Chronograph of 354


The Chronograph 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. The work is also called the Chronography or Calendar of 354, and 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 are occasionally used. The text and illustrations are available online. It has had a variety of other names over the years; the historian Theodor Mommsen titled it "Chronica urbis Romae".
Amongst other historically significant information, the work contains the earliest reference to the celebration of Christmas as an annual holiday or feast, on, although unique historical dates had been mentioned much earlier by Hippolytus of Rome during 202–211.

Transmission from antiquity

Various partial copies or adaptations survive from the Carolingian Renaissance of the 8th–9th centuries, which were themselves copied in the Renaissance period. For example, Botticelli adapted a figure of the city of Treberis who grasps a bound barbarian by the hair for his painting, traditionally called Pallas and the Centaur.
The most complete and faithful copies of the illustrations are the pen drawings in a 17th-century manuscript from the Barberini collection. This was carefully copied in 1620, under the supervision of the great antiquary Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, from the Codex Luxemburgensis,. These drawings, although 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.
The copy used for the Vatican Barberini manuscript disappeared after Peiresc's death in 1637. However some folios had evidently already been lost from this Codex Luxemburgensis before Peiresc received it, since other copies include them. The suggestion of Carl Nordenfalk that the Codex Luxemburgensis copied by Peiresc was actually the Roman original has not been accepted. 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, 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.

Contents

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.
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 and the dates of Roman Games, with their number of chariot-races.
The contents are as follows. 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 emblematic drawings appear in a Carolingian text that portrays Mercury and Venus in heliocentric orbits.
  • Part 5: the signs of the Zodiac – no miniatures surviving in this manuscript; four in other copies
  • Part 6: the Philocalian calendar – seven miniatures of personifications of the Months in this MS; the full set appears in other copies
On December 25: "·INVICTI··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
  • Part 8: list of the Roman consuls to AD 354
At AD 1: "Hoc cons. dominus Iesus Christus natus est VIII kal. Ian. d. Ven. luna xv." – "When these were consuls, Lord Jesus Christ was born 8 days before the kalends of January on the day of Venus Moon 15" – is a historical reference
  • Part 9: the dates of Easter from AD 312 to 411
  • Part 10: list of the prefects of the city of Rome from 254 to 354 AD
  • Part 11: commemoration dates of past popes from AD 255 to 352
  • Part 12: commemoration dates of the martyrs
Line 1: "VIII kal. Ian. natus Christus in Betleem Iudeae" – "Eighth day before the kalends of January Birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea" – is the oldest reference to Jesus' birth as an annual feast day
  1. Romulus son of Mars and Ilia reigned for 38... with Titus Tatius for 5 years.
  2. Numa Pompilius reigned for
  3. Tullus Hostilius reigned 32 years
  4. reigned for
  5. L. Tarquinius Priscus reigned
  6. Servius Tullius reigned 46
  7. Tarquinius Superbus reigned 25 years
The Dictators:
  1. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus
  2. Fabius Maximus
  3. Apulius Claudius
  4. Publius Valerius Poplicola |Valerius Pblicola
  5. Sulla Felix
  6. Barbatus
  7. Cincinnatus
  8. Quintus Fabius
  9. Marcus Livius Salinator|Luius Salinator
  10. Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus|Iuius Brutus
Rulership of the Caesars
  1. C. Julius Caesar ruled 3 years, 7 months, 6 days.
  2. Octavian Augustus ruled 56 years, 4 months,.
  3. Tiberius Caesar ruled 22 years,, 28 days.
  4. C. Gallicula ruled 3 years,
  5. Tiberius Claudius ruled 13 years, 8 months,
  6. Nero ruled, 28 days.
  7. Galba ruled
  8. Otho ruled 90 days
  9. Vitellius ruled 8 months and
  10. The deified Vespasian ruled
  11. The deified Titus ruled
  12. Domitian ruled
  13. Nerva ruled, 4 months,
  14. Trajan ruled 19 years,
  15. Hadrian ruled 20 years, 10 months,
  16. Antoninus Pius ruled 22 years,
  17. The deified Verus ruled 7 years,
  18. Marcus Antoninus ruled
  19. Commodus ruled 16 years,
  20. Pertinax ruled
  21. Julianus ruled 65 days
  22. The deified Severus ruled 17 years,
  23. Geta ruled 10 months and 12 days
  24. Caracalla|Antoninus the Great ruled 6 years,
  25. Macrinus rule 1 year,
  26. Antoninus Elagaballus ruled
  27. Alexander ruled 13 years, and 9 days
  28. Maximinus ruled 3 years, 4 months and 2 days
  29. The two Gordians ruled for 20 days
  30. Pupienus and Balbinus ruled 99 days
  31. Gordian III|Gordian ruled 5 years, 5 months and 5 days
  32. The two Philips ruled 5 years, 5 months and 29 days
  33. Decius ruled 1 year, 11 months and 18 days
  34. Gallus and Volusianus ruled 2 years, 4 months and 9 days
  35. Aemilianus ruled 88 days
  36. Gallienus with Valerian ruled 14 years, 4 months and 28 days
  37. Claudius ruled 1 year, 4 months and 14 days
  38. Quintillus ruled 77 days
  39. Aurelian ruled 5 years, 4 months and 20 days
  40. Tacitus ruled 8 months, 12 days
  41. Florian ruled 88 days
  42. Probus ruled 6 years, 2 months, 12 days
  43. Carus ruled 10 months and 5 days
  44. Carinus and Numerian ruled 2 years, 11 months, 2 days
  45. Diocletian and ruled, 12 days
  46. Constantius and ruled
  47. Severus ruled, 4 months and 15 days
  48. Maxentius ruled 6 years
  49. ruled, 6 days.
  50. Licinius ruled 15 years,