De prodigiosa specie, naturaq[ue] cometae, qui nobis effulsit altior lunae sedibus, insolita prorsus figura, ac magnitudine, anno 1577 plus septimanis 10. apodeixis tum physica tum mathematica

...most rapidly flew forth in the expanse of the western cardinal point. For here, creeping from a narrow space at first into a broad one, with the redness gradually increased, it passed into an exact purple, with such sharpness of light that it greatly struck the sharpness of the eyes, and moved the retreating spirits of the spectators as if by a dire presage of future mourning. It stood meanwhile like an impressed stain on a white veil, without the intervention of another cloud, but circumscribed within its own soil which it had previously invaded. What was most remarkable in this was that, with the other stars obscured, the 7 Pleiades alone persisted, very illustrious and conspicuous by their own splendor, near its center. Then, however, through the entry of other clouds from the Northern Chasm, which I observed to be about 5 or 6 in number, round in appearance, multi-colored, and intensely bright. The note of the previously shed blood was suddenly dispersed. But a little later, with lances and new flames rising from everywhere, the sky seemed to blaze from the Northern region even to the zenith, the lower part of the abyss lifting itself as if into sea waves. Finally, so that nothing that had happened so far might seem not to have been prefigured, the face of the sky was turned for the space of an hour into a gambling game orcam aleatoriam a dice-box, and a foreign appearance of a dice cup, with alternating...

Catastrophe.