Por Nerea Maestu Fonseca (Universidad Complutense de Madrid).
The observation and representation of comets has intertwined the history of art and science since ancient times. Comets were observed and recorded as exceptional phenomena and from very early on they were linked to catastrophes, such as earthquakes, pestilences, or royal deaths. Codes were defined to decipher the message they announced depending on their appearance, location in the celestial vault and proximity to planets. Hence, their representation was a fundamental aspect that will be analysed in this presentation through the examples of various Late Medieval treatises on comets, like the Liber de significatione cometarum (c.1238), which were illuminated in manuscripts dated in the 14th and 15th centuries.
