The 1517 comet in the Florentine Codex tradition

Record summary

A comet associated with 1517 appears in Mesoamerican historical and calendrical materials, including traditions connected with the years immediately preceding the Spanish invasion. The lead is useful for studying how an ordinary astronomical phenomenon could acquire political significance and later be read as a portent. Researchers can compare manuscript imagery, Nahuatl terminology, Spanish glosses, and European astronomical chronology. The surviving evidence does not establish an anomalous craft or close encounter, and the exact relation between particular manuscript entries and the historically observed comet should be verified rather than assumed.