The Astrologer's Prediction

After the Thirty Years' War, when the Wallensteins owned the château, the well-known Italian astrologer Giovanni Battista Zenno, called Seni, lived here for a time. According to legend, his prediction that one of the noblemen at Třebíč Château would die through a lion within three years came true. A lion appeared in the Wallenstein coat of arms. As the third year drew to an end, the young nobleman was constantly guarded out of fear of the prophecy. They could not protect him from himself, however: he finally injured himself on a coat of arms bearing a lion, which he struck in anger. He soon died of the apparently trivial injury, which caused blood poisoning. Giovanni Battista Zenno, called Seni, was born in Genoa in 1600 and studied under the famous astrologer Andrea Argoli in Padua. He took refuge in Třebíč after the death of Albrecht of Wallenstein, whose personal astrologer he had been. As is known, even before Wallenstein's murder he maintained that the danger indicated by the position of the stars had not yet passed. After Wallenstein died, Seni was arrested and taken to Vienna for questioning. His innocence was established and he was released. He returned to Genoa, where he died of plague in 1656. He wrote several cabalistic books, none published during his lifetime. At the time of Wallenstein's murder he was only thirty-three, not an old man as is so often portrayed, especially in the theatre. (See Jičín, Plzeň and Cheb.)