As our table of Venetian doges shows, Mocenigo died on February 23, 1476, eleven days after this colophon was printed; and it is thus clear that February, 1476, meant the same to “Maestro Iacomo de Rossi” as it does to us.
That the antiquarian Aldus troubled his head about the beginning of the Venetian legal year seems a strange inconsistency. But the late Mr. R. C. Christie, who proved conclusively, in an article in “Bibliographica,” that in his later books Aldus began his year on January 1st, was yet obliged to admit that the Lascaris, which is dated “M.cccc.lxxxxiiii ultimo Februarii,” was probably finished only a few days before the Supplement, which bears date March 8, 1495, and that the Theodore Gaza of January, and the Theocritus of February, 1495, both really belong to 1496. I would suggest that in adopting March 1st as his New Year’s day in these three volumes, Aldus pleased himself with the idea that he was reckoning not “more Veneto” but “more antiquo Romano,” since (as the names of our last four months still testify) the Roman year originally began in March, and it was only the fact that after B.C. 153 the consuls entered office in January that caused our present reckoning to come into use, the sacerdotal year continuing to begin on March 1st. If Aldus, after adopting the Venetian legal year because it agreed with the earliest Roman reckoning, was convinced that he was being a little more Roman than the Romans themselves, it is easy to understand his change of practice.
It would appear, then, that the only books for which we must reckon the year as beginning later than January 1st are a few early books of Aldus (March 1st), all English books of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and books printed at Florence (March 25th) and in France (Easter). I strongly suspect, moreover, that in Florentine and French editions of learned works written in Latin there would be a tendency toward January 1st, but I cannot offer any proof of this at present, though it is a question which I hope some day to work out.
As the examples quoted in our text will have abundantly shown, the days of the month are expressed either according to our present use or by the Roman notation, reckoning from the Calends, Nones, and Ides. The Calends were always the first day of the month, the Nones fell on the 5th, and the Ides on the 13th, except in March, May, July, and October, when they were each two days later. Days were counted backwards from the Nones, Ides, and Calends, both the day from which and the day to which the reckoning was made being included in the calculation. Thus March 2d was called the sixth day before the Nones (ante diem sextum Nonas Martis), and March 25th the seventh before the Calends of April (ante diem septimum Kalendas Aprilis, or a. d. vii. Kal. Apr.). July and August are sometimes called by their old names Quintilis and Sextilis.
In Germany, more especially at Strassburg, and in Strassburg more especially by an unidentified craftsman known as the “Printer of the 1483 Jordanus de Quedlinburg,” we often find books dated on such and such a day of the week before or after a festival of the church or a particular Sunday, the Sunday being indicated by quoting the first word of the introit used at high mass. Thus in 1485 the anonymous printer of the Jordanus finished a “De Proprietatibus Rerum” on S. Valentine’s day (in die Valentini, February 14th), the “Historia Scholastica of Petrus Comestor” after the feast of S. Matthias (post festum Matthie, February 24th), the “Postilla” of Guillermus on Thursday (March 9th) before the feast of S. Gregory (quarta feria ante festum Gregorii), a “Casus breues decretalium” on the day of SS. Vitus and Modestus (in die Viti et Modesti, June 15th), and Cardinal Turrecremata’s “Gloss on the Psalter” on S. Michael’s eve (in profesto Michaelis, September 28th). To another edition of the “Postilla” of Guillermus he adds the imprint:
Impressa Argentine Anno Domini M.cccc.xciij. Finita altera die post Reminiscere.
“Reminiscere” is the beginning of the introit for the second Sunday in Lent, and as Easter in 1493 (see our table) fell on April 7th, this was March 3d, and the “Postilla” were finished on Monday, March 4th.