Leonardo da Vinci by James A. Eshelman
With the recent reprinting of Garth Allen's outstanding "Kid Gloves" articles, the unification of astrology and psychology may be closer than many would guess. Astrologers now have a thorough treatment of the way each planetary ergie expresses itself within a depth psychological framework.
While the fields of astrology and psychology still remain distinct, we must call upon the interpretive skills of the former and gauge them with the experience or the latter. By comparing published casework by psychologists to the birthcharts of actual people we can surely learn much about the interworkings of the two disciplines. Fortunately we have at least one acceptable study to adapt. Sigmund Freud, in 1916, released Leonardo da Vinci: A Study in Psychosexuality. We shall attempt here to relate Freud's psychoanalytical arguments to what is known astrologically of this Renaissance giant.
Leonardo da Vinci was born April 15, 1452 (O.S.), on the Italian village of Vinci, near Florence. Originally equipped with no more than this we attempted to piece together a probable birth time based on what we knew of his character. We began with Freud's own comment referring to da Vinci as an anal type due to his "circumstantiality and marked interest in money." In Garth Allen's analysis, this denotes a Saturn influence. Also to be considered is the man's great skepticism and refusal to accept dogmatic pronouncements. Though his sexual abstinence could easily have come from a strong asexual Mercury a strong Saturn would augment this, and an angular Mercury-Saturn aspect would be better yet! Aided by its trine to Mars, an angular Saturn would account for his inactivity and indifference, his quiet nature, and what Freud referred to as an "effeminate delicacy" and slowness to action.
Since Saturn opposes da Vinci's Mercury, one angular naturally throws the other into the fore, and this is surely fitting. Begin with the obvious: Leonardo's sharp mind, his mastery of the language, and overall mental nature. Indeed, Feud isolated curiosity as the one outstanding quality of the man.
Leonardo da Vinci spent much of his life working on the problem of flight, a prime Mercurian pastime. It was his fondest wish to follow the birds through the skies. This and innumerable other topics filled his diaries, for he was ever jumping from one topic to another in true Moon-in-Aquarius fashion. Said Solmi: "...his unrequited wish to understand everything surrounding him, and to fathom with cold reflection the deepest secret of everything that is perfect, all that has condemned Leonardo's works to remain forever unfinished."
Had we selected a chart with Mercury and Saturn in the fore, we would have been forced to accept an angular Neptune as well. Here is the great imagination, directed to art and an understanding of nature through a trine with Venus in Taurus. Here is the great Madonna worship of the man who portrayed Mona Lisa de Gioconda and her eternal, mysterious smile so beautifully. In this foreground Neptune we could also see the seat of problems with his parents.
Though at first we worked with a speculative map, we were soon reminded that Cyril Fagan had originally published da Vinci's birthchart, with time drawn from historical sources. (January, 1965 issue of American Astrology). According to his grandfather's diary he was born during the third hour of the night, which in Florentine reckoning equated to April 14 (O.S.) at 9:53 p.m. LMT. If we doubted at first the precisely angular Neptune, it was only because it was too fitting to be true. (We were more than pleased to some of our early estimations justified!) It was somewhat disappointing to see the Mercury-Saturn opposition nearer the 5th-11th cusp axis than the meridian.
[The chart given here is modern calculation, with Solar Fire. The chart that appeared with the article was calculated by hand from a variety of resources available to me and to Clancy Publications in 1973-74, with planet calculations slightly different. Pluto, of course, was the worst, and was thought to be about 2° later than we now know it was.]
Set in the frame of the Sidereal zodiac, the fantasies of Leonard da Vinci readily evince themselves. When Freud set out to diagnose da Vinci's alleged homosexuality, he had little material. Only one recollected fantasy from the painter's youth could be found. "It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in cradle, a vulture came down to me, opened my mouth with its tail and struck me many times with his tail against my lips." (Scognamiglio. Cod. Atlant. F. 65V.)
Of course this was not an actual memory. It was a fantasy, an image woven by the subconscious to add details and events to half-remembered events of the earliest years. Since the tail is a well known phallic symbol in dreams, this was immediately seen by Freud as a fellationary dream.
Almost all of this fantasy stems from Leonardo's natal Moon-Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius. Jupiter represents the oral phase of infantile development, and here squares Venus, uniting it with the love urge. Even the average Venus-Jupiter youth draws particular pleasure from kssing, nibbling, nipping, eating, etc. Jupiter's ergie, arising from the first time the child feeds at its mother's breast, sometimes can be magnified into homosexual cravings in males. [NB. Writing this at age 18 or 19, I accepted Freud's word on the matter. I wouldn't write that sentence today.] Perhaps then the event which gave birth to this fantasy was suckling.
