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

what the whole genus was before they moved on to individual details, they should have seen first to which region the comet primarily assigns itself, before they define any city for it. For who knows whether this saying now has a place: Woe to you, Assur, the rod of my anger? Or on the contrary, that which was brought forth by Ezekiel and fits us very well: Son of man, the house of Israel has become to me dross, iron, tin, and lead: and again, We have treated Babylon, and it is not healed; let us leave it. For to speak ingenuously and in a few words what I feel, the arguments are nearly equal on both sides, perhaps more plausible to us, but only under the hypothesis that, if we leave behind the errors of our former life, we unite in the bond of one love and religion; if we have cast aside the filth of the belly, pride, emulation, mutual distrust, the desire for revenge, and other base opinions, and have not shown ourselves defiant to the calling Divine. Nor would the spirit to write about this matter be so ready, were it not that the magnitude of the prodigy and the rarity of its form instigated it; and much more so the thoughtless rashness of many writers, by which they both do an injury to the art and indulge more than enough the fickle nature of the common people in seeking after new things, to the pestilential harm of the whole Republic.

How uncertain the method of allegory is regarding prodigies is clear from many examples, which are recorded for them by Eusebius and Nicephorus, as in that image of the cross confined within the periphery of a circle.

The author’s intent and primary goal.