A remarkably clean copy of this German astrological almanac a rare survival of C16 ephemera. A former Lutheran preacher, Lorenz Albrecht (1540-1606) was the author of German and Latin religious works and re-converted to the Catholic faith in 1567. Evangelisch Prognosticon testifies to his disillusionment with the Protestant Reformation the Gospel of Luther and his intent to oppose this heresy through the popular genre of the almanac, imitating Johannes Nas s Practica Practicarum. As usual in astrological almanacs, it discusses planets, constellations, zodiacal signs and the seasons and their influx on humans with references to ancient authorities like Pliny and Manilius; but the tone is grim and planets are seen as harbingers of vices. The ominous statement by which the seat of the devil is at the centre of the earth and heresy is at the centre of the universe shows how Albrecht s almanac presented the influence of the cosmos as something that Catholics should resist through will and spiritual exercise so as not to succumb to the Protestant heresy.
