The Great Deluge of 1524
Europe's Pamphlet Presses Sold a Catastrophic Flood for February 1524
Stöffler's conjunction tables plus Gaurico's flood reading sparked a media panic; some officials even prepared arks. February was uneventful.
What was claimed (paraphrase)
the coming conjunctions would cause a catastrophic flood, along with a number of correspondingly apocalyptic events, like massive earthquakes, deadly epidemics, and the arrival of a false prophet
— European pamphlet press and astrologers (1524 flood scare) · said 1499 · due February 1524
February 1524 brought no continent-drowning flood. Critics of astrology, Luther among them, used the miss for years.
The Story
Johannes Stöffler and Jacob Pflaum filled ephemerides with planetary pile-ups in watery Pisces for February 1524. The tables alone said 'drastic change.' Italian astrologer Luca Gaurico and a swarm of pamphlets said flood — plus earthquakes, epidemics, and a false prophet for good measure.
Europe's print shops did the rest. Preachers preached wrath. Some officials headed for higher ground; one Toulouse story has a parliament president building an ark on a mountaintop.
February arrived mild. No deluge. Astrology kept its clients anyway; failed flood pamphlets are harder to unsell than unsold arks.
Receipts
Quote paraphrases Textmanuscripts on Luca Gaurico's flood reading of the Pisces conjunctions Stöffler & Pflaum had tabulated. Same page: Stöffler argued against the flood interpretation; panic and arks (incl. Toulouse parliament president anecdote) were real; February weather uneventful.
Smithsonian attributes a Feb. 20, 1524 deluge date to Stöffler's 1499 Almanach nova and notes 100+ pamphlets — used for scale, not for death anecdotes. Made-date 1499 follows the Stöffler tables; the popular flood framing spread in the early 1500s.
As of Oct 25, 2026
since it didn't happen
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