Regiomontanus’s  many gifts

Regiomontanus, (the King of the Mountain)) the alias Johannes Müller von Königsberg, is the creator of his eponymously named Regiomontanus house method.   He was in his time a well known astrologer and mathematician, and unleashed his method in 1490 positing it as a “correction” to the Italian Campanus Brothers.   The difference is supposed to lay in the cusps.  Glancing up ahead at Vice President Spiro T. Agnew charts, we find that is true, and thus cuspal planets fall into a different house as well as the interceptions.

He is a quite fellow. 

¹ If you are interested in reading further see Regiomontanus, his life and work by Ernst Zinner published by Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. in 1990 on the anniversary of  Regiomontanus’s 500th birth

As friend of both the Roman Catholic priest Martin Luther and the printer Johannes Gutenberg, Regiomontanus published the first astronomical textbook in 1472 from his studies with Janos Vitez, the archbishop of Esztergom. After that success he went to Buda (as in Buda and Pest) Hungary and built an astrolabe, and was a paid reader of ancient Greek astronomical works in the original and where he saw the 1472 comet on Christmas Day.

 

In 1475 Regiomontanus worked on the Julian calendar reform in Rome for Pope Sixtus IV. It would still be another 100 years before Pope Gregory XIII released an  adjustment in the tropical calendar since Caius Julius Caesar’s (killed ides of March, 44 BC) original version.  They fixed the drift in by inventing “leap days,”  but they were already 1000 years behind the Mayan high priests who had a calendar 365.2420 days long, but was too slow.   Gregory’s boys would rectify Casear’s to 365.2425 days long which is still too fast so we have leap seconds to drop some time.[mnf] from Sylvanus Morley, Ph.D. The Ancient Maya pg. 47 [/mfn]

Since then scientists have added 27 leap seconds, all in the last hundred years because  the Earth’s rotation is slowing, meaning the length of our day is getting longer, and whether that also means it is going to get colder is still being debated.  In the meantime, scientists determined that no leap second was needed  in 2020.

The new “Gregorian calendar was released by the Roman Catholic Pope in 1582.  To get the days aligned with the Sun, the mathematicians dropped 11 days and then added a “leap year” every four.  It has remained the standard since, but other contenders always crop up.

Our header picture is the frontispiece of Regiomontanus’ “Epitome of the Almagest” depicting Ptolemy, the father of astronomy and astrology, and Regiomontanus sitting beneath an armillary sphere (now commonly referred to as an an astrolabe).

Now onto Regiomontanus.  First we will use the earlier Campanus, and compare it to Regiomontanus and then compare the Regiomontanus to our own default, Morinus, before comparing the same Spiro T. Agnew Regiomontanus chart to a modern Placidean variant, Koch.

² The Koch house system format is slowly gaining ground on Placidus at least in American.  Europeans still tend to use Campanus probably because the famed British astrologer C. E. O. Carter  in 1930 endorsed it. 

 

Agnew with Campanus

In the Campanus method, Vice President Agnew has his 2nd and 8th houses have interceptions. This obscures Uranus 23 Aquarius 45 (second house) and then naturally, interceptions require that the two opposing houses both be intercepted, Neptune 09 Leo 28 & Saturn 27 Leo 24 (both planets are found in the eighth house).

Campanus does not really highlight the problems that Agnew experience, though with Saturn in Leo 28 intercepted does suggest that he would fall from his high position after obtaining it.

Agnew with Regiomontanus

 

Agnew’s Regiomontanus chart also has interceptions but now they are are in the ninth house where Saturn resides, thus moving the old man from the eighth house in the Campanus, and his modern equivalent Uranus into the third .

This chart gets more points than the previous Campanus. It is what I use when I am scouting for interceptions in American charts– I find that Regiomontanus works better with those. Here it clearly shows Agnew’s constant attack by the media, Uranus in its rulership Aquarius, and in the third house of public relations, newspapers and journeys as the ultimate cause of his Uranian downfall in the ninth. The press was nonstop in their attack against the man.

