De cometa et significacione ejus.
The Comet of 1264
A brilliant comet appears in 1264, stretching from East to West, and its three-month course is marked by the illness and death of Pope Urban IV, after which it vanishes.
In the year of our Lord 1264, a comet of such brilliance appeared that no one alive at the time had ever seen its like. Rising from the East with great splendor, it stretched all the way to the middle of the hemisphere toward the West, trailing a brilliantly luminous tail; and although it may have signified many things in various parts of the world, this one thing is known and confirmed as true: that when it had lasted more than three months, at the very time it first appeared Pope Urban began to fall ill, and on the same night the pope was dying, the comet vanished.
Authorities Cited
The chronicler cites Martinus and Ptolemy as authorities for the comet's significance.
(Mart., p. 407. Ptol.)
Read the original Latin
Anno domini MCCLXIIII cometes tarn nobilis apparuit, qualem tune nullus vivens vidit. Ab Oriente cum magno fulgore surgensb usque ad medium emisperii versus occidentem c comam perlucidam protrahebatd, et licet in diversis mundi partibus multa e significaverit, hoc tarnen unum compertum est et verum, ut cum plus quam per tres menses duraverit, ipso primo apparente papa Urbanus cepit infirmari, et in eadem nocte, qua papa moriebatur, et cometes dis- 2 paruit. (Mart, p. 407. Ptol )
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