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2ND AMSTERDAM ALMANAC (16MO WITH GREGORIAN & JULIAN CALENDAR)
[ALMANAC - DUTCH REFORMED]. GERMANICUS, Ambrosius. Den Nieuwen Ghereformeerden Almanach: opt jaer ons heeren M.D.LXXXVII. ...
Amsterdam, Cornelis Claesz, [1586]. 16mo (10 x 7 cm). A small almanac for the Dutch Reformed market, with a woodcut portrait of the compiler on the title-page (with his age and coat of arms); a woodcut zodiac man; 4 woodcut signs for the phases of the moon; cast planet, aspect, (pictorial) zodiac and other almanac signs; and decorations built-up from cast arabesque fleurons. Printed in red and black throughout and set in textura types, sometimes using uncials as capitals. Late nineteenth or early twentieth-century half brown cloth, pseudo-marbled sides.
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Sixth known copy of the first and only known edition of one of the earliest almanacs based on the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582. Only one complete copy of one earlier Amsterdam almanac of any kind is known, the Chronijck Almanach, first recorded one year earlier and continued in later years. These are also by Germanicus, who compiled all but one of the eight Amsterdam almanacs known from the sixteenth century. It is often suggested that Protestants resisted the new "papist" calendar, but Amsterdam had already joined the rest of Holland and Zeeland in the Protestant revolt against Catholic Spain in 1578, five years before Holland, Zeeland, Brabant, Flanders and the city of Groningen pioneered the new calendar in the Low Countries for or during the year 1583. The present almanac, explicitly described as Dutch Reformed, therefore follows the Gregorian calendar. Since parts of the Low Countries had still not adopted the new calendar (and some who used it no doubt remained confused) the present almanac also gives the Julian dates (running 10 days behind the Gregorian dates) in a second column, but the year is divided into months according to the new calendar. The last ten days of the Julian year are added to its column at the end. The Protestant Church tried to reduce the number of traditional red-printed holidays in almanacs, especially those devoted to saints, but the present Protestant almanac still includes about thirty holidays in red, including many saint's days (plus 7 saint's days with the first letter of the saint's name in red). Almanac publishers argued that even Protestants needed information about these holidays, since they might deal with Catholics or travel in Catholic regions.
The title-page, with a woodcut portrait of Ambrosius Germanicus (53 x 43 mm), is followed by a three-page explanation of the symbols and list of the principal holidays according to the old and new calendars. The twelve months of the calendar itself then follow on what was no doubt planned as twenty-four pages, though in fact they run over onto the top of a twenty-fifth. The rest of that page and the following page list the annual markets of Amsterdam, Antwerp and Frankfurt, and the principal weekly markets of towns in Holland, Zeeland, Friesland and Utrecht (arranged by the six days of the week). The next page gives a table of the times for spring tides in thirty-four towns in the Low Countries, and the last page contains the woodcut zodiac man (47 x 36 mm), showing in which constellations the moon has unfavourable influences on which parts of the body (bloodletting in the affected parts was considered especially dangerous and had to be postponed). As the preliminaries explain, the calendar uses special symbols to indicate favourable days for bloodletting, sowing and planting, taking medicine and cutting hair (a nice little pair of scissors). The importance of bloodletting is shown by the fact that it has a second symbol for moderately favourable days. Market days are indicated by a pointing hand with the name of the town, but annual markets were apparently supposed to have a one symbol (the pointing hand?) and horse & cattle markets another (a horse?): perhaps the printer had no horse in his type cases, but one would think he could have used the taurus zodiac sign to suggest cattle.
The identity of the probably pseudonymous Ambrosius Germanicus (ca. 1547/48-post 1608) remains mysterious, but the present almanac provides several clues. The title-page describes him as a physician, mathematician and lover of astronomy, as well as a follower of the elder Ambrosius Magirus (Ambrosius Cock?), a physician who had compiled almanacs and prognostications published at Deventer in the years 1555 to 1570. Germanicus is the last major almanac compiler in the Deventer tradition, with its strong emphasis on medical matters (the next major Dutch almanac compiler was a surveyor and map draftsman, Lucas Jansz. Sinck, whose first almanac appeared for the year 1607). As far as we know, Ambrosius Germanicus's woodcut portrait appears for the first time in the present almanac (it does not appear in his almanac for 1586), and it gives his age as thirty-eight, suggesting he was born ca. 1547/48 (its use with his age unchanged in an almanac for 1597 led people to date his birth too late: see Jeroen Salman, Een Handdruk van de Tijd, Delft, 1997, fig. 16). Almanacs appeared under his name for the years 1586 to 1609. The woodcut also shows his coat of arms, but its tiny scale (with a 3 1/2 mm shield) and lack of tinctures hinder identification. Taking a clue from the fact that he calls himself "Germanicus," and supposing (as we suspect) the arms appear in mirror image, we can guess that it might show dexter the arms of Burgundy, impaled with sinister base a bend (arms of Baden?) and sinister chief perhaps the arms of France (the three dots in the woodcut could be stars, crowns, or almost anything, but the French three fleurs-de-lis was common in arms from the German-speaking regions). We have not found any matching coat of arms, however. The principal centres of almanac publishing in the Low Countries had been Antwerp, Deventer and Delft, but Ambrosius Germanicus compiled the first almanacs published in Amsterdam, which was to become the leading centre in the seventeenth century.
The title-page and a few other leaves are cut short at the foot, with the loss of the last line of the two-line imprint ("Ghedruckt tot Amstelredam, by my Cornelis [Claesz. opt water, int schrijfboeck]") and the last line of 1 calendar page. The almanac is otherwise in good condition, though showing the wear and tear inevitable with such ephemeral publications: a couple minor abrasions obscure a few words, 2 leaves have marginal restorations, one affecting a few letters of the text, and there are some minor stains. A rare and remarkably early Amsterdam almanac for the Dutch Reformed market, based on the new Gregorian calendar, but also giving the Julian dates.
