Century 7

VII.1

[after the local legend that the treasure of the Golden Fleece was hidden behind the western panel (showing the death of Achilles) of the Roman mausoleum at St-Paul-de-Mausole, with its supposed discovery taken as an omen of contemporary persecutions of Protestants]

[Of] The treasure chest concealed by Achilles
the panel shall be known to the descendants.
By royal decree the edict shall be known:
the corpse seen hanging in full view of the people.

VII.2

[source unidentified]

War once opened, Arles shall offer no resistance:
by night the soldiers shall be surprised.
Black and white, like Indians hidden underground,
under false disguise, you shall see the traitors unearthed.

VII.3

[source unidentified]

After the naval victory of France
over those of Barcelona and the Franks by those of Marseille,
instead of gold, the [an] anvil [shall be] wrapped in the bale:
the people of Toulon shall consent to the fraud.

VII.4

[source unidentified]

The Duke of Langres [shall be] besieged in Dôle
accompanied by men from Autun and Lyon.
Geneva, Augsburg, together with those of Mirandola,
shall cross the mountains against those of [coming from] Ancona.

VII.5

[source unidentified]

Some of the wine on the table shall be spilled:
the third shall not have the woman that he claimed.
Doubly descended from the Black One [Moor?] of Parma,
Perouse shall do to Pisa whatever he likes.

VII.6

[after the Mirabilis Liber 1522/3, assimilated to the Saracen invasion and occupation of Sicily and southern Italy from the sixth century onwards]

Naples, Palerma and all of Sicily
shall be occupied by Barbarian forces:
in Corsica, Salerno and the isle of Sardinia,
hunger, plague, no end of limitless ills.

VII.7

[source unidentified]

Upon the combat between the light horses of the lords,
it shall be announced that the Great Crescent [Islam? Or Henry II?] is confounded.
By night men in shepherd’s clothing shall storm the mountains,
the Reds [Cardinals? Imperial troops?] dashed into the deep ditch.

VII.8

[source unidentified]

Florence, flee, flee the nearest Roman!
At Fiesole shall battle be joined.
Blood shed, the greatest lords captured by armed force,
neither church nor sex [sect] shall be spared.

VII.9

[possibly after an illicit affair between Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henri II, and the Duke de Guise, a native of Bar]

The lady in the absence of her great captain
shall be begged for love by the Viceroy.
A feigned promise and an unfortunate gift
[shall fall] into the hands of the great prince from Bar.

VII.10

[after the successful passage of the Strait of Gibraltar by Nostradamus’s friend the Baron de la Garde, Admiral of the Eastern Mediterranean, with 25 galleys in 1545, in the face of Spanish and Imperial opposition: see III.1]

By the great prince from near le Mans,
a brave and valiant leader of the great army,
by land and sea, with French and Normans,
shall Gibraltar be passed, having plundered Barcelona’s island [the Balearics?].

VII.11

[possibly after the relationship between Queen Catherine de Médicis and one of her sons]

The royal child shall despise his mother:
halt of foot, with bad eyes, rude, disobedient
a piece of news strange and very bitter to the lady.
Over five hundred of his folk shall be killed.

VII.12

[source unidentified]

The junior lord shall make an end of the war,
once the pardoned have been paraded before the gods;
Cahors and Moissac shall flee far from prison,
Lectoure shall be repulsed, the people of Agen cut down.

VII.13

[after the takeover in the name of France of the government of Genoa between 1508 and 1522 by the cleric Thomas de Grailly de Foix-Lautrec]

Of the marine tributary city
the shaven head [monk/bishop] shall seize the satrapy;
he shall expel the villain who shall then oppose him.
For fourteen years he shall hold the tyranny [rulership].

VII.14

[after discoveries of ancient artefacts, taken as an omen for the emergence of the latest heretical ideas]

A scythe shall expose the topography,
the urns of the tombs shall be opened.
Sects and false philosophies shall multiply,
for white black, and for old new.

