I cannot give the reason if it, but all history, both ancient and modern, attests the fact, that no great misfortune happens either to a town or a province which has not been foretold by some one possessed of the power of prophecy...
-Macchiavelli, quoted here

This wonderfully odd little book arranges, dictionary style, a compendium of names both greatly famous and less well known about whom prognostications were made, or who themselves made predictions that did indeed come to pass. From foreseeing military triumph or disaster to anticipating their own untimely deaths, the list of historic personages who saw the future or had it foreseen for them is astonishing:

Alexander the Great . Saint Augustine . Lord Francis Bacon . Charles I
Cicero . Benjamin Disraeli . George III . Joan of Arc . Julius Caesar
Abraham Lincoln . Mozart . Plutarch . Seneca . Cardinal Wolsey
and many more

Also available from Cosimo Classics: The Alchemy of Happiness and Jewish Legends of the Middle Ages, both translated by Claud Field.

CLAUD FIELD is also author of Mystics and Saints of Islam, Heroes of Missionary Enterprise, and Persian Literature.