Ulune

Quintile

AstrologyEn françaisQuintile

Two bodies 72° apart, a fifth of the circle: a minor aspect that modern astrologers link with talent, style and the urge to make.

72°±2°
A quintile: 72° between two points, with Ulune’s orb of 2° either side (shaded).

Meaning

A quintile joins two bodies a fifth of the circle apart, 72°. Unlike the Ptolemaic aspects it does not fit the twelve signs: a fifth of the zodiac is two signs and twelve degrees, so the quintile follows no relation of element or modality and can fall between signs two or three apart.

Many modern astrologers read the fifth division of the circle as the number of form, style and skill. The quintile is linked with talent, play and the wish to make something one’s own: not effortless like a trine, more like a knack that grows with practice until it becomes a signature.

As a fine division, it is used with a narrow orb and read as a nuance. It adds a creative turn to the two functions it joins, and is noticed mostly when it is close to exact. Its companion, the biquintile at 144°, two fifths of the circle, is read in the same family.

In practice

  • Mercury quintile Uranus: an inventive turn of mind, ideas with a personal stamp.
  • Venus quintile Mars: flair in the way charm and desire are expressed, often through art, dance or design.
  • A quintile within a degree deserves a look even in a busy chart; a wide one adds little.

Origin and history

The quintile is one of Johannes Kepler’s new aspects. He first suggested that planets 72°, 144° or 135° apart might matter in 1596, and in De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus (1601) he set out the quintile, the biquintile and the sesquiquadrate as aspects in their own right, grounding them in musical harmony and, he said, in years of observing the weather (David Juste, 2010). The name comes from the Latin quintus, fifth.

How Ulune calculates it

  • The quintile is a minor aspect in Ulune, with an orb of 2°, to an angle as well, and 1°30′ in synastry.
  • A fifth of the circle has no matching count of signs, so a quintile is never marked out of sign.
  • Ulune computes the quintile but not the biquintile, and does not use it in the configurations.

Correspondences

AnglePart of the circleSigns apartGlyph
72°one fifthtwo or three⬠
  • AspectA set angle between two bodies of a chart, measured along the zodiac, that astrology reads as a relationship between what they stand for.
  • SextileTwo bodies 60° apart, a sixth of the circle, in signs whose elements suit each other: an opening that rewards initiative.
  • Semi-squareTwo bodies 45° apart, half a square: a minor aspect of irritation and restlessness that keeps a matter moving.
  • Semi-sextileTwo bodies 30° apart, usually in neighbouring signs: a quiet, easily missed link between two very different functions.
  • OrbThe leeway around an aspect’s exact angle: how far two bodies may stray from it, in degrees, and still count as in aspect.

Sources

  • Johannes Kepler, De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus, 1601
  • David Juste, Musical Theory and Astrological Foundations in Kepler: The Making of the New Aspects, 2010