Wonders in the Sky (29 page)

 

Three “stars” were seen to fly over Rome. The incident was described by Antonio Di Pietro, canon of the Vatican, in his
Diarium Romanum
(Diary of Rome from 1404 to 1417), now conserved in the Vatican Archive. Di Pietro narrates that on that evening he was going to supper with friends near where the ancient Basilica of Saint Peter stands today.

“Suddenly after sunset…we saw…a beautiful star that, coming from the sky of Tarrione, headed towards Castel Sant' Angel with two other small, splendid bright stars. And we were all very surprised by that spectacle.”

The sighting may have been of an unusual meteor train.

 

Sources: Antonio di Pietro,
Diarium Romanum
(Diary of Rome from 1404 to 1417), preserved at the Archivio Capitolare Vaticano. This Latin manuscript was found in the Library of Modena by L. A. Muratori, who inserted the text in Volume XXIV (ed. 1734) of the
Rerum Italicarum Scriptores
. See also
Coelum
astronomy magazine, No. 5-6, May-June 1977, article “Gleanings from science fiction medieval texts” by Umberto Dall'Olmo, 107. Credit: Umberto Cordier.

140.

2 July 1420, Castle Godego, Treviso, Italy
The lady in the light

In the evening a Hungarian merchant, Peter Tagliamento, was leading his herd of cattle to Bassano del Grappa. As he came to an area of thick brush, close to Castel di Godego, he realized he had lost the way. All around him were only shadows, the woods, and deep silence. In despair, Peter started praying and suddenly he saw a great light. Still trying to realize where he was and what was happening, Peter saw a young woman of great beauty, who told him how to get to the road towards Bassano, but requested that a chapel be built at that place. She planted a cross in the earth as proof of her visit.

Peter found his herd and reached the leaders of the community of Godego to fulfill the mandate he had received. At first no one believed him, but they found the cross planted in the woods. This convinced them and they decided to erect a chapel, where people came in solemn processions.

 

Source: Marino Gamba,
Apparizioni mariane nel corso di due millenni
(Udine: Ediz. Il Segno, 1999).

141.

3 March 1428, Forlì, Italy: Celestial object

Another case of a celestial object (“asub”) in Forlì: At 1:30 A.M. a fiery lamp was observed for about two hours. The city archives also mention “a very high flame in the shape of a tower, and a column of apparent fire rising in the air.”

 

Source: Filippo Guarini,
I Terremoti a Forlì
(Croppi, Forlì, 1880), 12-13 and 143.

142.

5 January 1433, Nice, France: Luminous globe

A luminous globe appears, seen several hours. “On January 5th, 1433,” writes Abbé Joseph Bonifacy, “a luminous globe appeared in the air for several hours.”

 

Source: G. Tarade,
Soucoupes volantes et civilisations d'outre-espace
(Paris: J'Ai Lu, 1969). Also
Cielo e Terra
, April 1972, 9. We have been unable to verify the text by Bonifacy, which is only available in manuscript form.

143.

June 1444, Bibbiena, Arezzo, Italy
Unexplained golden globes of light

Over three months multiple witnesses saw globes of light, golden in color, both inside and outside a church. The story by Don Massimo, a Benedictine monk, mentions that “turning to the church he and his companions saw a globe as thick as a printing press.”

Mr. Lorenzo Piovano of Bibbiena stated that he saw more lights day and night, moving around the church and leaving a smell of remarkable sweetness. Don Massimo is careful to add that the mayor and others who ran into the church saw nothing, but they did notice the smell.

 

Sources: Don Massimo's manuscript of “Miraculous facts that occurred near Bibbiena, etc.” inserted in the Moreno Frullani Collection No. 29, 56, in the Riccardiana library in Florence. Also see: http://www.mariadinazareth.it/apparizione%20bibbiena.htm

144.

29 May 1453, Constantinople: Light from the sky

“Every night [during the siege by the Turks] a fire descended from the sky, stood over the City, and enveloped her with light all night long. At first the Christians read this light as a sign of God's wrath and the coming destruction of the city, but initial success against the Turks led to the reinterpretation that God had sided with the Christians and that they would prevail.

“Thus the sultan and his entire retinue became visibly depressed…and were considering lifting the siege…On the night before their scheduled departure the heavenly sign descended in its customary manner but did not envelop our City as it had before…[N]ow it seemed to be far away, then scattered quickly, and vanished at once. The sultan and his court were immediately filled with joy.”

 

Source: Makarios Melissinos, “Chronicle of the Siege of Constantinople” in George Phrantzes,
Fall of the Byzantine Empire
(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980), 97-136.

145.

Late December 1456, Piacenza, Italy
Four unknowns

In the
Annali Piacentini
of Antonio da Ripalta, we read of the apparition “of four wonderful stars that proceeded directly from the east to the west and were positioned almost in the sign of a cross.”

 

Source: U. Dall'Olmo, “Meteors, meteor showers and meteorites in the Middle Ages,”
Journal for the History of Astronomy
9, 1978.

146.

7 March 1458, Kyoto, Japan: Five stars circle the moon

Five “stars” appeared to circle the moon, changed colors three times and vanished suddenly.

 

Source:
The Taiheiki: A Chronicle of Medieval Japan
, trans. Helen Craig McCullough (North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2004).

147.