Bento Serrano

Bento Serrano was a nineteenth-century Portuguese astrologer who lived for a long time as a recluse in a cave in the Serra da Estrela; little is publicly documented about his birth, death, or early life. In 1883, in Porto, he published the seven-volume O Oraculo do Passado, do presente e do Futuro (The Oracle of the Past, Present and Future), covering dream interpretation, divination games, and popular astronomy, and combining practical reference with introductory reading. Substantial in size and popular in subject matter, it was a widely circulated astrological work in Portugal at the time and earned him a local reputation. Beyond this, records of his life and intellectual development are scarce, and readers today know his astrological practice and writing mainly through this work.