“Sacrastronomia”: Riforma del calendario e controllo del tempo agli inizi del 18. secolo

My paper analyzes a series of debates regarding the logical, mathematical, political and religious check of the Gregorian calendar which took place between the end of the Seventeenth and the beginning of the Eighteenth century. Indeed, more than a century after the Reformation, when the various reformed churches of Germany, of the Swiss cantons, of Holland, of Norway, of Denmark, decided to join the Gregorian system, a few doubts concerning the precision and, therefore, the effectiveness of the way the post-Tridentine catholic Church had imposed its way of stressing the time onto the Catholic world started to appear. The different stages of the foundation of a special commission, made up by experts, are all remembered in this essay. This composite Congregation saw its works overtaken by strong internal tensions – that could be personal, of divergent factions, of religious orders (Jansenism supporters vs Jesuits) –, whose repercussions were clearly perceived in numerous Italian and European cities. Thus, the planned reformation of the calendar seems to be a litmus test of the cultural tensions and of the political and religious struggles of the time. Such implications would characterize Western history of time and of the Church between the end of the XVII century and the years after the French Revolution.