The Chronography of 354, also known as the Calendar of 354, was a 4th century illuminated manuscript, which was produced in 354 AD for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentius. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 4th century (per the Julian calendar and Anno Domini / Common era) was that Century An illuminated manuscript is a Manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration such as decorated Initials borders and It is the earliest dated codex to have full page illustrations. A codex ( Latin for block of wood, Book; plural codices) is a book in the format used for modern books with separate pages normally None of the original has survived. The term Calendar of Filocalus is sometimes used to describe the whole collection, and sometimes just the sixth part, which is the Calendar itself. Other versions of the names ("Philocalus", "Codex-Calendar of 354") may be used. The text and illustrations are available online. [1] Amongst other historically significant information, the work contains the earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas as a holiday or feast.
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Transmission from antiquity
The text and illustrations are known only through copies, mostly copies of copies. The most complete and faithful of these are pen drawings in a 17th century manuscript from the Barberini collection (Vatican Library, cod. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar A manuscript is any Document that is Written by hand as opposed to being printed or reproduced in some other way The Barberini are a family of the Italian nobility that rose to prominence in 17th century Rome. The Vatican Library ( Latin: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana) is the Library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. Barberini lat. 2154) which were carefully copied from a Carolingian copy, which was itself lost in the 17th century, under the supervision of the great antiquary Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolings, or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family with its origins in the Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc ( December 1, 1580 &ndash June 24, 1637) was a French Astronomer, antiquary and savant These drawings, although they are twice removed from the originals, show the variety of sources that the earliest illuminators used as models for manuscript illustration, including metalwork, frescoes, and floor mosaics. The Roman originals were probably fully painted miniatures.
Various partial copies or adaptations survive from the Carolingian renaissance[2] and Renaissance periods. The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival occurring in the late eighth and ninth centuries with the peak of the activities Botticelli adapted a figure of the city of Treberis (Trier) who grasps a bound barbarian by the hair for his small panel, traditionally called Pallas and the Centaur. Trier (Trèves Luxembourgish: Tréier; Augusta Treverorum is a City in Germany on the banks of the Moselle River. [3]
The Vatican Barberini manuscript, made in 1620 for Peiresc, who had the manuscript on long-term loan, is clearly the most faithful. After Peiresc's death, the Carolingian manuscript (a Codex Luxemburgensis) disappeared. However some folios had already been lost from the Codex Luxemburgensis before Peiresc received it, and other copies have some of these. The suggestion of Carl Nordenfalk that the Codex Luxemburgensis copied by Peiresc was actually the Roman original has not been accepted. [4] Peiresc himself thought the manuscript was seven or eight hundred years old when he had it, and, though Mabillon had not yet published his De re diplomatica (1681), the first systematic work of paleography, most scholars, following Schapiro, believe Peiresc would have been able to make a correct judgement on its age. Jean Mabillon ( November 23, 1632 - December 27, 1707) was a Benedictine monk and scholar considered the founder of Palaeography Palaeography, palæography ( British) or paleography ( American) (from the Greek grc παλαιός palaiós, For a full list of manuscripts with copies after the originals, see the external link.
