My post last year (hur hur–just a couple of weeks ago, but before January 1) about calendar reform caught the eye of another interested party in calendar reform, and he posted some helpful comments for me, giving me leads about the origin of the specific calendar reform advocated by the World Calendar Association. He mentioned that it was first proposed by Abbe Mastrofini in 1834, but perhaps had been bruited about as early as 1745. And while I haven’t found the links to 1745 yet, I did find some interesting information about Mastrofini. It turns out that he had an interest in another area of life that might have much to gain from simplified calendars: the world of finance!
Abbe Mastrofini is the author of an 1831 treatise that was translated into French in 1834 as De l’Usure, ouvrage où l’on démontre que l’usure modérée n’est contraire ni à l’Ecriture Sainte, ni au Droit Naturel, ni aux décisions de l’Eglise. I haven’t yet gotten through my reading of that work (too many other things in the queue in front of it), but I’d be surprised if someone who was concerned with the morality of lending money at interest wasn’t also interested in the potential simplification of life brought on by a calendar that chunks up the year into 4 equal quarters, with predictable days and dates… The 1834 date for Mastrofini’s calendar reform proposal is cited all over the Net (at TWCA’s site, in an article from the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, , but I have yet to find a citation that includes the bibliographic information for it; it may very well not be contained in this 1834 French edition of a treatise on financial interest, but it might be…
Anyone know the full story here?
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Hi Ben,
I make no claim to knowing the full story but Hirossa Ap-Iccim will help you continue your search.
http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/calendar-reform.html reports “The blank day concept was suggested originally, perhaps, by an American colonist from Maryland in 1745 writing under the pseudonym of Hirossa Ap-Iccim. The idea was later popularlized by an Italian priest, Abbé Marco Mastrofini, in 1834.’ The http://personal.ecu.edu/mccartyr/hirossa.html
link within that paragraph goes to 1745 source material.
Thanks for posting the article. It does a great job setting the record straight. http://www.theworldcalendar.org/JCR_1949,Pg.157,Morin_Pic.jpg gives you a picture of the author.
A banker once told me apathetically that he’d use any calendar that his customers wanted as long as he had a properly programmed computer. Please expand your thoughts on world of finance gains from a simpler calendar.
Wayne Edward Richardson (‘Wayne’)
Director, The World Calendar Association – International
E-mail to twca@theworldcalendar.org
‘SHOULDN’T OUR CALENDAR BE AS SIMPLE AS OUR CLOCK?’
http://www.theworldcalendar.org/TWCandDescription.pdf