Description

Borda d’Água – Borda Dauro.

[Almanac and Lunar Calander for the Year 1840, Leap Year]

Porto: Gandra & Filhos, 1839.

Small 8°, [16 pp.] with originally coloured image on the cover and images of lunar phases between the text, bound with original paper wrappers into a later grey linen binding with gold lettering, old annotations on front and rear wrappers and in margins of the text (minor age-toning and staining, spine pale, but overall good).

An attractive ephemeral lunisolar calendar combines monthly lunar cycles with the solar year and includes 29 days in February in this particular case. This calendar provides the phases of the moon, which are important for farmers, fishermen, and sailors, and it lists the names of saints on specific dates. Each month is accompanied by a poem dedicated to the moon.

In the mid-19th century, a series of similar populist lunisolar calendars was printed in Portugal, all featuring a humorous man on the cover, likely representing an astronomer. Each author claimed to be the true successor of the earliest version, created by the allegedly famous astronomer Borda d’Água (which literally means “Waterfront Village”). The authors often aggressively criticized one another.

These almanacs, simply named “Borda d’Água,” saw a revival in the 20th century. From 1929 onwards, a Portuguese publishing firm called Minerva began issuing highly popular 16-page almanacs under the same name.

The present example is adorned with attractive contemporary annotations, poems, names, calculations, and drawings in black ink.

We could not find any examples of the title on Worldcat.