This volume deals with the tracts, Latin and vernacular, published in the Netherlands on the comets of 1577 and 1618. Central to the book is the question how these cometary appearances influenced the Aristotelian world view.
Three introductory chapters on the historiography of cometology and the nature of sixteenth-century Aristotelianism are followed by a detailed examination of the Netherlandish authors' views on the nature and constitution of the universe. In the final chapter, their opinions on cometary prognostication are evaluated, and are linked to contemporary political...