The Chronograph, Chronography, or Calendar of 354 is a compilation of chronological and calendrical texts produced in 354 AD for a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus by the calligrapher and illustrator Furius Dionysius Filocalus. The original illustrated manuscript is lost, but several copies have survived. It is the earliest known codex to have had full page illustrations. [1] The name Calendar of Filocalus or Filocalian Calendar 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", "Philocalian", "Codex-Calendar of 354", etc.) are occasionally used. The text and illustrations are available online. [2] It has had a variety of other names over the years; the historian Theodor Mommsen titled it "Chronica urbis Romae". [3]
Amongst other historically significant information, the work contains the earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas as an annual holiday or feast, on December 25, although unique historical dates had been mentioned much earlier by Hippolytus of Rome during 202–211. [4]
The original volume has not survived, but it is thought that it still existed in Carolingian times, by the 8th–9th centuries. [5] A number of copies were made at that time, with and without illustrations, which in turn were copied during the Renaissance.
The most complete and faithful copies of the illustrations are the pen drawings in a 17th-century manuscript from the Barberini collection (Vatican Library, cod. Barberini lat. 2154). This was carefully copied, under the supervision of the great antiquary Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, from a Carolingian copy, a Codex Luxemburgensis, which was itself lost in the 17th century. 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 [6] and Renaissance periods. Botticelli adapted a figure of the city of Treberis (Trier) who grasps a bound barbarian by the hair for his painting, traditionally called Pallas and the Centaur . [7]
The Vatican Barberini manuscript, made in 1620 for Peiresc, who had the Carolingian Codex Luxemburgensis on long-term loan, is clearly the most faithful. After Peiresc's death in 1637 the manuscript 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. [8] 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 Meyer Schapiro, believe Peiresc would have been able to make a correct judgement on its age. For a full list of manuscripts with copies after the originals, see the external link.
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. [9]
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. It also includes the important Liberian Catalogue, a list of Popes, and the Calendar of Filocalus, from which copies of eleven miniatures survive. 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. [10]
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:
Kings of Rome [753–509 BC] [2]
Rulership of the Caesars [48 BC–AD 324] [2]
Pope Linus was the bishop of Rome from c. AD 68 to his death. He is generally regarded as the second Bishop of Rome, after St. Peter. As with all the early popes, he was canonized.
Gordian III was Roman emperor from 238 to 244. At the age of 13, he became the youngest sole emperor of the united Roman Empire. Gordian was the son of Antonia Gordiana and Junius Balbus, who died before 238. Antonia Gordiana was the daughter of Emperor Gordian I and sister of Emperor Gordian II. Very little is known of his early life before his acclamation.
Marcus Annius Florianus, also known as Florian, was Roman emperor from the death of his half-brother, Emperor Tacitus, in July 276 until his own murder in September of that year.
Sextilis or mensis Sextilis was the Latin name for what was originally the sixth month in the Roman calendar, when March was the first of ten months in the year. After the calendar reform that produced a twelve-month year, Sextilis became the eighth month, but retained its name. It was renamed Augustus (August) in 8 BC in honor of the first Roman emperor, Augustus. Sextilis followed Quinctilis, which was renamed Julius (July) after Julius Caesar, and preceded September, which was originally the seventh month.
Marcus Clodius Pupienus Maximus was Roman emperor with Balbinus for 99 days in 238, during the Year of the Six Emperors. The sources for this period are scant, and thus knowledge of the emperor is limited. In most contemporary texts he is referred to by his cognomen "Maximus" rather than by his second nomen Pupienus.
Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, often known simply as Peiresc, or by the Latin form of his name, Peirescius, was a French astronomer, antiquary and savant, who maintained a wide correspondence with scientists, and was a successful organizer of scientific inquiry. His research included a determination of the difference in longitude of various locations in Europe, around the Mediterranean, and in North Africa.
