CRONOGRAM. — From the Greek χρόνος and γράμμα, an inscription in prose or verse in which all the letters corresponding to Roman numerals are intended to represent numbers to mark the date. Sometimes this function is reserved for the initial letters of each verse, in which case a chronostichon is obtained. Here are some examples:
1. franCorVM tvRbls sICVLVs fert fVnera Vesper.
2. aV teMps dV roI CharLes Le hVlt.
CestVI hostel sI fVt ConstrVlt.
3. Ita VoVI anno DoMInI saLVatorIs nostrI IesV ChrIstI.
4. Mors neC ordInarIIs parCIt.
Summing the Roman numerals yields: for the first inscription the year 1282, date of the Sicilian Vespers (cf. s. V. ENOCH. Ital., XII [1931], p. 37); for the second the year 1485, date of the erection of a palace in Paris (cf. Nouveau Larousse illustré, II, p. 828); for the third 1679, the year in which Emperor Leopold I vowed to erect in Vienna a column, the “Pestsäule,” in honor of the Most Holy Trinity (cf. Acta SS. Iunii, I, Venice 1742, p. xi); for the fourth 1704, the year of the erection of the funerary monument to the Bishop of Seckau, Rudolf Joseph von Thun (d. 1702; cf. Abtei Seckau in Obersteiermark, Seckau 1928, p. 65). Chronograms were very much in vogue beyond the Alps from the 11th century onward, as in Austria, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France. With laudable exceptions, chronograms are contrived compositions: thus the one composed in honor of the Bollandist father
