The 'divorce' between astrology and astronomy
Linked for many centuries, astrology and astronomy have never been completely confused. And although the two disciplines are sometimes questioned by the Church, it is not exactly for the same reasons. On the one hand, the Church wonders if the numerous discoveries of astronomers, which enrich our knowledge of the sky, are compatible with the central place of mankind in the Universe. On the other hand, it reproaches the astrologers, whose sky has been fixed since Ptolemy, for the divinatory aspect of their art and a form of determinism.
But despite the Church's remarks, it was in the 17th century that a major turning point occurred in the relationship between astrology and astronomy, as its credibility and, above all, its status as a science were called into question.
