The pertica (from , measuring rod) was a pre- metric unit of either length or area, with the values varying by location. For a similar unit in

Northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other ge ...

, see perch.

Ancient Rome

In the

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

, pertica, also called decempeda, was a unit of length, usually equal to 10 Roman feet (''pedes''), or approximately 2.96

meter The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

s. The variants of pertica contained 12 and 15 pedes.

Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montal ...

(per Codex Gudianus) states that sometimes a pertica of 10, 12, 15, or 17 pedes was used by

agrimensores ''Gromatici'' (from Latin ''Groma surveying, groma'' or ''gruma'', a Surveyor (surveying), surveyor's pole) or ''agrimensores'' was the name for land surveyors amongst the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans. The "gromatic writers" were technical writ ...

(Roman land surveyors) to accommodate the richness of the soil and approximately even the yield per unit area. Kidson highlights the near-perfect match between the pertica of 17 pedes and the English version of the perch. The same names, pertica and decempeda, were used for the surveyor's tool, a rod of the corresponding length with subdivision into smaller units, similar to the Ancient Greek ''kalamos''.

Italy

The linear unit in Italy was about 3 meters, area unit contained about 600

square meter The square metre ( international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures) or square meter (American spelling) is the unit of area in the International System of Units (SI) with symbol m2. It is the area of a square w ...

s. After switching to the metric system, the unit became equal to 1 decare. PerticaViennese

The regional area values significantly varied per province (in square meters): *

Bergamo Bergamo ( , ; ) is a city in the Alps, alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from the alpine lakes Lake Como, Como and Lake Iseo, Iseo and 70 km (43 mi) from Lake Garda, Garda and Lake ...

662; * Como (''milanese'') 655; *

Cremona Cremona ( , , ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po (river), Po river in the middle of the Po Valley. It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local city a ...

808; *

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

770; *

Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...

762; *

Sondrio Sondrio (; ; ; archaic or ; ) is an Italian city, ''comune'' and administrative centre for the province of Sondrio, located in the heart of the Valtellina. , Sondrio counted approximately 21,876 inhabitants. In 2007, Sondrio was named the Alpine ...

688.

References

Sources

* * * * * Ancient Roman units of measurement Obsolete units of measurement Units of length Units of area {{history-stub