CYCLOS MAGNUS. - Also called the Easter cycle or annus magnus, resulting from the combination of the 28-year solar cycle and the nineteen-year cycle, it constitutes a period of 532 years (28 x 19 = 532), after which the phases of the moon recur on the same dates and on the same days of the week. It was used by computists for determining Easter and the other movable feasts. Victor of Aquitaine in 457 had counted its years from the Passion of Jesus Christ, which in his calculations corresponds to the year 28 of our era. Dionysius Exiguus in 526, basing himself on the nineteen-year computation of the Greeks and the Alexandrians, made the 1st year of our era correspond to the 2nd of the c. m.

The Victorian and Dionysian periods belong to the many chronological computations devised to make Easter coincide throughout the world on the same day, according to the decrees of the Council of Nicaea. They ceased to have value after the Gregorian reform of the calendar, which modified the solar cycle.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: PP. Maurini [D'Antine-Clémence-Durand], L'art de vérifier les dates, 3rd ed., I, Paris 1783, p. xxii ff.; A. Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, ibid. 1894, p. 149.

Carmelo Trasselli

@incollection{ec4_cyclus_magnus, author = {Trasselli, Carmelo}, title = {Cyclus Magnus}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {1100--1101}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cyclus-magnus} }

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Cyclos Magnus

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