Abstract

The Plotinian way of reading the relationship between stars and human issues as a matter of synchronicity rather than the traditional cause-effect relationship proposed by Astrology was followed by the humanists in general. The symbolic power of signs is based on inspiration more than on rational discourse, and it can be related by wise men to other symbolic languages, including literature, with which it shares many devices. The wise man, according to the Neoplatonic humanists, knows how to interpret the symbols, how to read one thing in another, uncovering the meaning of universal analogy.