Nostradamus: Healing Souls of the Renaissance

The study by Denis Cruz, a renowned scholar and professor at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, is dedicated to one of the most enigmatic figures of the 16th century. Writing a historical work about Nostradamus was almost an unachievable task, due to the abundance of interpretations of the quatrains included in the "Prophecies", as well as the scarcity of material available for a biographer's work. Denis Cruz invites us to immerse ourselves in the atmosphere of the turning events and fears of the 16th century, introducing the mysterious astrologer into the historical field. Nostradamus is primarily a physician, opposing the plague; he also attempts to eradicate the plague that has struck the souls of his contemporaries: divination becomes a technique, and the mystique of writing serves as a tool for healing. Examining the legacy of the popular astrologer, which has often been vulgarized by mass interest in the mystical and thus has repeatedly become the subject of pseudoscientific "research", Cruz reveals the meaning of Nostradamus's enigmatic prophetic texts through the lens of the spiritual worldview of the time, inseparable from religious faith and social conflicts. The study is of interest to specialists in various humanitarian fields and readers captivated by historical science.