L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2023 www.italoamericano.org 22 L'Italo-Americano L et's face it, Feb- r u a r y i s t h e s t r a n g e s t m o n t h : i t ' s i n full winter, but people feel like it's spring already; it's the shortest of months, and the only one with 28 days. If that wasn't enough, it's got an extra day every four years. It's n o t h i n g , t h o u g h , i f y o u t h i n k h o w , o n c e u p o n a time, it didn't even exist - yes, you read it right. The Gregorian Calen- dar, the one the world fol- lows today, was first imple- mented in the 16th century - more about it shortly - but, before then, time was not the same for everyone, a n d F e b r u a r y , w i t h i t s s h o r t n e s s a n d c h a n g i n g length, is the most signifi- cant vestige of it. We should begin by clar- ifying the meaning itself of t h e w o r d " F e b r u a r y " ( o r febbraio, in Italian), which c o m e s f r o m t h e L a t i n f e b r u u s , o r " p u r i f y i n g , " because this was the period when the ancient Romans celebrated their traditional rites of purification, the Lupercales. Mind, they wouldn't have said, at least i n t h e e a r l y c e n t u r i e s o f their glorious existence, that Lupercales took place in February because Feb- r u a r y d i d n ' t e x i s t . Indeed, the earliest Roman calendar, which is tradi- tionally believed to have been ratified by Romulus h i m s e l f i n 7 5 3 B C , o n l y i n c l u d e d 1 0 m o n t h s . I t would start in March and end in December, and it w a s b a s e d , l i k e m o s t ancient ways to keep track of time, on the cycle of the m o o n a n d s e a s o n s . I t counted a total of 304 days, d i v i d e d i n t o s i x 3 0 - d a y months, and four 31-day months. Even though two millennia have passed, we still see traces of the old Roman calendar in the way we call our months: Sep- tember means "the seventh month" in Latin, October " t h e e i g h t h , " N o v e m b e r "the ninth," and December "the tenth." There were, however, some significant issues: because it followed the lunar cycle, the old cal- e n d a r w a s n ' t a l w a y s i n sync with the solar year: to avoid confusion, another c a l e n d a r b a s e d o n k e y moments of the agricultur- al year was also created. According to Livy and what he writes in his Ab Urbe Condita, the history of the city of Rome, it is for this reason that the second king of the Capital, Numa Pompilius, introduced, between 754 BC and 673 BC, two extra months at the end of the year, Ian- uarius and Februarius. The year continued to s t a r t i n M a r c h a n d n o w counted 355 days in total, b u t t h i s w a s a p r o b l e m because the solar year lasts 365 days, 5 hours, and 48 m i n u t e s . S o , t o a v o i d a c o n s p i c u o u s d i f f e r e n c e between the civil and the lunar calendar to develop, a n e x t r a m o n t h c a l l e d Mercedonius, an inter- calary month that lasted 27 days, was added after the 23rd of February. Merce- donius, too, was part of the reform wanted by Numa P o m p i l i u s . T o b e f a i r , though, it all remained a bit convoluted, with years o f 1 2 a n d 1 3 m o n t h s , a l u n a r c a l e n d a r , a n d a n agricultural one to follow. However, Rome had to wait a few centuries before getting things tidied up a little with the introduction, in 46 BC, of the Julian C a l e n d a r , n a m e d a f t e r Julius Caesar, even if it was conceived by the Egyptian astronomer Sosygenes of Alexandria. This calendar w a s b a s e d o n t h e s o l a r c y c l e a n d a l l o w e d f o r a more precise calculation of time. It became the official calendar of Rome and its E m p i r e a n d , l a t e r , o f Europe and America. The most significant creation of the Julian Calendar was that of the "l e a p y e a r " w h e n a n e x t r a d a y w a s a d d e d a f t e r t h e 2 4 t h o f February to compensate for the extra hours that, every year, the Earth took to complete its revolution around the sun. T h e r e w e r e , h o w e v e r , more issues on the horizon. B e c a u s e t h e d i f f e r e n c e between the solar and the c i v i l c a l e n d a r m a y h a v e been tiny at the beginning, but it increased through the centuries to the point that, in the 15th century, years were 10 days shorter than they were supposed to be. This is why Pope Gre- gory XIII promulgated a new calendar in 1582, the G r e g o r i a n C a l e n d a r , which is the one we still follow today. The Gregori- an Calendar is largely the same as the Julian but it introduced some signifi- cant changes in the calcula- tion of leap years. Accord- ing to it, leap years are only those divisible by four and, a m o n g c e n t u r y y e a r s - years divisible by 100, thus c o n s i d e r e d t h e e n d o f a century - only those divisi- ble by four hundred. The Gregorian Calendar was adopted by the Catholic and Protestant West, while some Orthodox churches m a i n t a i n e d t h e J u l i a n , which is why there is a dis- sonance in the date of the C a t h o l i c a n d O r t h o d o x Easter still today. Curiously, the Gregorian Calendar didn't only affect the length of February, but a l s o t h a t o f O c t o b e r , a t l e a s t i n 1 5 8 2 , w h e n t h e 1 0 t h m o n t h o f t h e y e a r became, all of a sudden, 10 days shorter to compensate for the days' accumulation due to the discrepancies between the solar and the Julian calendar. FRANCESCA BEZZONE Numa Pompilius at the Louvre, by Jean Guillaume Moitte (Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Agreement. Marie-Lan Nguyen. Public Domain) February, the month that … didn't exist HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS PEOPLE

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