NOSTRADATEUS, a celebrated astrologer of time 16th c., b. Dec. 14, 1303, at St. Hemi, in Provence. His proper name was Michel Notre-Dame, and he was of Jewish descent. He studied first at the cone:re d'Avignon, where he exhibited rctnarkable scientific powers, and subsequently attended the celebrated school of medicine at Montpellier. Here he first acquired distinction during an epidemic that desolated the s. of France, by his humane attention to those stricken by the pestilence. After taking his degree, he acted for some time as professor, but was induced by his friend J. C. Scaliger to settle Agen as a medical practitioner. After traveling for some time, be finally settled at Salon, a little town situated in the environs of Aix. about 1544. Already lie must have been reckoned a man of note, for in the following year, when an epidemic was raging at Lyon. he was solemnly invited thither by the civic authorities, and is. said to have ren dered immense services. Ha first fell upon Lis prophetic vein about the year 1547, but in what light he himself regarded his pretensions. it is now impossible to say. At any rate, he commenced to write his famous predictions (PropltRies) which first appeared at Lyon in 1555. The predictions were in rhymed quatrains, divided into centuries, of Which there were seven the 2d ed., published in 1558, contained ten. Astrology was
then the fashion. and th,.:se quatrains, expressed generally in obsenre and enigmatical terms, had a great success. Some, indeed, regarded the :tinhorns a quack, but the great majority as a genuine seer or predictor of the future. He was, consequently, much sought after by all sorts of people, high and low. Catherine deMedicis invited him to visit her at Blois. to draw the horoscope of her sons, and on his departure loaded him with presents. The duke and duchess of Savoy went to Salon expressly to see him: and when Charles IV. became king, he appointed Nostradamus his physician-in-ordinary (1554). He died at Salon, July 2, 1566. Nostradamus's predictions have been the sub ject of an immense amount of illustrative and controversial literature. He also wrote an Almanac, which served as the model of all snbsequent ones, containing predictions about the weather.—See Jaubert's Vie de M. Nostradamus, Apologie et Ilistorie (Amst. 1656); Astrue's MernoireR pour sereir d l'Hutoire de k Faculte de Montpellier (Paris, 1767); Apologie pour les Grandy Hommes Soupconnes de Magic (Paris, 1825); and E. Bareste's Nostradamus (Paris, 1842).