem Isagogicus in totam ferme astrologiam libellus. .... - [Venezia&#160;: Lucantonio Giunta], 1533 (... in florentissima urbe Veneta, ...&#160;: ... sumptibus Lucæntonij Iuntae typographi, ... 1533). - [310] c.&#160;: ill., tab.&#160;; 4º .
context_page_description: Luca Gaurico was an Italian astrologer, astronomer, astrological data collector and mathematician. He was born to a poor family in the Kingdom of Naples, and studied judicial astrology, a subject he defended in his Oratio de Inventoribus et Astrologiae Laudibus. Judicial astrology concerned the fate of man as influenced by the stars. His most famous work is the Tractatus Astrologicus.
context_section_description: Gaurico was widely renowned as an astrologer, and his Tractatus Astrologicus (1552) also contained charts of the foundation of various buildings and cities.  Pope Paul III thus used Gaurico to determine the most auspicious time at which the cornerstone of a new building in the neighborhood of St Peter's Basilica should be laid.  It is said that Gaurico arrived at the scene in great pomp.  An assistant, the astrologer Vincentius Campanatius of Bologna, was commanded to inspect the sky with an astrolabe and cry out in a loud voice the best time when the moment to lay the first marble slab arrived.
caption: Ephemerides recognitae et ad unguem castigatae, 1533
exif: {}