A 1559 chapbook signed Michel Nostradamus, doctor in medicine from Salon de Craux in Provence. Surrounded by stars, books, and an armillary sphere, the astrologer is a picture of penetration and inspiration.
One of the earliest portraits of the man, on a medal dated 1562. The sober robe and hat suited a doctor and astrologer who healed bodies and souls.
Salon-de-Provence, Nostredame’s adopted hometown, around 1900. Note the castle to which Catherine de Médicis summoned the astrologer in 1564.
A Parisian almanac for 1674, attributed to Nostradamus. The master had predicted “the good and the bad fortune of this world.”
A book-length interpretation of the Prophecies, first published in 1693. The author, Balthasar Guynaud, defended the saintly prophet against detractors and provided a key to his predictions.
The blacksmith François Michel, who was visited by a ghost and told to deliver a message to Louis XIV in 1698. Quatrain 2.28, which had reportedly predicted all of this, is at the bottom of the engraving.
Nostradamus at the end of the eighteenth century. The soothsayer points toward an oak tree (symbol of virtue and industry) while announcing an invincible empire.
Inklings of the prophet of doom in the late eighteenth century.
Recovering Nostredame’s (apocryphal) Mighty Book of Spells, with its rules for the interpretations of dreams. Self-help meets Romantic high jinks and the Gothic sublime in this English engraving (1816).
Selling the Prophetic, Picturesque, and Useful Almanac, which blended prophecy and irony for a modern readership. Its mastermind, Eugène Bareste, appears in the upper right corner.
Nostradamus combines astronomy, astrology, prophecy, the occult, and wizardry in this French print from the 1860s. The skull is a new touch.
The prophet is flanked by Henri Torné-Chavigny, the French priest who used quatrains to fight secular modernity. In the background of this 1862 print: sixty historical figures whose fates were purportedly inscribed in the Prophecies.
A full-page color advertisement for Le Matin’s latest serial: Michel Zévaco’s Nostradamus (1907).
The wizard as fixture of mass culture. This poster advertises one of the “fantastic illusions” that Georges Méliès staged in his Parisian theater in the 1890s. Its title: “The Tricks of the Moon and the Misadventures of Nostradamus.”
A Nostradamus board game around 1900. Players could find out where to uncover happiness or what their love life had in store.
“Madman gets mad”: Hitler learns in the Prophecies that his own henchmen are plotting against him. This still comes from MGM’s 1944 short Nostradamus IV.
The residents of Salon who reenacted Catherine de Médicis’ visit to the city in the early 1990s. The Renaissance humanist can only thrive within his local community.
There is no need to depict the real Michel de Nostredame outside Salon. The name suffices.
A scowling prophet for modern times.