Nostradamus C02 Q35: N's commentary on the personal menace of his astronomic views.
Copyright: Allan Webber, December 2015

This verse is one of those that contributed most to my earliest views on how Nostradamus incorporated astronomic data into his poetry (See my paper on Astronomy for more).

My attention was drawn to it by the anagrams of the fourth line where astronomers (ſeront a mort) and astronomist (ront a mortis S) stand out as having especially powerful links to the text of that line.

The tone of the anagrams is consistent with the views of a person of the sixteenth century who understood the difference between the ill powers (pour ſeu - l il) of astrology and the pure logic of astronomy. Using the anagrams of this verse in the manner of a powerful keyword filter we can build a focussed picture which correctly foretells the split of 16th century astronomy into two distinct branches, astronomy and astrology but it has an even greater story of the martyrdom of an astronomist, Giordano de Bruno.