Chronology: That Is, a Most Exact Demonstration of Times, from the Beginning of the World to the Year of Our Lord 1568

Document notes

Original title: Chronologia, hoc est temporum demonstratio exactissima, ab initio mundi usque ad annum Domini M.D.LXVIII A Latin universal chronology reckoning time from the creation of the world to the year 1568, presenting its method as a demonstration of times assembled from the eclipses and astronomical observations of all ages, from sacred Scripture, and from the best historical authorities. Its bulk consists of ruled synchronistic tables setting years of the World (in a received and a 'true' reckoning), of Rome, of the Temple, of the Seleucids, of Christ and of the Hegira, together with Olympiads, years from Nabonassar, dominical letters, epacts and indictions, in parallel columns, framed by running heads that assign each opening to one of the ages of Law and Grace and to the Danielic succession of four monarchies. Discordant testimony is adjudicated by astronomy — recorded eclipses, syzygies and mean-motion tables drawn from Ptolemy, the Alfonsine tables, Copernicus and the Prutenic tables — and, where computation cannot reach, by conjectural emendation of transmitted numerals and by taking the mean between irreconcilable authorities. It includes a fourfold gospel harmony used to reconstruct five Passovers and place the Passion at Anno Mundi 4000, an astronomical argument for the day of the Passion involving a claimed anomaly in the Moon's motion from the Sun, consular fasti and papal succession, the Ottoman dynastic series, a quantified demonstration that the nineteen-year paschal cycle had drifted two days from astronomical calculation, and notices of sixteenth-century events down to the compiler's own solar eclipse observation at Duisburg in 1567. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

Document excerpt

CHRONOLOGIA. HOC EST, TEMPORVM DE- MONSTRATIO EXACTISSIMA, AB INITIO MVNDI, VSQVE AD ANNVM DOMI- NI M.D. LXVIII EX ECLIPSIBVS ET OBSERVATIONIBVS ASTRONOMICIS omnium temporum, sacris quoq[ue] Biblijs, et optimis quibusq[ue] Scriptoribus summa fide concinnata. AVCTORE GERARDO MERCATORE, Illustriss. Ducis Iuliiæ, Cliuiæ, Bergis, &ce. Cosmographo. COLONIAE AGRIIPPINAE, APVD HAEREDES ARNOLDI BIRCKMANNI ANNO CHRISTI M.D. LXIX. Cum gratia et Priviligio Cesareæ Maiest. ad decennium. R.V.O.