CHRONOGRAM. — 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 the numbers for marking the date. Sometimes this function is reserved for only the initial letters of each verse; in this case one has the chronostic. Here are some examples:
1. franCorVM tVrbIs sICVLVs fert fVnera Vesper.
2. aV teMps dV rol CharLes Le hVIt.
CestVI hosteL sI fVt ConstrVIt.
3. Ita VoVI anno DoMInI saLVatorIs nostrI IesV ChrIstI.
4. Mors neC orDInarIIs parCIt.
Summing the Roman numerals one obtains: for the first inscription the year 1282, the date of the Sicilian Vespers (cf. s. v. in Enc. Ital., XII [1931], p. 37); for the second the year 1485, the date of the erection of a palace in Paris (cf. Noveau Larousse illustré, II, p. 828); for the third 1679, the year in which the emperor Leopold I made a vow 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 funeral monument to the bishop of Seckau, Rudolf Joseph von Thun (d. 1702; cf. Gilde Seckau in Obserstiermark, 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. Save for praiseworthy exceptions, chronograms are labored compositions: such is the one composed in honor of the Bollandist father
Godefridus Henschenius, published, on the occasion of his jubilee, in the Acta SS. Maii, IV, Venice 1740, p. v. Their correct interpretation can be of valid help for the dating of monuments and documents.
Equally useful for the same purpose are chronodistics, in which the date is marked differently than in chronograms; here is an example:
Mille, C. ter, quini deciesque quater quoq. bini
Anni Verbigenae defluxerunt quasi plene.
Unraveling the two verses one obtains the date 1358, the year in which the Premonstratensian William Vressenich finished the manuscript containing the «Vita metrica B. Hermanni Joseph Steinfeldensis» (cf. Io. Chrys. Van der Sterre, Lilium inter spinas. Vita b. Joseph Presbyteri et canonici Steinfeldensis ordinis Praemonstratensis, Antwerp 1627, p. 272).
Bibliography
Pietro Frutaz