People are so clever. I just learned about this phenomenon the other day. A chronogram is a text, phrase, or inscription that hides a date. It does this using specific letters—usually Roman numerals like M, D, C, L, X, V, and I—that add up to a specific year.

This is the Church of St. Ignatius in Gorizia, Italy. Someone posted some lovely photos of Gorizia over at Imgur, and this one caught my attention for a particular reason.

The inscription over the door reads, “Divo Ignatio de Loiola – Societatis Iesu Fundatori,” or “To Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus.” (The Jesuits)

But if you look at the inscription closely, you notice that there is some odd capitalization going on: “DIVo IgnatIo De LoIoLa, SoCIetatIs IesV FunDatorI.”

I recognized at once that the only letters capitalized were the ones used in Roman numerals. Digging a bit deeper, today I learned about Chronograms.

If you add up the values of the capitalized letters, they sum up to 1723, the year the grand Façade of the Church, designed by Christoph Tausch was completed.

I’m surprised it took me so long to learn about these.

The Old Wolf has spoken.