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That's a painful reminder of how, for an astrologer, I can have a terrible sense of timing and prediction. Working on the CA text is my most enjoyable hobby and my most pleasant astrological indulgence. Unfortunately I have to fit it in when time allows and the last couple of years flew past without me having many of those days where there isn't something more urgent to do. My New year's resolution is to try to change that - which is to say that I haven't intentionally abandoned this, but hate to think anyone is hanging on for the next parts (which hopefully will start appearing soon). In the meantime, the only annotated version I know of it the Ascella I did years back (Kim Farnell did the 3rd volume edition). I don't have anymore copies of this myself, which is why I restarted the project from scratch, but it may be possible that second hand editions are floating around.

Regarding Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, most of the English language editions have some annotations but they are not very explanatory for beginners. There are tradiotional Latin works that have elaborate commentaries accompanying the text but I'm not aware of any of these being translated into English. I can only suggest TG that if you have queries you post them to the traditional section of the forum for discussion. Many forum members enjoy responding to those kinds of posts and queries as I do myself. However this will have to be one of my last forum posts for a while as I am leaving soon for the FAA conference Australia and won't be back until after the end of Jan.

(PS - hi Gem)
Deb

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One thing you might want to do is to acquire a copy of Helena Avelar and Luis Rebeiro, On the Heavenly Spheres, which is a good recent textbook on traditional astrology. Armed with that information, you shouldn't have too much difficulty with Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos.

I've got the Loeb Classical Library translation of Tetrabiblos by F. E. Robbins. Whatever might be its shortcomings as a translation it compensates for by its wide availability.

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By far the most extensive annotated and footnoted Ptolemy is Robert Schmidt's translation. This work was done in the 90s (1994-1998), but is incomplete, now available in re-prints. The notes by Robert Schmidt and Robert Hand are excellent.

There are three volumes, Ptolemy's Books 1, 3, and 4. Originally as Project Hindsight subscribers we paid US $15 for each of these stapled books. (Each book is 60-80 pages.) Now Robert Schmidt is asking $45 for each book plus shipping. I often quote from these books in articles, and I'm puzzled why Robert Schmidt has increased the price so much as they are provisional translations. But they are definitely the best we have at this time. http://www.projecthindsight.com/archive ... istic.html
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

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I often quote from these books in articles, and I'm puzzled why Robert Schmidt has increased the price so much as they are provisional translations. But they are definitely the best we have at this time. http://www.projecthindsight.com/archive ... istic.html
When I purchased copies of Project Hindsight books about 2-3 years ago the price then was $25 for the larger books and I think $15 for the smaller ones.

I never did get all of Ptolemy or Valens. :( Its quite a price hike in just 2-3 years. What I rather resent is that the reprint books are of inferior quality to those produced in the 1990's. The card type covers were replaced by very thin paper covers making these much less durable.

Meanwhile its as unclear as ever when Project Hindsight will get back to putting new translations out of Valens or Ptolemy. Schmidt also never translated Book III of Hephaistio of Thebes. We now have 3 English translations of Paul of Alexandria (Schmidt, Greenbaum and Holden). Regarding Firmicus the recent new translation by James Holden looks like being followed by one by Ben Dykes. So further translations of these texts are a lot less pressing.

Robert Schmidt seems to be focusing on selling CDs and MP3's of his
ideas at present.

I am hesitant to fork out a lot on reprints of these old 'provisional' texts if a new translation is soon forthcoming. :???: However, based on previous output I cannot see Schmidt getting back to Ptolemy for many years to come. I assumed Schmidt's new translation of Valens was almost ready judging by previous comments on the PH website. However, previous experience makes me rather pessimistic on that front too. Paying out $405 +International p&p for copies of the old PH edition of The Anthology goes well beyond my humble book buying budget. :(

Moreover, it seems excessive considering these are only poor quality paper booklets. Even a quality academic production of the text by a publisher like Brill wouldn't cost this much.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

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Mark, the original subscription edition of Valens published by Project Hindsight continued only as far as Book VII, and appeared in only six pamphlets so that would be (6*45) $270 plus shipping.

So far as I have been able to gather from past newsletters and updates from Robert Schmidt and Ellen Black, their previous pricing model was completely unsustainable commercially. The number of subscribers is and has always been small, and the only way that it was possible for them to charge such low prices in the past was by living on various pre-existing capital assets. Since time eventually ran out on these assets, their only option has been to increase prices across the board in order to be able to continue to work on Project Hindsight at all.

I hope that the audio course does not in itself prove so all-consuming that the definitive translation editions are postponed indefinitely. I have been surprised myself at the silence of the past year and a few months on this front. The worst case scenario would be that only a few volumes of the promised 30 are ever published. I feel it's still important to support Project Hindsight since Schmidt's insights are unique and valuable, but the audio course was simply more than I could afford on top of the translations.

Regarding your point about Brill's academic pricing, let's compare by page-count:

Schmidt's edition of Vettius Valens weighs in at (xix + 68 ) + (xii + 90) + (viii + 77) + (xxi + 71) + (v + 88 ) + (xvi + 91) pages, excluding blanks, title pages and contents pages. That's a total of 566 proper text pages over the six volumes for $270 at $45 each, according to my computer's calculator. Overall this seems to be pretty close to typical Brill prices, pro rata. But I would agree with your point about the bindings and covers.
Last edited by Philip Graves on Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Deb, much encouragement with your getting back to working on your annotated edition of "Christian Astrology". I caught the original Ascella edition of all three books when it was available new, purchasing from John Etherington at Midheaven Books back in 2001 or thereabouts. But your level of annotation has clearly developed a lot since then, and I firmly believe that the revised editions you have been working on would be well worthy of printing and major international distribution.

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Philip Graves wrote:Deb, much encouragement with your getting back to working on your annotated edition of "Christian Astrology". I caught the original Ascella edition of all three books when it was available new, purchasing from John Etherington at Midheaven Books back in 2001 or thereabouts. But your level of annotation has clearly developed a lot since then, and I firmly believe that the revised editions you have been working on would be well worthy of printing and major international distribution.
Deb, I agree wholeheartedly with Philip. If you do publish and print your annotated Lilly again, I wonder if you would consider making it a spiral-bound edition for ease of study. But I would purchase it in any form!