Nostradamus' Biography

Michel de Nostradame, more commonly known as Nostradamus, was born on December 14, 1503, in St. Remy de Provence. He was the son of notary Jacques o Jaume De Nostredame and of his wife Renée de Saint-Rèmy. This is a small town in Provence (southern France), located at 1O miles from the gaul-roman town of Arles (with roman ruines as Mario's arch and Saint Paul mausoleum). Saint-R‚my was built near GLANUM ruins, famous holy place for gauls, and in the 1921 excavations were found ellenistic, greek and roman remains. The city is located by the middle of "Provence's sacred triangle", that has as it's vertex Arles, Avignone and SALON , where the Prophet will marry and live (1547) and die (1566), plenty of fame and glory.

It was almost 11 years from the time Colombus' discovery of "Western Indias", and in Rome, Pope ALEXANDER VI (Rodrigo Borgia) had suddendly died. Pope maybe died because he ingested, by error, a poison that was destinated to an unknown cardinal. After him was elected Pious III, that died after 25 days, and was replaced with a warrior Pope Pope JULIUS II (Giuliano Della Rovere, from Albisola, Savona) a real military commander, that began many victorious expeditions against french and cities that rebelled to the Pontical State. He was the same Pope that ordered to sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti the wall paintings in Sistine Chapel.

In that time LOUIS XII was king of France and he signed with Spain's king FERDINAND II - a teatry for the division of Naples' kingdom, that they soon broke, and resolved with war, in the battle of Seminara and in Barletta's defy.

It was the shining era of Renaissance, great artist as Leonardo da Vinci, Raffaello Sanzio and Michelangelo Buonarroti are making their masterpieces. Nicol• Machiavelli writes his treatise of politics "Il Principe". Christopher COLUMBUS is making his fourth trip. Only in those years, Amerigo Vespucci, after discovery of Rio de Janeiro's bay, realizes that it is an entire new continent and publishes this idea in his book "Mundus Novus" (1503). Martin LUTHER is studying in Erfurt's University, and his 99 thesis are still in his mind.

He was a seer and a time traveler living in 2 realities. He also was adept in astrology and astronomy, and, along with his own clairvoyance. He used both sciences to interpret the visions he received in the secrecy of his study.

He was often refered to as the prophet of doom because of the visions he had involving death and war. His followers say he predicted the French Revolution, the birth and rise to power of Hitler, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the 911 Twin Towers attack . His prophetic vision....942 cryptic poems called "The Centuries" groups in sets of 100. A single verse is commonly called a quatrain and 100 quatrains a Centurie. The quatrains are a ser of four written lines. They have enthralled generation after generation of readers. He predicted some of history's most monumental events from the Great Fire of London (1666) to the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger.

His parents were of simple lineage from around Avignon. Nostradamus was the oldest son, and had four brothers; of the first three we know little; the youngest, Jean, became Procureur of the Parliament of the Provence.

Nostradamus' great intellect became apparent while he was still very young, and his education was put into the hands of his grandfather, Jean, who taught him the rudiments of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics and Astrology.

When his grandfather died, Nostradamus was sent to Avignon to study. He already showed a great interest in astrology and it became common talk among his fellow students. He upheld the Copernican theory that the world was round and circled around the sun more than 100 years before Galileo was prosecuted for the same belief.

Since it was the age of the Inquisition and the family were converted from Judaism to the Catholic faith by the time Nostradamus was nine years old, his parents were quite worried, because as ex-Jews they were more vulnerable than most. So they sent him of to study medicine at Montpellier in 1522.

In 1532 he got his DEGREE and the right to dress the RED TOGA, and began to practice as the assistant of an older doctor. After four days of examinations he got the degree. He was thirty years old, and following the fashion between the sages of those times, latinized his name, and from the simple Nostredame transformed in the character... NOSTRADAMUS ! Nostradamus obtained his bachelor's degree after three years, with apparent ease, and once he had his license to practise medicine he decided to go out into the countryside and help the many victims of the plague.

For the title of Medical Doctor he made an examination over six patients, so he finally obtained in Saint-Firmin's church the golden ring, the squared hat and Ippocrate's book. Since then he will wear his family's emblem, with 4 sectors, in two is depicted a black headed eagle, and in the other two there is an eight rayed wheel, a remembrance of his origin, "of the wandering" of hebrews around the whole world. The shield is underlined by a coat of arms that has written his famous motto: SOLI DEO , maybe meaning "Only God", or... "Sun God" !

After nearly four years he returned to Montpellier to complete his doctorate and re-enrolled on 23rd October 1529. Nostradamus had some trouble in explaining his unorthodox remedies and treatments he used in the countryside. Nevertheless his learning and ability could not be denied and he obtained his doctorate. He remained teaching at Montpellier for a year but by this time his new theories, for instance his refusal to bleed patients, were causing trouble and he set off upon another spate of wandering.

While practising in Toulouse he received a letter from Julius-Cesar Scaliger, the philosopher considered second only to Erasmus throughout Europe. Apparently Nostradamus' reply so pleased Scaliger that he invited him to stay at his home in Agen. This life suited Nostradamus admirably, and circa 1534 he married a young girl 'of high estate, very beautiful and admirable', whose name was lost to us. He had a son and a daughter by her and his life seemed complete.

Then a series of tragedies struck. The plague came to Agen and, despite all his efforts, killed Nostradamus' wife and two children. The fact that he was unable to save his own family had a disastrous effect on his practice. The he quarrelled with Scaliger and lost his friendship. His late wife's family tried to sue him for the return of her dowry and as the final straw, in 1538, he was accused of heresy because of a chance remark made some years before. To a workman casting a bronze statue of the Virgin, Nostradamus had commented that he was making devils. His plea that he was only describing the lack of aestheticappeal inherent int the statue was ignored and the Inquisitors sent for him to go to Toulouse.

