Abstract

Nostradamus (1503-66) is one of the most controversial writers of the Renaissance and one of the most widely read. Whatever his other accomplishments, he is best remembered as an enigmatic seer, the man who could foretell events, though he could not specify when in the future they would occur. Modern readers tend to view Nostradamus either as a relic from a superstitious age or as an inspired visionary. In this book Georges Dumezil, renowned scholar of myth and religion, takes Nostradamus seriously in order to examine, for once, what happens if he is taken very seriously indeed. Can one foresee the future, Dumezil asks, and fail to understand it?