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Furius Dionysius Filocalus was the leading scribe or calligrapher of the period, and possibly also executed the original miniatures. His name is on the dedication page. He was also a Christian, living in a moment that lay on the cusp between a pagan and a Christian Roman Empire. [5]
The Chronography, like all Roman calendars, is as much an almanac as a calendar; it includes various texts and lists, including elegant allegorical depictions of the months. ALMANAC is the name of a major Breast cancer trial The Acronym stands for "Axillary Lymphatic Mapping Against Nodal Axillary Clearance An allegory (from αλλος allos "other" and el αγορευειν agoreuein "to speak in public" is a figurative mode of representation It also includes the important Liberian Catalogue, a list of Popes, and the Calendar of Filocalus or Philocalus, also known as the Philocalian Calendar, from which copies of eleven miniatures survive. In compiling the history of the Early Christian Church, the Liberian Catalogue ( Catalogus Liberianus) which was part of the Illuminated manuscript known Among other information, it contains the earliest reference to Christmas (see Part 12 below) and the dates of Roman Games, with their number of chariot-races. Chariot racing (ἁρματοδρομία/armatodromia was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman and Byzantine Sports Chariot [6]
The contents are as follows (from the Barberini Ms. unless stated). All surviving miniatures are full-page, often combined with some text in various ways:
- Part 1: title page and dedication - 1 miniature
- Part 2: images of the personifications of the cities of Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople and Trier - 4 miniatures
- Part 3: images of the emperors and the birthdays of the Caesars - 2 miniatures
- Part 4: images of the seven planets with a calendar of the hours - 5 surviving miniatures. Copies of the emblemmatic drawings appear in a Carolingian text that portrays Mercury and Venus in heliocentric orbits. A heliocentric orbit is an Orbit around the Sun. In our Solar System, all Planets Comets and Asteroids are in such orbits [7]
- Part 5: the signs of the Zodiac - no miniatures surviving in this manuscript; four in other copies
- Part 6: the Filocalian calendar - seven miniatures of personifications of the Months in this MS; the full set appears in other copies (on December 25th "N·INVICTI·CM·XXX" - "Birthday of the unconquered, games ordered, thirty races" - is the oldest literary reference to the pagan feast of Sol Invictus)
- Part 7: consular portraits of the emperors - 2 miniatures (the last in the MS)
- Part 8: list (fasti) of the consuls to 354 AD
- Part 9: the dates of Easter from 312 AD to 411 AD
- Part 10: list of the prefects of the city of Rome from 254 to 354 AD
- Part 11: commemoration dates of past popes from 255 to 352 AD
- Part 12: commemoration dates of the martyrs, which begins with "VIII kal. Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun" or more fully Deus Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun God" was the late Roman state Sun god. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae" ("Eighth day before the kalends of January [December 25], Birth of Christ in Bethlehem Judea")
- Part 13: bishops of Rome, the Liberian Catalogue
- Part 14: The 14 regions of the City
- Part 15: . . .
- Part 16: Chronicle of the City of Rome (a list of rulers with short comments)
Notes
- ^ Tertullian.org:Chronography of 354
- ^ The Leiden Aratus, a Carolingian manuscript of Phaenomena edited by Hugo Grotius in 1600, is illustrated in part with figures drawn from the Codex-Calendar of 354 (Meyer Schapiro, "The Carolingian Copy of the Calendar of 354" The Art Bulletin 22. This article is about the didactic poet There was also an Aratus of Sicyon and an Aratus son of Asclepius For the crab Genus, see Hugo Grotius or Huig de Groot, or Hugo de Groot; ( Delft, 10 April 1583 Rostock, 28 August 1645 4 (December 1940, pp. 270-272) p 270).
- ^ A. L. Frothingham, who noted Botticelli's source, in "The Real Title of Botticelli's 'Pallas'" American Journal of Archaeology 12. 4 (October 1908), pp. 438-444, reidentified the subject as [[Florence|Florentia and unruly civic strife.
- ^ Nordenfalk, "Der Kalendar vom Jahre 354 und die lateinische Buchmalerei des IV. Jahrhunderts" (Göteburg) 1936, noted in Schapiro 1940:270, reprinted in Schapiro, Selected Papers: volume 3, Late Antique, Early Christian and Mediaeval Art, 1980, Chatto & Windus, London, ISBN 0701125144 On line at JSTOR
- ^ Ramsay MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire A. D. 100-400 (Yale University Press) 1984, ch. VIII "Conversions of intellectuals".
- ^ The date of the Nativity of Jesus is given as December 25th in considerably earlier sources, but this is the first reference to a holiday or feast day being celebrated. For depictions in painting and sculpture see Nativity of Jesus in art. The Calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a Liturgical year on the level of days by associating each day with one or more Saints The feast of the Epiphany had been celebrated for some time at this date. Epiphany ( Greek for "to manifest" or "to show" is a Christian Feast day which celebrates the "shining forth" or revelation of
- ^ University of Leiden, Ms. Vossianus Q79, noted in Salzmann 1991. Gerhard Johann Vossius ( Voss) ( 1577 - March 19, 1649) Dutch classical scholar and theologian, was the son of Johannes
References
- Weitzmann, Kurt. Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination. New York: George Braziller, 1977.
- Salzman, Michele Renee. On Roman Time : The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity (The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 17). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Links
- Online text and images, full introduction and bibliography at Tertullian.org: Chronography of 354
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