Unrecorded Milanese almanacs. With numerous architectural notes & drawings.
[Almanac] / [Astronomy & astrology] / [Manuscript annotations] / [Architecture]. Il Girasole orologio celeste almanaco curisoso sopra l’anno 1733. In cui (oltre li presaggi, mutazioni de Tempi, Quarant’Ore, e Stazioni) vi sono l’ore più felici per fare Estrazioni, ed i numeri de Pianeti per i Lotti, con il passaggio di essa ne Segni del Zodiaco, ed anche gli Aspetti tra essi Pianeti. Milano: per Federico Bianchi, [1732]. 16mo in 8s [10.3 x 8.0 cm], [1] f. full-page etching in red, 96 pp., with red woodcut on half-title, interleaved with blanks in quires C through F. In contemporary vellum wallet binding, red edges. Minor rubbing, staining and edge wear to binding, contemporary manuscript annotation on pastedowns. Minor edge wear and staining internally, with copious contemporary manuscript annotations to the blank leaves.
[With:]
[Almanac] / [Astronomy & astrology] / [Manuscript annotations] / [Architecture]. Almanaco universale Sopra l Anno 1735. Del dottore Gervasio Peppani commentatore D’Urania, o sia segretario della zifra celeste. Milano: Per gli Eredi di Giuseppe Agnelli, [1734]. 16mo in 8s [10.4 x 8.2 cm], 96 pp., with full-page woodcut portrait of astronomer on first page, woodcuts of zodiac man, smaller astrologer & zodiac symbols in text, interleaved with blanks in quires C through F. In contemporary vellum wallet binding, red edges. Minor rubbing, staining and edge wear to binding, contemporary manuscript annotation on pastedowns. Minor edge wear and staining internally, with copious contemporary manuscript annotations to the blank leaves.
Two unrecorded Milanese pocket almanacs for the years 1733 and 1735, here preserved in their contemporary wallet bindings. Originally printed in great numbers, ephemeral calendars of this sort were useless at year’s end, and so typically they were quickly discarded by their owners, making them very rare today. These two almanacs are especially intriguing in that they had the same owner, a man who left on the volumes’ interleaved blanks copious notes and diagrams about architectural work he was undertaking in the region around Vercelli. These almanacs would reward further study.
Inside the front cover of the 1733 almanac is the name “Domenico Coletto” signed from the town of Desana, located near Vercelli. This is perhaps the name of the owner of these books. Among various notes on personal matters (grocery lists, visits to church services, aides-memoire, etc.) are measurements and drawings for work on frames or moldings for windows, in situ paintings and ecclesiastical furniture/architecture.
He records, for example, the dimensions of a painting of St. Anne he inspected on 14 June in the church of S. Michele in Vercelli, gives a contact name there and records his costs (facing p. 36). Elsewhere he mentions working on a predella frame (cornice bradella, p. 34). He takes notes about installing an architectural grate (gratisella) in a church in Issolegno (in Casale Monferrato) and again (pp. 38-43) gives names of those in charge of the project and records his travels costs. Similar annotations are also found on the 1735 almanac. This man seems to have specialized in framings & moldings, but a reference to an edition of Vignola’s Regola delli cinque ordini d’architettura (Venice, Giacomo Franco, 1603) points to a wider architectural competency (see note inside upper cover of the 1735 almanac).
The almanacs themselves are also of considerable interest. They both follow roughly the same format, opening with a fictive dialogue about the coming year between the astrologer/author and the characters Barbarossa and Urania. The first third is given to lists/notes on propitious days, moveable feasts, eclipses, the four seasons, etc. The calendar fills out the bulk of the text.
The 1735 almanac contains an interesting section on birthdays of European potentates (including Sultan Ahmed III) and other anniversaries (including the 329th anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of printing in 1406 [!]: “Il 329. della Nobilissima Invenzione della STAMPA fatta da Giovanni Cotombergo” (pp. 38-39). Both volumes conclude with a table indicating which churches in Milan were open to men and which to women on specific feast days (“Stazioni di tutto l’anno”).
Striking are the full-page illustrations opening these volumes: an etching in red (in the manner of an engraving) of Barbarossa and a woodcut of an Astrologer, details no doubt intended to attract buyers.
These almanacs are not located by ICCU/OPAC, OCLC or KVK.
* E. Casali, Le spie del cielo: Oroscopi, lunari e almanacchi nell’Italia moderna.