Before the unification of Italy, the peninsula was a patchwork of independent states, republics and occupied territories each one with their own rulers and laws. And with the different statutes came differing calendars based either on the church’s or the farmer’s year. Neither of which was in synch with the other. So whilst Venice marked the year of 1245, nearby Florence was still completing 1244 and Pisa had leapt ahead to 1246. Here’s how New Year ended up being celebrated on March 1st in Venice.
People have been marking the passage of time since prehistoric times. At first they measured time in years between the appearance of the first green shoots each Spring through to the next time new leaf buds sprouted again. Or they counted harvests, so a person was said to have lived 23 springs or harvests. But neither of these ideas was particularly accurate or predictable as seasons vary and change over time.
Early societies noticed an object in their lives that was more reliable. They called it various names from Khonsu to Nanna, Diana to Luna. It was the moon.
The moon rises into the early evening sky every day and over the course of 29.5 days moves from a dark, slim crescent new moon to a bright, full moon and back again. The predictable phases and full cycle could easily be tracked becoming a dependable way to mark out time and forecast upcoming events. And with such a consistent rhythm many civilizations including the Egyptians, Babylonians and ancient Greeks adopted the lunar calendar as a way to regulate their time.
Some cultures including the Islamic world, China and the Jews still use the lunar calendar. But there is one inherent drawback to the system. With each month, or moon cycle, taking 29.5 days the calendar falls short by around 11 days slipping back each year. So after a while harvesting is being done in January and the long winter months are being marked out in July unless the calendar is corrected every so often. In fact, left without corrections, it takes a full 33 years to get the start of the lunar calendar back in its rightful seasonal place. And neighbors quickly become out of synch, with one still months or even years behind another.
Nevertheless, the Romans adopted the system. And even coined its modern name. Debts were traditionally called in on the first day of a new moon, otherwise known as the calendae that came from the verb calare, to call out. But there was still the same problem. With only 10 months the lunar calendar wasn’t long enough so the long, dark days of winter were just left blank, unassigned, unnamed and the calendar picked up around 50 days later on the first day of spring.
So the Romans solved that too.
Suetonius, historian and biographer of 12 Roman emperors recorded that the pontiffs had allowed the calendar to fall into disorder, letting the years slide and adding in extra days whenever and wherever they felt like it. Neither the harvest nor cultural and religious festivals fell in their traditional seasons any longer so Julius Caesar stepped in to bring back some order.
The legendary leader recognized the need to overhaul and regulate the calendar so that it matched the actual length of a year without slippage. He consulted an old astronomer named Sosigenes from Alexandria. And in 45 BC he introduced his new calendar based not on the moon’s transit across the skies, but on the earth’s revolutions around the sun. It was an idea that others, including the Egyptians, had tried and would see Romans living by a standard, 365 days long calendar from then on.
The new calendar changed daily life. Firstly Caesar standardized the length of each individual month. So January had 31 days, June had 30 and February just 28 days. And then he announced two entirely new months, modestly naming one of them – July – after himself. The two new initiatives, when added together, meant that the year now totaled 365 days and Caesar also brought in the idea of a leap year every 4th to take account of the partial hanging day. It would be known as the Julian calendar and went on to be adopted by the Christian Church, forming the basis for the calendar we use today. But we’re skipping ahead.
Not everyone took to the new calendar. Many farmers and people living on the land stuck to the old lunar cycles for centuries after the Roman Empire fell. They counted their year in terms of work on the land. And as the cold, dark winter weeks were spent at home rather than out on the frozen fields, they basically didn’t count. For them the new year only started as the land began to spring back into life and farmers set out to sow their seed.
For a time, around the late 6th century, the Julian tradition of celebrating new year on January 1st was even abolished by the church’s Council of Tours who considered it pagan and un-Christian. They replaced it with March 25th, otherwise known as Lady Day or the Feast of the Annunciation, one of the church’s holiest celebrations. But this still didn’t stop people using the old lunar calendar.
And it wasn’t just rural communities who stuck to the old ways. Towns and cities like Florence and Venice did too, tying their urban lives to the natural, seasonal cycles of the land. The use of the lunar calendar survived through medieval times as the Christian church’s influence grew stronger. And both Venice, Florence and others continued to use it even when Pope Gregory XIII launched his slightly amended Gregorian calendar in 1582.
In fact Florence would use the old calendar for close to another two centuries. They took the Spring Equinox of 25th March as the start of their New Year until 1749 when Grand Duke Francesco II finally acquiesced and decided to adopt the Gregorian schedule. And Venice persisted through to as recently as 1797 when their democratic republic was finally overrun by the invading army of Napoleon Bonaparte who imposed the catholic calendar.
In total there are still about 80 different new years celebrated around the world even today, all dependent on differing calendars or interpretations of the moon or sun’s cycles. But for the first 1376 years of its existence, since it’s founding at 12-midday on March 25th 421 AD, Venetians celebrated the start of their city’s year on what is now 1st March. And it’s a tradition that has been revived in recent years as citizens fight to retain and protect their heritage, festivals and traditions. So to all our Venetian friends we wish a Bon Cao de Ano and many more to come!
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