Lucius was a supposed 2nd-century king of the Britons traditionally credited with introducing Christianity into Britain. Lucius is first mentioned in a 6th-century version of the Liber Pontificalis, which says that he sent a letter to Pope Eleutherius asking to be made a Christian. The story became widespread after it was repeated in the 8th century by Bede, who added the detail that after Eleutherius granted Lucius' request, the Britons followed their king in conversion and maintained the Christian faith until the Diocletianic Persecution of 303. Later writers expanded the story, giving accounts of missionary activity under Lucius and attributing to him the foundation of certain churches.
The Vergilius Vaticanus, also known as Vatican Virgil, is a Late Antique illuminated manuscript containing fragments of Virgil's Aeneid and Georgics. It was made in Rome in around 400 CE, and is one of the oldest surviving sources for the text of the Aeneid. It is the oldest and one of only three ancient illustrated manuscripts of classical literature.
Carolingian art comes from the Frankish Empire in the period of roughly 120 years from about 780 to 900—during the reign of Charlemagne and his immediate heirs—popularly known as the Carolingian Renaissance. The art was produced by and for the court circle and a group of important monasteries under Imperial patronage; survivals from outside this charmed circle show a considerable drop in quality of workmanship and sophistication of design. The art was produced in several centres in what are now France, Germany, Austria, northern Italy and the Low Countries, and received considerable influence, via continental mission centres, from the Insular art of the British Isles, as well as a number of Byzantine artists who appear to have been resident in Carolingian centres.
The Liberian Catalogue is a list of the bishops of Rome from Peter to Liberius. For each bishop, the list gives the lengths of his episcopate, the corresponding consular dates and the names of the reigning emperors. In many cases there are other details. The catalogue is found in copies of the Chronography of 354, a "collection of tracts .. edited in 354".
The Hilaria were ancient Roman religious festivals celebrated on the March equinox to honor Cybele.
Furius Dionysius Filocalus was a Roman scribe and stone engraver, specialized in epigraphic texts, who was active in the second half of the fourth century.
Leiden University Library, VLQ 79, also called the Leiden Aratea, is an illuminated copy of an astronomical treatise by Germanicus, based on the Phaenomena of Aratus. The manuscript was created in the region of Lorraine and has been dated to around 816. It was produced at the court of Louis the Pious, who ruled from 814–840. It is one of the four Carolingian codices that were produced in his court. There are many translations and copies of this text, so it is very well known throughout the Middle East and Europe.
The Fasti vindobonenses are two sets of late antique consular annals ("fasti"), found in the Vindobonensis manuscript MS. 3416, together with the Chronography of 354. They were previously known as Anonymus Cuspiniani, since they were published by Johannes Cuspinianus in 1553, and are part of the Consularia Italica collection.
Polemius Silvius was the author of an annotated Julian calendar that attempted to integrate the traditional Roman festival cycle with the new Christian holy days. His calendar, also referred to as a laterculus or fasti, dates to around 448–449. He was active in southeastern Gaul.
Mensis Iunius or Iunius, also Junius (June), was the sixth month of the Roman calendar of the classical period, following Maius (May). In the oldest calendar attributed by the Romans to Romulus, Iunius had been the fourth month in a ten-month year that began with March (Martius, "Mars' month"). The month following June was thus called Quinctilis or Quintilis, the "fifth" month. Iunius had 29 days until a day was added during the Julian reform of the calendar in the mid-40s BC. The month that followed Iunius was renamed Iulius (July) in honour of Julius Caesar.
October or mensis October was the eighth of ten months on the oldest Roman calendar. It had 31 days. October followed September and preceded November. After the calendar reform that resulted in a 12-month year, October became the tenth month, but retained its numerical name, as did the other months from September to December.
November or mensis November was originally the ninth of ten months on the Roman calendar, following October and preceding December. It had 29 days. In the reform that resulted in a 12-month year, November became the eleventh month, but retained its name, as did the other months from September through December. A day was added to November during the Julian calendar reform in the mid-40s BC.
On Weights and Measures is a historical, lexical, metrological, and geographical treatise compiled in 392 AD in Constantia by Epiphanius of Salamis. The greater part of the work is devoted to a discussion on Greek and Roman weights and measures.