Michel de Nostredame (14 December 1503-1 July 1566) was a French astrologer, physician, and seer who was known for his 1555 Les Propheties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains predicting future events. He was a close confidant of Queen Catherine de Medici, who used his visions to guide her many plots.
Biography[]
Nostradamus in 1557
Michel de Nostredame was born in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, Provence, France on 14 December 1503, and he came from a Jewish family which had converted to Christianity in 1460. He entered the University of Avignon in 1517 at the age of 14, but he was forced out when the school closed due to a plague outbreak. From 1521 to 1529, he travelled the countryside and researched herbal remedies in order to become an apothecary. After working for several years as an apothecary, and he was expelled from the University of Montpellier for his manual trade as an apothecary. In 1534, three years into his marriage, his wife and two children died during a plague outbreak, and he went on to remarry and have six more children. He wrote a successful almanac for 1550 before becoming an astrologer for several wealthy patrons, and Catherine de Medici was one of his foremost supporters. He published Les Propheties in 1555, making several predictions about future events; however, it initially received mixed reviews. He died of edema in 1566 at the age of 62.