The Zodiac/Astrology plays a role in art history.
The Limbourg Brothers-
February from
Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry
Albrecht Dürer-
Celestial Globe
But astrology is just one part of the mythology that informed the iconography of the old masters. The majority of this came from the Hebrew-Christian Bible and other religious texts as well as Greco-Roman mythology and literature. Some of the Renaissance artists, such as Dürer, were quite educated in such iconography. Dürer was close with a number of highly educated intellectuals of the time including Philip Melanchthon (theologian, religious reformer, education designer)...
... and Willibald Pirckheimer (counselor, lawyer, author, Humanist philosopher). Many artists from the Middle Ages through the Baroque worked with intellectuals who advised them on the use of iconography. Only a few, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo, Dürer, and later, Peter Paul Rubens and William Blake were well versed in literature and mythology enough to fuel their own iconography.
There certainly is a great deal of symbolism employed in many religious paintings. Joseph is commonly portrayed as quite elderly in contrast to the youthful Mary in order to reinforce the notion of her virginity... as he was too old to get it up. Mary is commonly robed in blue symbolizing royalty and the skies or heaven. She is almost never seen in red, which suggests sexuality (the scarlet woman) and is instead commonly used in portraying Mary Magdalene. Scenes of the Nativity or Adoration of the Shepherd/Magi commonly are set in ruins meant to convey that the birth of Christ represented a collapse and end of the old Greco-Roman world.
Albrecht Dürer-
Adoration of the Magi
But not every image should be imagined as being symbolic. The cow as Taurus? Perhaps in some instances. But it is far more often likely to be just suggestive of the birth of Jesus taking place in a cattle barn surrounded by donkeys and sheep as often as cows.
Botticelli-
Mystic Nativity