<p style='text-align: justify;'>Annual broadside calendars like this were ephemeral, cheap enough to be afforded by a large number of people, and readily discarded. Accordingly, they often survive only as fragments between bindings, as is the case here. Despite their transient nature, almanacs were one of the most popular and widespread publications though which astronomical information was made available to a large number of people in early modern Europe. Astronomy underpinned various pieces of information in almanac calendars, such as the date of Easter and other moveable feasts, and the astrological and meteorological significance of planetary positions (e.g. conjunctions and eclipses), which in turn had medical implications. Listed at the top of this sheet is the golden number and the dominical letter for 1512, as well as the date of Easter. Strictly speaking, neither the dominical letter nor the golden number is necessary for a calendar like this which was in use for only one year, but these conventions (which were used in earlier, perpetual calendars in the medieval Book of Hours to mark out Sundays and the days of the New Moon respectively) were nonetheless commonly retained in annual almanacs. Additionally, the position of the Moon in the zodiac and its phase is given. The double-ink printing was helpful here, since a red circle indicated a Full Moon, a black circle the New Moon, a red crescent the Last Quarter Moon and a black crescent the First Quarter Moon. Johannes Wonnecker was city physician at Basel and later professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the city's university. It seems likely that, prior to the sixteenth century, there was an absence of qualified, local almanac compilers. In 1470 the Sternenzunft (the guild to which barbers belonged) decreed that a <i>l</i><i>a</i><i>βbrief</i> (or single-sheet calendar) should be purchased from Strasbourg and put up on the wall of the guild. Subsequently, after Wonnecker began to compile almanacs, so many others were also being produced that some form of control was considered necessary. In 1518, the city council at Basel decreed that no <i>laβbrief</i> could be printed without prior validation by the medical faculty or city physician. Three printers were found to have ignored this decree in 1519, and were fined 100 copies each of their own <i>laβbrief</i>. From then on, the city physician received 500 copies of the <i>laβbrief</i> for validating them.</p>