Two more elements need to be interpreted. First, why was the mother depicted as a vulture, and then, why was she given male characteristics (the phallic quality of the tail)? To answer the first question, the symbolism behind the constellation Aquarius should be examined. Even now bird symbolism is connected with this constellation. The United States, whose great seal carries a majestic eagle, was born with the Moon in Aquarius. Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, which has as one of its overt symbols the Phoenix, was born with the Sun in Aquarius. Frequently this bird symbology appears in connection with the Aquarian constellation.
Though the nearby constellation Aquila, the Eagle and its bright star Altair, the Vulture, are usually associated with Capricorn in Egyptian pentade lists, Aquarius is also included. Some of the six pentades, or 5° asterisms, forming Aquarius in the ancient star diagrams, had names such as "top of the wing," "bird," etc. According to Egyptian tradition, vultures were a peculiar species in that only female vultures existed! Early writers tell us that when a vulture wished to be impregnated, the wind played sire. Thus Aquarius, the yonic pot or bowl, is one of the few non-masculine signs of the zodiac - despite the schematic tradition.
Da Vinci was illegitimate and his natural mother reared him until approximately age five. The young Leonardo could have easily identified himself with the vulture's offspring, since, to his mind, he had no father. The effect, in keeping with his angular Neptune in Virgo, was an intense attraction to his mother. At this point, let us refer to the birth chart. A major factor we have avoided until now is Mars in the exact degree of its exaltation, though far from the angles. While sextile Mercury, granting oratorical skill and mental drive, its most important aspect is a close trine to Saturn.
This aspect, in psychoanalytic astrology, indicates a heightened castration complex. Some men with strong Mars-Saturn aspects become cold and stern, often avoiding sexual activity, or inflicting it sadistically on women. This aspect may have given da Vinci his on-again-off-again attitude about painting. From his Aquarian Moon and angular Mercury we glean a great diversification of interests; this Mars-Saturn trine stifled his interests in any one topic after a short time so that many of his great undertakings were never finished. Defensively, the trine causes egoism and impatience.
Yet with Moon conjunct Jupiter, Leonardo had a pleasant exterior, was quite jovial and mild-tempered. He was fond of wearing magnificent garments and being seen in the company of aristocrats, though in a Saturnian manner he kept a tight budget, accounting for every soldi never living beyond his means.
All of these factors worked together to give him the beginnings of homoerotic longings. By identifying himself with his mother, Leonardo's desires became directed to other young boys (his pupils of later years), so that he could love them as his mother had loved him.
There is evidence, though, that no hanky-panky ever occurred. In fact, da Vinci probably didn't have a single erotic affair in his entire life. Mercury sextile Mars did more than spark his speaking. The cadent Mars had its energies directed - sublimated - into the more angular Mercury-Saturn aspect for externalization. His passions were not absent, merely externalized through his inquisitiveness, his fierce curiosity. His persistence and depth did justice to the Mercury-Saturn nature. Because he directed his energies to a higher goal rather than letting them emerge spontaneously from his subconscious, the inventor-artist avoided neurosis. There is a minor element of compulsive reasoning involved as a prophylactic against ignorance and in defense of a Neptune-spawned Oedipus complex. As Freud wrote in The Problem of Anxiety, "Perhaps in compulsion neurosis, even more clearly than in normal and hysterical cases, we may recognize the castration complex as the motivating force of defense, the strings of the Oedipus complex as that which is defended against."
From a purely astrological point of view, a few indications of homoeroticism appear. Mars opposes Pluto from a background place with Sun square Pluto. Venus closely sextiles Uranus.
Our theory is that the bird symbolism was carved into Leonardo da Vinci's psyche at birth, an image from the collective unconscious embedded in his memory. Later, when hearing Egyptian tales of the vultures, his mind readily accepted the parallel symbolism. This would suggest that symbols of the constellations do not have a natal effect on us directly so much as they leave us hypersensitive to similar symbols encountered in infancy. Such a theory is more consistent with what psychologists know of learning and development.
Of course, we still have many questions to answer. Why, for instance, was the Moon's symbolism so dominating, rather than the Sun's? Could it be because Leonardo spent his critical years with his mother, without a paternal figure? Or could the Moon's association with the unconscious be that strong? Only further investigation will answer this.
We cannot afford to overlook the storehouse of symbolic lore in astrology's heritage. Though astrologers of the next decades will work closely with statisticians, some astrologers will not be great statisticians, but they may be psychologists. Under the impetus of a few great minds over the last twenty years, the wall between psychology and astrology is slowly crumbling.
What we need is an approach to astrology which takes into account the mechanics of the psyche that depth psychology has hypothesized. Perhaps current theories by Jung and others will not be found fitting. It might even be that some psychologist among astrologers will put forth a new theory to benefit both fields. The most valuable gift for astrology would be a working theory linking the multiple elements of a birth chart to the functional processes of the mind.