VII.15

[possibly after the domination of Lombardy by François I between 1515 and 1522, when the military defeat of La Bicoque lost him most of the Milanais]

Before the city of the Insubrian country [Milan]
for seven years the siege shall be laid.
A very great king shall enter it:
the city shall then be free, clear of its enemies.

VII.16

[after the fortification of Calais under England’s Queen Mary, whose banner bore three lions passant guardant, and its anticipated capture by the French under the Duke of Guise]

The deep-set gate made by the great Queen
shall make the place powerful and inaccessible;
the army of the three lions shall be defeated
causing within a hideous and terrible event.

VII.17

[presumably after the reign of the former King François I, with his love and promotion of learning, rudely interrupted by his defeat and capture at the Battle of Pavia in 1525]

The prince of rare pity and mercy
shall ere his death [thanks to the Moors] change much knowledge.
The peaceful kingdom shall be much exercised
when the lord shall receive an early drubbing.

VII.18

[source unidentified]

The besieged shall disguise their truce[s]:
seven days later they shall make a savage sortie.
Pushed back inside [amid] explosions and blood, seven [shall be] put to the axe,
the lady [taken] captive who had woven the truce.

VII.19

[probably after the fall of Nice to a combined ‘guest-force’ of French and Turks in 1543]

The fort at Nice shall not be fought over:
it shall be overcome by gleaming metal [gold].
That event shall be argued over for a long time,
strange and fearful [as it shall be] for the citizens.

VII.20

[after a reported diplomatic intervention by Théodore de Bèze, Professor of Greek at Lausanne from 1549 to 1558, to expose Imperial plans to attack France from the south-east]

Ambassadors of the Tuscan tongue
in April and May shall cross the Alps and sea.
The man of Calf [Vaud (Lausanne)] shall reveal the talks,
not coming to [wishing to] wipe out the French way of life.

VII.21

[source unidentified]

Through the pestilential enmity of the Languedoc,
[albeit] hidden, it shall drive the tyrant out.
The bargain shall be made at Bridge of Sorgues
to put to death both him and his henchman.

VII.22

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3, assimilated to the Great Western Church Schism of 1378-1417]

The citizens of Mesopotamia [Iraq]
[shall be] angered at the friends of Tarragona:
[with] games, rites, banquets, everybody asleep,
the Vicar [Pope] on the Rhône, the city [shall be] taken and those of Ausonia [Italy].

VII.23

[after the Great Western Church Schism of 1378 when, under pressure from the local Roman mob who sacked the Vatican, the chosen Pope (the mentally ill Pope Urban VI) was discarded by the cardinals in favour of Pope Clement VII]

The Royal sceptre he shall be forced to take
as his predecessors had pledged.
Then disagreement shall arise about the Papal ring
when the Palace is sacked.

VII.24

[after an identified incident involving the House of Lorraine]

The buried one shall emerge from the tomb:
he shall cause the mighty Du Pont to be bound with chains,
with the roe of a barbel
the Lord of Lorraine [having been poisoned] by the Marquis du Pont.

VII.25

[after an unidentified issuing of substitute money, marked by an archaeological discovery taken as an omen]

Through long war the whole army [shall be] exhausted,
so that they cannot find money for [to pay] the troops:
instead of gold or silver, they shall coin leather [parchment?].
Gallic bronze [discovered], and [bearing] the sign of the crescent Moon.

VII.26

[after an attack by French privateers from Dieppe on a group of Spanish galleons in the English Channel during November 1555, involving the capture of the Spanish admiral and four other nobles]

[By] Large and small galleys around seven ships
a mortal attack shall be delivered:
the captain from Madrid shall be dealt a disembowelling blow,
two escaped and five brought to land.

VII.27

[after an unidentified Italian campaign by the Marquis of Vasto]

In Vasto’s entourage, the mighty cavalry
shall be impeded by the baggage-train near Ferrara.
At Turin they shall promptly undertake such robbery
that from the fort they shall snatch away their hostage.

