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Auction archive: Lot number 22

Perpetual Calendar from 1490, most probably for a late medieval public notary, with …

Auction 07.12.2016
7 Dec 2016
Estimate
£1,500 - £2,000
ca. US$1,872 - US$2,497
Price realised:
£2,500
ca. US$3,121
Auction archive: Lot number 22

Perpetual Calendar from 1490, most probably for a late medieval public notary, with …

Auction 07.12.2016
7 Dec 2016
Estimate
£1,500 - £2,000
ca. US$1,872 - US$2,497
Price realised:
£2,500
ca. US$3,121
Beschreibung:

Perpetual Calendar from 1490, most probably for a late medieval public notary, with titles and explanations in Latin, on a paper leaf [Italy, c. 1490] Single leaf, with the actual Calendar set in a large circle (diameter: 105 mm.) with an outer column of years enclosing the Roman numerals i-xv indicating the ‘ruota sine fine’ in the 15-year cycle of the ‘cyclus indictionis’ used to date some documents in the late Roman world and Middle Ages, and the title and date in Roman numerals on the cross bars, two short passages above and below the diagram explaining its use, these in late humanist hands with secretarial influence, chain marks in paper but no watermark, some ink faded, and torn edges to paper, overall in good condition, 220 by 148 mm. There is no evidence that this leaf was ever in a book, and it may be a very rare survival of a practical tool prepared for pinning to a wall for easy reference. Unlike our current method of dating from the birth of Christ, the idea of using a 15-year cycle to trace date is a civil and secular one, and first occurs in a periodic land or agricultural tax in Roman Egypt. It became popular in the dating of documents elsewhere in the Mediterranean in the mid-fourth century AD. It was commonly used in the Byzantine world until 1087, when the chancery reforms of Emperor Alexander III swept it away. In the West it only became widespread after the work of Bede on the subject, but fell into decline in the fourteenth century, surviving only in the practises of public notaries up to the end of the sixteenth century.

Auction archive: Lot number 22
Auction:
Datum:
7 Dec 2016
Auction house:
Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions
16-17 Pall Mall
St James’s
London, SW1Y 5LU
United Kingdom
info@dreweatts.com
+44 (0)20 78398880
Beschreibung:

Perpetual Calendar from 1490, most probably for a late medieval public notary, with titles and explanations in Latin, on a paper leaf [Italy, c. 1490] Single leaf, with the actual Calendar set in a large circle (diameter: 105 mm.) with an outer column of years enclosing the Roman numerals i-xv indicating the ‘ruota sine fine’ in the 15-year cycle of the ‘cyclus indictionis’ used to date some documents in the late Roman world and Middle Ages, and the title and date in Roman numerals on the cross bars, two short passages above and below the diagram explaining its use, these in late humanist hands with secretarial influence, chain marks in paper but no watermark, some ink faded, and torn edges to paper, overall in good condition, 220 by 148 mm. There is no evidence that this leaf was ever in a book, and it may be a very rare survival of a practical tool prepared for pinning to a wall for easy reference. Unlike our current method of dating from the birth of Christ, the idea of using a 15-year cycle to trace date is a civil and secular one, and first occurs in a periodic land or agricultural tax in Roman Egypt. It became popular in the dating of documents elsewhere in the Mediterranean in the mid-fourth century AD. It was commonly used in the Byzantine world until 1087, when the chancery reforms of Emperor Alexander III swept it away. In the West it only became widespread after the work of Bede on the subject, but fell into decline in the fourteenth century, surviving only in the practises of public notaries up to the end of the sixteenth century.

Auction archive: Lot number 22
Auction:
Datum:
7 Dec 2016
Auction house:
Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions
16-17 Pall Mall
St James’s
London, SW1Y 5LU
United Kingdom
info@dreweatts.com
+44 (0)20 78398880
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