A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.

Franz Kafka, 1883 – 1924
Nostradamus biography at QuotationFun

A Short Biography of Nostradamus

Author Name:

Nostradamus

Born As:

Michel de Nostredame

Other Names:

Nostradamus is the Latinized name of Michel de Nostredame.

Born:

14 Dec 1503

Died:

02 Jul 1566




author picture 
Apothecary and astrologer                          
Selected Works:

 Les Propheties - 1555                          
Mother  Reynière de St-Rémy
Father Jaume de Nostredame, at least nine children.
May have married Henriette d'Encaussen, two children.
Married Anne Ponsarde, six children.                          
                          
Nostradamus began writing a book of one thousand mainly French quatrains, which constitute the largely undated prophecies. Feeling vulnerable to religious fanatics, he devised a method of obscuring his meaning by using "Virgilianized" syntax, word games and a mixture of other languages such as Greek, Italian, Latin, and Provençal. For technical reasons connected with their publication in three installments, the publisher of the third and last installment was unwilling to start it in the middle of a "Century," or book of 100 verses, the last fifty-eight quatrains of the seventh "Century" have not survived into any extant edition.

Their popularity seems to be due to the fact that their vagueness and lack of dating make it easy to quote them selectively after every major dramatic event and retrospectively claim them as "hits".

Nostradamus plagiarised many of his works, such as easily identifiable passages from Livy, Suetonius, Plutarch and other classical historians, as well as from medieval chroniclers such as Geoffrey of Villehardouin and Jean Froissart. Many of his astrological references are taken almost word for word from Richard Roussat's Livre de l'estat et mutations des temps of 1549–50.

Nostradamus was afraid of being persecuted for heresy by the Inquisition, but neither prophecy nor astrology fell in this bracket, and his relationship with the Church as a prophet and healer was excellent.