H. A. Newton — Fireball in the Madonna di Foligno. 237 



"Le 4 septembre 1511, a Creme, en Lombardie, pendant un 

 orage epouvantable, il tomba dans la plaine des pierres d'one 

 grosseur considerable : six de ces pierres pesoient cent livres. 

 On en porta une a Milan, qui pesoient cent dix livres. Leur 

 odeur etoit semblable a celle du soufre. Des oiseaux furent tues 

 en l'air, des brebis dans les champs, et des poissons dans l'eau." 



-3. Cardan us in a treatise De rerum varietate* says : 



" Vidimus anno MDX cum cecidissent e coelo lapides circiter 

 MCC in agrum fluvio Abduae conterminum, ex his unum CXX 

 pondo, alium sexagita delati fuerunt ad reges Gallorum satrapas 

 pro miraculo, plurimi ; colos ferrugineus, durities eximia, odor 

 sulphureus ; praecesserat in coelo ignis ingens hora tertia : 

 decidentium lapidum strepitus hora quinta exauditus. Ut mirum 

 sit horis duabus tantam molem in aere sustineri potuisse. Intra 

 viginti menses pulsi Galli. Triennio post reuersi, varia prius 

 fortuna, inde iterum pulsi, ad excidium profligati. Urbs nostra 

 in cujus finibus ceciderant lapides, vectigalibus, incendio, fame, 

 obsidione, peste nunquam alias vexata grauius." 



4. Lubienietskif quotes from Keckermann's /Syst. Phys., 1. 6, 

 c. 5, p. 890, as follows :— 



"1511. Suessanus Scaligeri praeceptor commemorat, anno 1511, 

 in Lombardia cometam instar ignei pavonis per aera volitasse, e 

 quo, cum evanuisset, tres lapides sulphurei deciderint, horum 

 primus 160 libras, alter 60 libras, tertius 20 libras pondere 

 aequavit." 



Several other accounts are quoted, or referred to, by Chladni, 

 some of which are apparently repetitions of one or other of 

 the above. Cardanus wrote his account when he was well 

 advanced in years, and the stonefall occurred when he was ten 

 years old and living at Pavia near the place of fall. He is not 

 a careful writer, and his story instead of being treated as that 

 of an eye witness should be looked at as the rehearsal of what 

 Cardanus had heard people say in his childhood. It well 

 expresses the fears then so common which large meteors and 

 comets caused to men, and the belief that they were omens of 

 terrible significance. His date is evidently in error. We may 

 well question nearly all the details of all the accounts, but that 

 many stones fell and some were carried to Milan and other 

 cities, can hardly be doubted. It is so far as I know the only 

 detonating meteor falling in Italy during several years preced- 

 ing 1512 of which an account has been preserved. I believe 

 that Raphael meant to represent this Crema aerolite in his 

 painting of the Foligno Madonna. 



* Reprinted in his works, see vol. iii, p. 278, Lyons, 16G3. 

 f Theatrum Cometicum, vol. li, p. 320. 



