French physician and astrologer, whose prophecies have attracted imagination for centuries - also Nazi's used his verses during WW II. Besides his famous Centuries Nostradamus published in 1550 an almanac containing weather predictions. First edition of his quatrains appeared in 1672. In 1999, with the approach of the end of century, apocalyptic fears aroused new interest in the writings of Edgar Cayce, Jean Dixon, Nostradamus, and other prophets.

Nostradamus was born in St. Rémy, Provence into a well-educated Jewish family, who had acquired its property by grain trade. His parents converted to Catholicism, which made Nostradamus both familiar with the occult wisdom of the Kabbalah and the prophecies of the Bible. At home he was educated in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, astronomy and other sciences and in 1522 he was sent to the medical school of Montpellier. After becoming doctor of medicine in 1529 he worked for some time as a professor, and practiced later in Agen, Lyon, and other places in southern France.

In 1538 his wife and children died of plaque. Nostradamus's reliance on sanitary precautions aided his growing renown as a healer, but when the Toulouse Inquisition accused him of heresy, he fled and wandered for six years, visiting also Italy. In 1547 he married Anne Ponsart Gemelle, a rich widow, and moved to Salon, near Aix, where he started to work on his famous astrological predictions PROPHÉTIES (Centuries, 1555-58). Alone in his study his used the power of scrying, or divination by concentration, using a bowl of water on a tripod as the focus of his attention. In his own words: 'The wand in the hand is placed in the middle of the tripod's legs. With water he sprinkles both the hem of his garment and his foot. A voice, fear, he trembles in his robes. Divine splendor, the god sits nearby.'

The book, written in rhymed four-line verses (quatrains) in an obscure mixture of French, Latin, Greek and Provençal with time-sequence jumbled, contained 353 quatrains, which were arranged in 'centuries' of 100 verses. In 1556 Catherine de' Medici, Queen of France, invited him to court to explain a quatrain, which seemingly predicted the death of her husband, Henry II. In fact the wording of the verse was changed in later editions of the Centuries to fit the circumstances. On the accession of Charles IX Nostradamus was appointed as royal physician-in-ordinary.

Nostradamus both copied St John's style and used orthodox Biblical chronology, which held that the world, created in 4004 BC, must last 6 000 years until the final battle with Antichrist and overthrow Babylon, leading to a New Age of peace and the Last Judgment.

Nostradamus died in Salon, on July 2, 1566. He was buried in a wall of the Church of the Cordeliers in Salon. In 1791 his grave was opened, and his bones were reburied in the Church of St. Laurent, also in Salon.

Popular misspellings of Nostradamus
Nostradomus, Nostrodamus, Nostradamas, Nostradamos, Nostradomas, Nastradamus, Nostradamous, Notradamus, Nostradomis, Nostradamis, Nostredamus, Nostadamus, Nostrodamas, Nostra Damus, Nostrdamus, Nostradumus, Nostrodomis, Nostrodamos, Nostradameus, Nostradmus