Summary
Summary of The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus
The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus at a glance
Summary: 7 min to read
- Reading time
- About 12 h 50 min10 h 10 min fast, 15 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 182,900 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1555by Nostradamus
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
Two voices shape the book
Nostradamus supplies the prophetic quatrains, but Theophilus de Garencieres gives them another voice. Each verse appears in French and English, followed by a note that may be a sentence or a whole historical narrative. The prophet's images are surrounded by a doctor's attempts to explain them.
This makes the relationship between verse and commentary central. Garencieres can be confident or boastful, yet he also admits when he is stuck. His notes are interpretations of the verses, not simply their meanings made plain.
Key idea 2
The defense rests on specific details
Garencieres answers attacks on Nostradamus by treating his predictions as evidence.
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Key idea 3
Obscurity is a deliberate choice
In his letter to Caesar, Nostradamus describes prophecy as a meeting of planetary study and divine illumination.
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Key idea 4
French conflicts give the verses faces
For Garencieres, many prophetic images point toward religious conflict in France.
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Key idea 5
Sea battles become evidence for prophecy
Across the Mediterranean, Garencieres finds another field for interpretation.
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Key idea 6
Nature is treated as a message
Strange births, unusual rain and sights in the sky are more than poetic images to Garencieres.
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Key idea 7
The commentator finds his own age
Writing in London after the return of Charles II, Garencieres finds English events in the quatrains.
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Key idea 8
Candor reveals the limits of interpretation
Garencieres does not always pretend to have an answer.
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Key idea 9
Separate the verse from its explanation
The book brings together deliberately dark prophecies and a doctor's patient attention.
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Go deeper: the whole of The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus
About 13 h 20 min to read.Start freeWho it’s for
You will enjoy this book if you love riddles, old prophecy and Renaissance courts, and if you are curious about how interpretation actually works.
What this book is
Picture a man alone at night, seated on a bronze stool, a faint flame stirring in his mind, his hand trembling as he writes. That is the scene Michael Nostradamus paints in the first two quatrains of his Prophecies. What follows are hundreds of four-line verses about kings, popes, wars, plagues, floods and wonders in the sky.
Theophilus de Garencieres, a London physician, put the verses into English and wrote a note under each one. Nostradamus himself was a physician from Provence who died in 1566. You get a seventeenth century reader at work on a sixteenth century riddle, often admitting that a line defeats him.
In this summary
- 1Two authors share one strange bookFree
- 2A defense answers four charges of slander
- 3The prophet describes his own method
- 4The opening verses stage a ritual of prophecy
- 5Religious war in France fills many notes
- 6The Mediterranean and the Turks loom large
- 7Portents and wonders are read as signs
- 8English history enters through the commentator's own age
- 9The commentator admits when he is stuck
- 10The letter to Henry the Second sets a vast horizon
Key point 1 of 10
Two authors share one strange book
The book is built in layers. At the center stand the quatrains of Nostradamus, grouped in ten centuries of one hundred verses each. Around them sits the work of Theophilus de Garencieres, a doctor who belonged to the College of Physicians in London.
Garencieres then gives an Apology for Nostradamus, a series of short chapters defending the prophet. Then he gives the prophet's letter to his son Caesar, and then the verses. Each verse appears twice, first in French and then in English. Under it comes a note. Some notes run to a single sentence. Others grow into long historical narratives with names and dates.
You are never alone with the prophet, because a patient guide stands at your elbow. He is confident, sometimes boastful, and often honest enough to say that he is stuck.
Take the verses as raw material and the notes as one reader's attempt to make sense of them.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Check yourself
What role does Garencieres play alongside Nostradamus?
Right. “Theophilus de Garencieres, a London physician, put the verses into English and wrote a note under each one.”Not quite. “Theophilus de Garencieres, a London physician, put the verses into English and wrote a note under each one.”
Why does Nostradamus say he made the verses obscure?
Right. “Plain words would have angered the powerful of his own day, and clever readers of later ages would have mocked them.”Not quite. “Plain words would have angered the powerful of his own day, and clever readers of later ages would have mocked them.”
What do Garencieres's admissions of uncertainty reveal?
Right. “These admissions show how thin the line is between a discovery and a guess.”Not quite. “These admissions show how thin the line is between a discovery and a guess.”
Go deeper: the whole of The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus
About 13 h 20 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 191,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 12 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus
What is a century in Nostradamus?
A century is a group of one hundred quatrains. The book has ten of them. The first seven were dedicated to his son Caesar in March 1555, and the last three came with a later letter to Henry II.
Why are the verses so obscure?
Nostradamus says in his letters that he wrote darkly on purpose, so as not to anger the powerful of his day or invite mockery later. The commentator adds that copyists and printers also damaged many lines.
Cite this edition
Nostradamus. The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-true-prophecies-or-prognostications-of-michael-nostradamus.
Nostradamus. (2026). The true prophecies or prognostications of Michael Nostradamus. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-true-prophecies-or-prognostications-of-michael-nostradamus (Original work published 1555)
Nostradamus. The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-true-prophecies-or-prognostications-of-michael-nostradamus.
@book{nostradamus2026true,
author = {Nostradamus},
title = {The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-true-prophecies-or-prognostications-of-michael-nostradamus},
note = {First published 1555}
}
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Get the full summary of The True Prophecies or Prognostications of Michael Nostradamus, free
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