Digital Signatures of the Baroque

The embedding of coded dates (chronograms) in religious and secular memorial inscriptions became something of an obsession in the early 1700s, especially in the Czech lands. This essay proposes a number of possible reasons for the fashion and further suggests that the appeal of the chronogram had less to do with intellectual vanity – though this played a part – and more with the acknowledged power of inscription itself, particularly when it came in the form of a public prayer.