Ad amplissimu[s] presulu[m] decus. D. D. Achillem de grassis. S. Syxti Cardinalem Reuerendissimum Thome Philologi Janothi Rauennatis Pronosticon super mo[n]stri ex Felsinea urbe oriun di : ac ab eo quidem in eius presentis co[n]cinatione denun tiati [i]nsignificationibus ... horrendos mo[n]stro[rum] significatus. / [Thomas Philologus].

Ad amplissimus presulum decus. D. D. Achillem de grassis. S. Syxti Cardinalem Reverendissimum Thome Philologi Janothi Ravennatis Pronosticon super monstri ex Felsinea urbe oriun di : ac ab eo quidem in eius presentis concinatione denun tiati insignificationibus ... horrendos monstrorum significatus.

Bononie : [publisher not identified], die xv. Januarij. m.v.xiiii [15 January 1514]

1 sheet : 315 x 215 mm (folio)

Title from head of text.

First edition of Bologna student of medicine Tommaso Rangoni Giannotti's astrological interpretation of a teratological birth. On 10 January 1514, reports of a child born with the extremely rare birth condition of diprosopus (born with two faces) reached Bologna. Five days later, Giannotti, only 20 years old, published this work, in which he portends that the birth of the child, having occurred during the conjunction of Mars and Saturn, will bring not only war, earthquakes, Ottoman aggression, and catastrophic plague, but also other such births, at the next conjunction. This is the earliest known reference to diprosopus and was the first work of judicial astrology, the practice of predicting fortune or calamity based on the alignment of the stars, that Giannotti wrote (or at least the earliest to survive). In it he suggests that the world may be saved from the pending disasters triggered by the birth of the child by the intercession of the new Pope, Leo X. Giannotti wrote at least 20 more such portents in the following decade, many for Count Guido Rangone at the court at Modena (a papal bastion), suggesting Giannotti was handsomely remunerated for his predictions. But conflict inevitably arose, and demand for such incendiary documents waned as the vigilance of the Catholic Church in prosecuting astrologers as heretics rose, and in the 1530s Giannotti turned to medicine full time. Adapted from a description by W. S. Cotter.

Evidence of having been folded in eighths, with minor losses to creases.