That Pierre Gerard and Jean Dupré at Abbeville reckoned the year from Easter to Easter, we get a broad hint in the colophon to their magnificent edition of Augustine’s “De Ciuitate Dei” in French. This is in two volumes, the colophon to the first of which is dated “le xxiiii jour de Nouembre l’an mil quatre cens quatre vingt et six,” while the second runs:
Cy fine le second volume contenant les xii derreniers liures de monseigneur saint augustin de la cité de dieu. Imprime en la ville dabbeuille, par Iehan du pre et pierre gerard marchans libraires: Et icelluy acheue le xii iour dauril lan mil quatre cens quatre vingtz et six auant pasques.
Here ends the second volume containing the last twelve books of my lord Saint Augustin of the City of God. Printed in the town of Abbeville by Jean Dupré and Pierre Gerard, booksellers: and it was finished the twelfth day of April, the year 1486, before Easter.
That the second volume of so large a work must have been printed after the first is so nearly certain that this alone might have caused us to look out for a means of making April 12, 1486, later than November 24th of the same year. The words “auant pasques” put the matter beyond doubt, for Easter in 1486 of our reckoning fell on March 26th, but in 1487 on April 15th. Clearly, therefore, the book was finished on Holy Thursday, 1487, and Easter was the date from which Dupré and Gerard reckoned their year.
We can obtain an equally neat proof of the French year beginning at Easter from a copy of Pierre Gringore’s “Chasteau de Labour,” in which, underneath the name of Philippe Pigouchet, appears the colophon:
Le chasteau de labour auec aucunes balades et addicions nouuellement composees a este acheue le dernier iour de Mars Lan Mil Cinq cens. Pour Simon Vostre libraire demourant a Paris en la rue neuue nostre dame a lenseigne sainct iehan leuangeliste.
This edition consists of sixty leaves and does actually contain a long interpolation not found in the first edition of 22d October, 1499, or the second, which is dated 31st December, 1499, or in yet another edition dated 31st May, 1500, all three of which have only fifty leaves instead of sixty. Thus it would appear at first sight that Pigouchet and Vostre printed Gringore’s additions in March, 1500, and omitted them again two months afterwards in May. Inasmuch, however, as the French year 1500 ran from Easter Sunday, 19th April, 1500, to Easter Sunday, 11th April, 1501, it is obvious that the only 31st March in it fell in 1501 according to our reckoning, and that the edition of 31st March, 1500, was really produced in March, 1501, and is ten months later than that of May, 1500. We thus get an orderly sequence of three unaugmented editions of fifty leaves, followed by an augmented one of sixty, and all difficulties vanish.
In Italy the year appears generally to have begun on January 1st, but in Florence on Lady day, March 25th. At Venice the legal year is known to have begun on March 1st, and most writers on Aldus have asserted positively that this was the date to which he conformed. That other Venetian printers observed January 1st as the first day of the year can be proved from the mention of Pietro Mocenigo as doge in the colophon to an edition of the “Istoria Fiorentina” of Leonardo Aretino. This ends:
Impresso a Vinegia perlo diligente huomo Maestro Iacomo de Rossi di natione Gallo: Nellanno del Mcccclxxvj. a di xii de Febraio: Regnante lo inclyto Principe Messer Piero Mozenico.