VII.28

[source unidentified]

The captain shall lead his many prisoners
over the mountain closest to the enemy.
Surrounded, with firearms he shall clear such a path
[that] all [shall] escape except for thirty put on the spit [roasted alive].

VII.29

[source unidentified]

The great Duke of Alba shall rebel:
his forefathers he shall betray.
The Lord of Guise shall defeat him:
[he shall be] led captive and a monument [tombstone] erected.

VII.30

[source unidentified]

The sack approaches, great fire and bloodshed,
[of] Po the great river[s], undertaken against the drovers;
after a long wait for Genoa and Nice,
[for] Fossano, Turin, capture at Savigliano.

VII.31

[source unidentified]

From Languedoc and Guienne more than ten
thousand shall be determined to cross the Alps again.
The great Savoyards shall march against Brindisi:
Aquino and Bresse shall drive them back.

VII.32

[after an unidentified member of the Medici banking family of Florence]

From a house in Montereale shall be born one
who shall rule the roost over vault and bank account.
He shall raise an army in the marches of Milan
to drain Faenza and Florence of gold and men.

VII.33

[source unidentified]

By fraud the kingdom stripped of its forces,
the fleet blockaded, passages spied out,
two false friends shall ally themselves
to awaken hatred [that had been] for a long time dormant.

VII.34

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

In great grief shall be the folk of France,
vanity and lightheartedness shall be thought foolhardy.
No bread, salt, nor wine or water, drugs or barley-beer,
the noblest captured: hunger, cold and want.

VII.35

[after the Great Western Church Schism of 1378 when, under pressure from the local Roman mob who sacked the Vatican, the chosen Pope (the mentally ill Pope Urban VI) was reneged on by the formerly supportive cardinals in favour of Pope Clement VII]

The great Fish [they] shall complain and weep
at having elected: they shall be deceived about his age.
He shall hardly want to remain with them [himself]:
he shall be disappointed by those of his own tongue.

VII.36

[after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

Good heavens! The whole Divine Word afloat,
borne by seven red-shaven heads [priests/monks] to Byzantium:
against the anointed, three hundred from Trebizond
shall pass two laws, first horror then belief.

VII.37

[source unidentified]

Ten sent to put the captain of the ship to death
shall be warned by one that there is open conflict in the fleet.
Confusion shall reign, men shall stab and savage each other
at Lerins and the Isles of Hyères, as he heads inland towards La Nerthe.

VII.38

[after the accidental death of Henry II of Navarre in May 1555]

The Royal eldest son on a prancing steed
shall spur so fiercely that it shall bolt,
its mouth swollen: his foot trapped in the stirrup,
dragged, pulled, he shall die horribly.

VII.39

[possibly after the Mirabilis Liber of 1522/3]

[With] The leader of the French army,
thinking to lose the main phalanx
through the mountain transport of oats and [because of] arduous conditions,
the alien nation shall be overthrown through Genoa.

VII.40

[after an unidentified ‘Trojan Horse’ incident]

Within casks smeared outside with oil and grease
twenty-one shall be enclosed off the harbour.
At second watch through death they shall distinguish themselves with valour:
they shall gain the gates and be killed by the watch.

VII.41

[after a letter from Pliny to his friend Sura, telling the story of a haunted house]

The bones having been shut in [walled up] hand and foot,
because of the noise [rumour] the house having been uninhabited for a long time,
as a result of dreams they shall be unearthed by excavation.
The house, [once] cleansed, [shall be] inhabited without noise.

VII.42

[source unidentified]

Two new arrivals [shall be] seized of the idea
to pour poison into the cooking of the great Prince.
By the scullion both shall be caught in the act:
taken [shall be] he who thought to kill the elder son.

[at his point the seventh Century comes to an abrupt end]

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