It was written in the stars: An improbable encounter on a country bus.

If people ask me where I live the answer varies depending on who’s doing the asking. If it’s someone who knows Franconia or the German universities then I answer (the university town of) Erlangen. If less well informed I answer near Nürnberg because, thanks to Dürer and the Nuremberg Tribunal, it’s well known internationally. However in reality I don’t actually live in Erlangen but in a small village on the outskirts of the town, about six kilometres from the town centre.

At about five o’clock on Friday evening I was travelling back home from the town on a bus which winds its way through the villages to the east of Erlangen. As usual when I travel by bus or train I had my nose buried in a book. In fact I do a fair amount of my reading whilst using public transport. On this occasion the volume that was holding my attention was Monica Azzolini’s excellent The Duke and the Stars: Astrology and Politics in Renaissance Milan, of which a review will appear here in due time. Mentally deep in the arcane structures of Renaissance astrology I gradually became aware of a man standing next to my elbow. Clearing his throat he apologised for disturbing, in a pleasant mild American accent, “but that book you are reading, I know the author!” Momentarily struck dumb by the total improbability of the whole situation I finally managed to stumble out a, “you know Monica‽”

It turned out that my fellow passenger was historian of astrology Darrel Rutkin who, unbeknown to me, is doing research for his forth-coming book on the history of astrology at Erlangen University. We then spent a chilly but happy half an hour on a bus stop, Darrel lives in the next village, exchanging surprise at finding a fellow history of astrology enthusiast on a country bus in Middle Franconia and thoughts on the importance of studying the subject. Later in the evening we exchanged PDFs and website URLs per email agreeing to meet up in the near future to continue a wonderful conversation.

As I wrote to Monica in an email later on in the evening it was one of those situations that if it had occurred in a book or a film, then the reader or viewer would probably think, “oh come on, you don’t expect us to swallow that do you, two historians of astrology meet on a country bus, highly unlikely!” I enjoyed Monica’s reply, which closed with the following thought, “Books have many merits, of course. That to put readers in contact is clearly one of them!”