Saturn is in the ninth also highlights that Agnew was not part of a “large” and accepted religious and social class. Instead, he came from a working class immigrant family, was a self-made man, and not of any of the predominant religious groups that dominant America, though he did convert to Episcopalianism to help offset that.

This problem shows up again and again in American politicians charts, particularly at the presidential level. The only Republican Vice Presidents not to really get that kind of attack was Charles Dawes, Calvin Coolidge’s Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Mike Pence.

Saturn by the way, returns to the Campanus eighth house.

Agnew with Morinus

Celestiology’ s default Morinus chart has the same take as Regiomontanus but surprisingly with a different emphasis. Here in this sixth house we have Gemini which rules newspapers and the media with the South Node, of undoing, ensconced opposite its own ruler in the twelfth. The tail btw is exalted in Gemini giving it incredible power.

The South Node in the sixth highlights work and service, but here opposite his ascendant in the twelfth shows how much Agnew was an “outside” and thus not part of the sanctum sanctorum (Latin for inner circle).

Bruno and Louise Huber believe that this is because they are more concerned on doing their job and ignore the social and political realities around them — there is a natural square between Gemini’s house, the third, and the Nodal house of sixth, and thus gossip will haunt them despite their work record. That was very true of Agnew, the Washington Post hounded with unfounded allegations until he pleaded “No contest” and resigned. Remember the tail does not stay still but thrashes and strikes about.

As in a game of chess, with the bishops (the Senate) not supporting him, the pawns (the House in tow), and the press on a constant attack (the knights) the queen fell leaving the King (Nixon) alone, and easy target.

The final blow in Agnew’s intercepted chart is Mars at 28 Sagittarius 37 also intercepted first on the first house cusp showing the antipathy towards the man, who unlike most Republican candidates for Vice President, was not a seasoned politician. The media and Washington D.C. prefer one of their own like Walter Mondale,  George H. W. Bush,  Lloyd Bentsen,  Al Gore,  Jack Kemp,  Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney and  Joe Biden.

Agnew with Koch

The modern day, Koch, is in synch with his fellow German, Regiomontanus.

Footnotes

1. Zinner, Ernst  Regiomontanus, his life and work by Ernst Zinner published by Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. in 1990, Netherlands. 
   • Zinner’s biography dispels a lot of myths  about Herr Mueller including his birth date and birth place, which was not in Konigsberg but technically outside of it in Unfinden. So why do we refer to him as Mueller von Konigsberg (Mueller of Konigsberg or a Konigsberger?
   • Because it’s close :  Konigsberg has the geolocation coordinates of  50.07 10.56 while Unfinden is 50.09, 10.568. Zinner thinks Unfinden  was  farming village outside of Konigsberg when Regiomontanus was born,   and now probably, suburb, where the miller (Mueller is miller in German)  and his gristmill was located  Possible, because even on maps of Konigsberg, Unfinden does not show up; you have to look for it, so it doubtful as Zinner admits that Regiomontanus would have mentioned this podunk as his hometown but would have instead deferred to the larger and more prosperous Konigsberg. 
   • Unfortunately Konigsberg turns up zilch when looking for information on him because in 1640 the town hall, where the records were stored, was burnt, and then in 1897 everything prior was chipped for wood pulp. 
   • What Zinner did discover was in statements from his grand niece in law, Katharina,  she  identified herself “the wife the son whose mother was the daughter of old Johann Muller of Unfinden who son was said to be the mathematician Johann Muller, known as Regiomontanus.
   •  
2. Morley, Sylvanus, Ph.D.  The Ancient Maya, Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, c. 1947.
   1. Morley comments ” Pope Gregory’s correction is 3/10,000 of day too long, while the ancient Maya correction was only 2/10,000 of a day too short.”  Rather impressive for people who never invented the wheel, none of the Native Indian tribes of the Americas did surprisingly, and were still in the Stone Age.  This is just one of may examples  of what can be achieved by paper, charcoal and brains.