Consideratio & observatio cometae aetherei astronomica qui anno MDLXXX mensibus octobri, novembri et decembri in alto aethere apparvit

III.
Why rather do we not wonder at His long-suffering, that He delays that great day for so long, if only He might find faith? Yet for His immense goodness, God, who does not desire the death of the little world, of the sinner, shows in that great world so many and such great signs of His wrath, trembling omens, by which we might at last be moved to flee the accustomed paths of iniquity and avoid the impending evils, or at the very least, be unable to put forward any excuse. Having indeed seen so many and such great things in these years 1580 and 1581, let us not think that God is joking, but let us firmly persuade ourselves that these are the precursors and heralds of significant mutations and changes. Would that God might aim and turn those arrows of His against the enemies of the Church, and soften our stony hearts, so that we might be found more ready hereafter to hear His word, and more eager to express it in deeds than we have been until now. I will recount here certain portents (for who could have seen or recorded everything and everyone, since otherwise we are quite negligent or blind in observing these divine prodigies) observed in these years 1580 and 1581, in which we see nothing other than the wrath of God inflamed, and His sword drawn, with which He strikes all who abuse His long-suffering for so long a time.

A horrible chasm in a clear sky.On the 5th of March, which was the Sunday Oculi the third Sunday in Lent of the year 1580, at the 7th hour of the evening, around twilight, when I was about to observe the position of the stars as was my custom, for the sky was clear, behold, I see an unusual chasm of light toward the North. White areas appeared beneath the celestial pole, arising in three places, like three columns or butterflies, or military armies: the first a little toward the North, the second under the pole, between the North and the North-East, the third toward the