Events Calendar

Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor 2022-2023

Antonio Panaino, Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Bologna and University of Ravenna

From Astral Mythology to Astrological History: Stars and Planets at the Light of the Religions of the Iranian World and their Theological controversies

An introduction into the ancient Iranian astral lore will outline its progressive readaptation within the apotelesmatic systems of Classical astrology in late antiquity. In this intercultural framework, the astral cosmologies of many religions will inevitably interplay with unpredictable results in which Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Christians, and other religious minorities as well entered in competition, offering alternative interpretations of the world and its heavens. This lecture will also show how a singular mixture of Mesopotamian, Iranian, Indian, and Greek traditions characterized Zoroastrian astrology producing some successful innovations, such as the Doctrine of the Saturn / Jupiter cycles of planetary conjunctions. This astrological method played an enormous importance not only in late antiquity, but also in European Renaissance through the direct influence of Arabic astrology, which entered Medieval Europe.