Archaic Units of Measure
This is a French clock
from 1800 with the old
12-hour system
as well as the new revolutionary system of metric time. Unlike
the meter, decimal time never made it out of the Revolution.
That's fine with me since I can't imagine referring to the film
High Noon as High Five.
 Italians still have to put up
with old or
foreign units of measure such
as the “barrel” of oil and the 21-inch (pollice) TV screen, and snobbish
Italian Sunday-sailors speak of “knots,” but Italy was one of the
18 original signatories of the Metric Convention in Paris in 1875, so
people here have been “metrified” for a long time. That leaves a few
holdouts
such as Yours Truly, the USA and Burma. (I admit I have trouble
thinking in “millimeters of rain”. (I know, I can’t even spell “meter”.)
With the adoption of the metric system, dozens of delightful units of
measurement were put out to pasture (up on the north 40, I think—that’s
about 16 hectares!) in Europe. The geopolitical crazy quilt that
was the Italian peninsula until unification into a single nation in
1861 had correspondingly disparate systems of measurement. The units of
measure used in the Kingdom of Naples (or the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies) were particularly rich; some were old Roman holdovers, and
others developed quite pragmatically through the Middle Ages, being
used right up until unification. I was made aware of that the other day
when I came across a reference in an old document to the Teatro nuovo
in Naples, built in 1724; the theater had boxes that were
so-and-so-many “palms” wide.
I had to look it up. One “palm” was equal to about 0.26 meters. Spread
your adult fingers as wide as you can; from tip of thumb to tip of
pinkie is
about right. That’s why they called it a “palm”.
(Horses are still measured in the English-speaking world in “hands.”
Horses measure us in “hooves”.)
Here are some other units of measure from the old Neapolitan system.
The list is not exhaustive and ignores the
changes in unit value from time to time and the fact that the same term
might
have variations depending on how and where it was used (in the same way
as the
English system speaks of “statute mile” and “nautical mile” or “US
gallon” and “imperial gallon”).
acino: a
measure of weight = about 0.45 grams (or
0.016 ounces). The word, itself, means a single “grape”; thus, it was
used for light weights.
barile (barrel):
a measure of liquid volume still
used to measure
petroleum, although today's Joe Six-Pack doesn’t know how much “one
barrel” is
except that it probably looks like a barrel. In old Neapolitan usage,
one barile contained
60 caraffe. One caraffa was about 0.72 liters
(about
¾ of a quart). (OK, today's 1 barrel of oil = ca. 117 liters =
ca. 31 US
gallons/ca. 26 imperial gallons. And it depends on the brewery, but
Joe's surname in the metric system is about 2 liters.)
botte: A
maritime unit for tonnage of vessels. It was
based on the botte, a wine
container. Roughly, one botte =
about 500 liters and contained 12 barili
(see above). For purposes of measuring wine or vegetable oil, two botti (i.e. 1000 liters) made up
one carro (wagon). One botte
was subdivided into the salma
and the staio in the same way
as English measurement still speaks of gallons being divided into
quarts and pints. One salma
was ca. 160 liters and, itself, was subdivided into 16 staia.
braccio (arm):
Unit of linear measurement = about
half a meter. There was also a longer maritime braccio equal to ca. 1.6 meters.
miglio (mile):
a Neapolitan mile was 1,000 paces;
that is, 7000 palms or about 1850 meters (ca. 6,070 feet, curiously
close to the English nautical mile of 6,076 feet).
lega (league):
not common in Naples, but if found it
probably referred to the Spanish unit (legua)=
ca. 2.6 miles. The unit was abolished in the Spanish empire (which
Naples was part of) in 1568.
canna: The
standard unit of linear measurement in
commerce (measuring textiles, for example) and construction. It was
just over 2 meters and was divided into 8 palmi (see above).
cantaro: Unit
of heavier weight common in maritime
usage = about 90 kilograms (almost 200 pounds). It was divided into rotoli
(plural of rotolo, see below).
libbra and oncia (pound and
ounce): Units of weight.
There were 12 ounces in the pound. The subdivision of the ounce was the
trappeso.
passo: The pace. A unit of linear
measurement = about
7 “palms” (above); i.e., just under 2 meters. There was an older
maritime passo, somewhat
smaller.
piede: Foot.
Approx. one English foot or 1/3 of
a meter.
rotolo: Unit
of weight, somewhat lighter than 1
kilogram or a bit more than 2 pounds.
tomolo: A unit
of measure for dry volume such as
grain = ca. 55 liters (about one and one-half bushels).
trappeso: The
smallest unit of weight in the old
Neapolitan system and defined as the 1/1000 part of a rotolo or 1/20 of
the acino.
Currency:
Carlino. These
were silver and gold coins minted for
Charles of Anjou
starting in 1278 in Naples under Charles of Anjou (thus, “carlino” as
the name of
the coin). The silver carlino
used by the Bourbons in the 18th and 19th
centuries was one-tenth of a ducato.
Smaller coins than the carlino were
the tarì, grano, tornese, and cavallo. These were
silver or bronze. At the time of the unification of Italy (1861), the
Neapolitan ducat was the unit used to convert to the new Italian
currency. The exchange was 4.25 lira to 1 ducat. (Very roughly, that
would be unit of
about 10 euros, today.)
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Finally, if “I love you a bushel and a peck…,” how much
do I love
you in cubic furlongs?
You may not use a calculator.
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