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Here Abano describes the meaning and function of the Geomantic Court.

In order to have better cognition of all that one wishes to know, one must consider the thirteenth and fourteenth figure, which are called the Witnesses, because they unveil many secrets, depending on the good or evil nature of the figures they contain. And one must also consider the fifteenth figure, called the Judge, which shows the end of the matter for good or ill, together with the figure in the fourth house.¹

The thirteenth figure signifies the past, but also the present, depending on the question, while the fourteenth the future.² When the thirteenth and fourteenth figures are good, it means the question asked is positively answered, especially if the Judge is also good, but when the thirteenth figure is evil and the fourteenth good there is some trouble, and if the thirteenth is good and the fourteenth evil, then the question has a negative answer, especially if the Judge is evil. ³

If both Witnesses are evil and the Judge good, one must refer to the fourth house and judge from it what shall come to pass. Similarly, if the Right Witness is good and the Judge evil, one must look at the fourth to consider whether the matter will end in joy or sorrow.

If, after all this, there were still doubts, take the fifteenth and the first figures and add them to create another figure, and judge depending on the nature of this figure. And if this figure happens to fall in any of the houses, good or evil will come from a person or thing signified by that house. This sixteenth figure is called the Judge of the Judge [Sopraiudice].

Furthermore, this sixteenth figure is produced also from the Judge and from the figure in the house of the quesited, according to the properties of the houses as described before, and according as said figure is conform or not conform to the fifteenth or sixteenth figure, so one judges the chart of the question.⁴ And when they are good, all the better, and when they are bad, all the worse. And when they contradict each other it is also somewhat bad. But when they are in everything opposed to the fifteenth and sixteenth, the chart is null and void, and the chart is called anomalous, without order or rule. ⁵

MQS

Footnotes

1. Here Abano seems to put the Judge and the Fourth house on the same plane. ↩︎
2. This idea seems to stem from astrology, where the Moon’s previous aspect indicates the present or the past, and the one she makes immediately after shows the future. ↩︎
3. The way Abano describes the interrelation of the Witnesses with the Judge almost seems to make the Witnesses more important than the Judge. ↩︎
4. This additional technique begs a couple of questions. First off, why does Abano call both figures ‘the sixteenth figure’? Are they on the same plane? Secondly, is this technique always employed whenever the traditional Judge of the Judge (from the Judge and the First Mother) is used? ↩︎
5. In other words, this seems to have been taken as a sign that the chart didn’t answer the question. Personally, I am skeptical of this technique. It is my experience that charts are always radical, whether they are astrological charts or geomantic shields. They always answer, or at the very least they are always meaningful. Clearly, if we keep making up new figures, the chances of them contradicting each other increase accordingly. But contradiction is not a sign that a chart is not valid: only that it mirrors a complex, contradictory reality. Maybe I am wrong. ↩︎