What were the hobbies and interests of Nostradamus?

Trying to keep his head on his shoulders. Literally. In that era people who made predictions of the future could be called out as a witch or a warlock. And then you have a hot time on the old town tonight.

He is reported to have cultivated very peculiar eating habits.
Even at court dinners he’d be having a meal of nuts and seeds from a little bag he carried at all times.

I don’t know his story, but those two responses ^^ strongly suggest that the odd diet was a safeguard against poisoning, perhaps on a pretext of healthy eating. I’ll bet he ate differently all on his own.

I don’t think hobbies had been invented in the 1500s. They’re a luxury of the leisure class and not something for people whose lives consist of labor and a scramble to survive. Nostradamus was a physician by profession, so the Wikipedia snippet tells me, so one may assume that he had interests along those lines.

Even though dining at court means he enjoyed certain privileges in life, he probably had no time or freedom to pursue what we’d call hobbies. Unless you want to count cultivating occult practices such as clairvoyance and writing down prophecies that people still study.

It is well known he was a voracious reader but very few people realize that he was also the four time champion of the iInternational Cunnilingual Tour de France (the ICTF) from 1520 to 1524; although there were unproven rumors he may have been using performance enhancing drugs a the time.

He renowned for playing with his quatrain set.

@Jeruba A hobby is a hobby. It doesn’t have to be expensive. All you need is a little free time. Some people’s hobby back then was to stare at the stars. Look where that led us.

I figure Nostradamus had to have been somewhat unbalanced and delusional to come up with the stuff he did. But it WAS his hobby. He didn’t make a living off of it.

Even cavemen had hobbies like painting on walls. Native Americans made better and prettier baskets over time. Someone had to play with certain patterns just out of curiosity.