★ Kirby, Richard [1649-?]. Vates astrologicus, or, England's astrological prophet, fortelling what is likely to befall Great-Britain and Ireland, particularly the great and famous city of London: as also France, Holland, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, Sicily, Apalia, Bohemia, Turkey, and indeed all Europe, but more especially the see of Rome, for twenty years together, beginning March 10, 1683, and ending March 10, 1702: likewise astrological judgments of the effects of that famous triple conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, being thrice repeated in that regal sign Leo, the great dignities of the Sun and Jupiter: also some remarks upon the eclipses, and more especially upon that great and famous visible eclipse of the sun, July 2, 1684: with twenty years predictions from some of the most eminent mutual aspects of the planets, and eclipses of the luminaries, and annual revolutions of the sun: here are also many hieroglyphicks representing the future state and changes of the world: to which is added a treatise of the pestilence, both for the prevention and cure thereof. By Richard Kirby, student in astrology and physick. London, Printed for Thomas Malthus, and are to be sold at his shop at the Sun in the Poultry, 1683.
In 4° (22 cm), [ ]2 [ ]4 [ ]2 C-N2, cc. [6], pp. 48. Dopo le prime [2] carte (titolo, lettera al lettore datata Fulham, February the 10th 1683, ed errata), ne seguono altre [4] con incisioni tratte da altre opere, tra le quali alcune di William Lilly. 13 oroscopi incisi nel testo (eclissi, equinozi e solstizi). Al verso del titolo advertising del libraio Thomas Malthus.
E’ l’unica uscita di questo apparente almanacco con questo titolo. Contiene previsioni astrologiche fino al 1702, in capitoli separati. Mi astengo da un commento analitico, dato che per tutti gli anni esaminati Kirby prevede war, pestilence, famine, diseases e simili.
Ricavo peraltro dalla bella scheda della libreria antiquaria di Jeff Weber, Carlsbad, California, le note che seguono, relative sia all’opera qui descritta, sia alla vita di John Kirby (Weber ha avuto più pazienza di me e ha letto scrupolosamente il libro, estraendone i passaggi più significativi): “[In] His Vates astrologicus (1683) [John Kirby], promised the death of Louis XIV, the devastation of France, Italy, and Spain and the overthrow of the papacy, before the rise of a great conqueror in 1699 who would bring peace to the whole world. Many of these prophecies were drawn from John Holwell's Catastrophe mundi [vedi la scheda n. 3791], or from the astrological works of Richard Edlin [recte: Edlyn; vedi la scheda n. 2318 e la scheda n. 2319] and William Lilly [vedi]. Kirby found it expedient to withdraw from London in 1687-8, and was denounced by the tory astrologer John Gadbury in 1688 [vedi]. He was able to speak out freely once more after the revolution of 1688, and published Catastrophe Galliae in 1690, in which he promised the conquest of France and Ireland and a golden age of freedom for Britain, and mocked Gadbury for predicting that the year 1688 would pass uneventfully. In 1681 Kirby was living in Fulham, but he worked from an address in London, advertising his services as teacher and consultant at the sign of the Iron-Jack, a smith's shop”.
Esemplari: Bodleian Library, Oxford; British Library; Wellcome Library (esemplare con cc. [2], pp. 48); Cambridge University; National Library of Scotland; Marsh Library, Dublin; Observatoire de Paris (2); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München; University of Minnesota; The National Library of Medicine of the USA; Columbia University, New York; New York Public Library Research; Henry Huntington Library Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California; California State University, San Francisco.
Bibliografia: Gardner 618; Capp p. 367; Grassi p. 376.