The Representation of April in the Calendar of 354

Abstract

The illustrations of the months in the famous Calendar of 354, preserved in several Renaissance copies, are a rich source for the study of late antiquity. This article examines one of the illustrations of the months which, since its discovery in the seventeenth century, has presented problems of interpretation for historians of art and of religion alike. The representation of April has been understood as a depiction of the rite of the pagan festival of Venus, noted on 1 April. The iconographic and historical problems attendant upon this traditional interpretation can be resolved by examining the proper historical context of the image. The representation of April in the Calendar can be better understood as the illustration of the Roman festival of the Magna Mater, celebrated in Rome in A.D. 354 from 4 to 10 April. This new explanation of the image of April has wide-ranging iconographic and religious significance. The illustrated Calendar of A.D. 354, which has been known and studied since the seventeenth century, provides an invaluable source of information about pagan religion in fourth century Rome; yet problems of interpretation persist. The Calendar, with the representation of each month on the page facing its corresponding text, forms the nucleus of what was a much larger manuscript, compiled as a single codex for use in the year 354: added to the Calendar were various other illustrations, such as those of the astrological signs for the months and the two eponymous consuls, and several unillustrated lists containing such information as the names of the prefects of the city of Rome and the Depositions of Roman Bishops. The original fourth century codex is lost, as is its Carolingian copy (Luxemburgensis), last seen and described in a letter of 1620 by the French scholar Peiresc. The Carolingian manuscript has several sixteenth and seventeenth century copies, however, and the best of these, executed under Peiresc's supervision, is now in the Vatican Library.' Mommsen, the first modern scholar to deal with the Calendar manuscripts, interpreted the original as a piece of fourth century nostalgia, written after pagan rites had ceased to exert their influence over a Christian empire. Mommsen supported this view by pointing to the evidence within the Calendar-the lists of Christian information, and the Dedicatory page with a Christian formula-which indicates that it was written in