Nostradamus, having no wish to stand trial, set out on his wandering again and kept well clear of the Church authorities for the next six years. We know little of this period. From references in later books we know he travelled in the Lorraine and went to Venice and Sicily. Legends about Nostradamus' prophetic powers also start to appear at this time.

In 1545 he wrote Interpretation des Hiéroglyphes de Horapollo 86 handwritten sheets authenticated, that after being in the library of COLBERT, minister of french king LOUIS XIV, were bought by THE ROYAL LIBARY and (until recently) were in the old National Bibliotheque de Paris (former location: MSF 2594), this is the only certified hanswritten of Nostradamus, actually available. All it's parts are written by himself and signed. This text was pubblished in Barcelona by Pierre ROLLER (1968), and contains 11 unpublished quatrains and an "explanation" about Costantine's threasure, commented by PEIRESC, a famous botanic and brotherlike friend of Nostradamus' son César. At that time Nostradamus had settled in Marseilles. In November that year, the Provence experienced one of the worst floods of its history. The plague redoubled in virulence, spread by the waters and the polluted corpses. Nostradamus worked ceaselessly.

Nostradamus ordered to empty the streets, burn trash, to bury the corpses very deep between layers of quicklime. Orders disinfection of houses with winegar, boiled wine, boiling water. Advises to burn aromatic woods, to clean sewers. Orders extermination of rats with poisoned bait. Recommends the chewing of GARLIC cloves, (today scientist proved the antibacterial action of garlic), the use of gloves and filtrating masks made of leather. Once the city had recovered, Nostradamus moved on to Salon, 24 miles from Marseille, which he found so pleasant a town that he determined to settled there for the rest of his life. In November he married Anne Ponsart Gemelle, a rich widow. The house in which he spent the remainder of his days can still be seen off the Place de la Poissonnerie.

After 1550 he produced a yearly Almanac - and after 1554 The Prognostications - which seem to have been successful, and encouraged him to undertake the much more onerous task of the Prophecies. He converted the top toom of his house at Salon into a study and as he tells us in the Prophecies, worked there at night with his occult books. The main source of his magical inspirations was a book called De Mysteriis Egyptorum.

By 1555 Nostradamus had completed the first part of his book of prophecies that were to contain predictions from his time to the end of the world. The word Century has nothing to do with one hundred years; it was so called because there were a hundred verses or quatrains in each book. The verses are written in a crabbed, obscure style, with a polyglot of vocabulary of French, Provencal, Italian, Greek and Latin. In order to avoid being prosecuted as a magician, Nostradamus writes that he deliberately confused the time sequence of the Prophecies so that their secrets would not be revealed to the non-initiate.

It is extraordinary how quickly the fame of Nostradamus spread across France and Europe on the strength of the Prophecies, published in their incomplete form of 1555. The book contained only the first three Centuries and part of the fourth. The prophecies became all the rage at Court, the Queen, Catherine de Medici, sent for Nostradamus to come to Court, and he set out for Paris on 14th July 1556. On 15th August, Nostradamus booked a room at the Inn of St. Michel, and the next day the queen sent for him.

One could only wish that there had been a witness to record their meeting. Nostradamus and the Queen spoke together for two hours. She is reputed to have asked him about the quatrain concerning the king's death and to have been satisfied with Nostradamus' answer. Certainly she continued to believe in Nostradamus' predictions until her death. The king, Henri II, granted Nostradamus only a brief audience and was obviously not greatly interested.

Two weeks later the queen sent for him a second time and now Nostradamus was faced with the delicate and difficult task of drawing up the horoscopes of the seven Valois children, whose tragic fates he had already revealed in the centuries. All he would tell Catherine was that all of her sons would be kings, which is slightly inaccurate since one of them, Francois, died before he could inherit.

Soon afterwards Nostradamus was warned that the Justices of Paris were inquiring about his magic practices, and he swiftly returned to Salon. From this time on, suffering from gout and arthritis, he seems to have done little except draw up horoscopes for his many distinguished visitors and complete the writing of the Prophecies. Apparently he allowed a few manuscript copies to criculate before publication, because many of the predictions were understood and quoted before the completed book came off the printing press in 1568, two years after his death.

The reason for this reticence was probably the king's death in 1559. Nostradamus had predicted it in I.35 and may have felt that it was too explicit for comfort and that it would be advisible to wait some years until things had quietened down. But the following year, 1560, King Francis II died, and this time he was openly quoted.

In 1564 Catherine, now Queen Regent, decided to make a Royal Progress through France. While travelling she came to Salon and visited Nostradamus. They dined and Catherine gave Nostradamus the title of Physician in Ordinary, which carried with it a salary and other benefits.

But by now the gout from which Nostradamus suffered was turning to dropsy and he, the doctor, realized that his end was near. He made his will on 17th June 1566 and left the large sum, for those days, of 3444 crowns over and above his other possessions. On 1st July he sent for the local priest to give him the last rites, and when Chavigny took leave of him that night, he told him that he would not see him alive again. As he himself had predicted, his body was found the next morning.

He was burried upright in one of the walls of the Church of the Cordeliers at Salon, and his wife Anne erected a splendid marble plaque to his memory.

It was rumored that a very secret document existed in his coffin, that would decode his prophecies. In 1700, the coffin was moved to a prominent wall of the Church. Careful not to disturb his body a quick look inside revealed an amulet on his skeleton, with the year 1700 on it. One night in 1791 during the French Revolution, soldiers from Marseilles broke into the church, in search of loot. The next morning they were ambushed by Royalists. The soldier who had used Nostradamus' skull as a wine glass, the night before, died by a sniper's bullet.

I 27 The Desecration of Nostradamus' Tomb

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