The Calendar
“I hope that it will soon be published, because the Pope is quite eager.Christopher Clavius, 1581 None of the three men responsible for fixing the calendar was a conqueror, notorious lover, heretic or lone monk pondering the cosmos from a cell in a monastery. They were not even particularly flamboyant, and certainly not free thinkers in the spirit of a Bacon or even a Paul of Middelburg--all of which might account for their success.They included an obscure physician from the toe of Italy who was the genius behind the reform, a Jesuit astronomer famous for being wrong about many of his most cherished theories, and a lawyer turned pope remembered as much for his failures as for his successes. Each contributed to the reform named for one of them, and each in the story of his role offers an explanation for why the calendar was finally fixed 1,627 years after Caesar launched it, and after so many centuries of false tries and frustrations.The doctor was Aloysius Lilius (Luigi Lilio in Italian).
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