bissextile year

For, on account of our intercalation of one day every bissextile year, the Mexican year receded, as compared with ours, one day every four years.

So the Pope determined that in each 400 years there should be only 97 bissextile years, instead of 100, as there used to be in the Julian calendar.

The church festival of St Matthias was formerly observed on the 25th of February in bissextile years, but it is now invariably celebrated on the 24th.

In the same bissextile year was held the solemn ceremony of piercing the ears of the girls and young men, it being reserved for the high-priest to execute that function, assisted by godfathers and godmothers.

This rule of the bissextile year, Rome, which is destined to endure to the end of time, established with the aid of the heavenly Deity.