622 - PIETRA SANTA, SILVESTRE

PIETRA SANTA, SILVESTRE PIETRA SANTA, Silvestre.—"PANEGYRICUS... NOVA STELLA" Circa 1637. Small folio, contemporary parchment binding with interlaced clasps. 55 numbered folios. Astronomical manuscript in humanist script, 21 lines per page, in Latin and Greek, for which we have found no bibliographic information. Attributed to Silvestre Pietra Santa (Rome 1590–1647), also known as Coellus Servili; he was a well-known Jesuit, editor, heraldist, active religious visitor, and a great polemicist against the Protestants. The work begins by acknowledging the discovery of the “Nova Stella” and how this event served as a superstitious pretext for the Lutherans to attack the Catholic Habsburg Empire. The author organizes the book into eleven chapters in which he presents several theories and explanations for the appearance of the star in 1572. He adds that from that year, 1572, a splendid era began in Europe following the victory over the Ottomans.