Vaticinia Nostradami - Alleged Nostradamian Connections

Alleged Nostradamian Connections

A postscript by Carthusian librarians states that the book had been presented by one Brother Beroaldus to cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who would later become Pope Urban VIII (1623–1644). A further covering note suggests that the images were by the French seer Nostradamus (1503–1566), and had been sent to Rome by his son César de Nostredame as a gift. There is, however, absolutely no contemporary evidence that Nostradamus himself was either a painter or the author of the work, whose contents in fact date from several centuries before his time—nor, indeed, that he had ever heard of it, given that it did not finally appear in print until after his death. The postscript is in fact dated '1629', and the covering note (not in Nostradamus's hand) from which the Nostradamian title derives cannot, on the basis of its contents, date from earlier than 1689 - though an internal note does refer to a source dated 1343.

Nevertheless, the highly speculative Italian writer Ottavio Cesare Ramotti, together with the History Channel's The Lost Book of Nostradamus (October 2007), have still made much of the book's supposedly 'Nostradamian' origin.

There is a letter by Cèsar de Nostredame (Michel's first son), written to the French scientist Fabri de Peiresc, in which mention is made of several miniatures painted by Cèsar, and of a booklet that was destined as a gift to King Louis XIII in 1629, but there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection between these and the Vaticinia.