Science and superstition in 19th century Spanish satirical almanacs

Abstract

The almanac achieved an incredible success in Spain during the second half of the 19^th century. The different transformations that the genre had been suffered since the 18^th century caused a gradual loss of the astrological contents in favour of a higher presence of miscellaneous and literary texts. This evolution reflects a change in the scientific concept in the occidental societies, where the astrology and other traditional sciences had been relegated to the superstition sphere. The satirical almanacs of the 19^th century evidence the evolution of the genre and its nature, and tackle in several texts some references about that almanac’s «scientific» past and other sciences through joke and irony.