By the middle of the 16th century it was becoming increasingly obvious that there was something wrong with the calendar.
The longest day of the year was supposed to be June 21, but in fact it fell ten days earlier. More importantly for such a religious age, was the suspicion that this might mean that religious festivals were being held on the wrong day.
In February 1582 a papal commission reported on the problem. They had been working for some years at the Villa Mondragone on complicated chronological data. The pope who read the report was Gregory XIII. He at once realised its significance and introduced the new calendar, which the report recommended, within a month. It is this Gregorian calendar which we still use today.
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