Michael Nostradamus (Michel de Notredame), an apothecary,…

Michael Nostradamus (Michel de Notredame), an apothecary, had acquired a great reputation as a doctor by treating victims of the plague that intermittently ravages France, but has eventually turned more to astrology and metaphysics.

In 1555, he completes his Centuries, a book of more than nine hundred predictions concerning the fate of France, the world, and celebrated persons of his time.

The book’s tile refers to the fact that the contents are arranged in sections of one hundred verses each.

Nostradamus writes his prophecies as four-lined rhymed verses (quatrains) in vague, often cryptic language.

He includes very few dates in his prophecies and does not organize them into a chronological order, leaving them open to reinterpretation, a process further complicated by his fondness for anagrams and his habit of peppering his verses with Hebrew, Latin, and Portuguese words.