Measures*
braccio da tela (cloth measure) = 2 feet or 24 inches = 0.63614 m
miglio romano (Roman mile) = 0.9255 miles = 1,489.479 m
Time
Before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar (1582), Italian time-keeping, as well as half of the Roman Empire, relied on the Julian calendar “with a fixed sequence of twelve months, a 365-day year, and an extra day every four years.”1 The names of the months are derived from the old Roman calendar: January is the first month and December is the last. In the Middle Ages, monastic daytime was regulated by canonical hours of prayer which entailed eight main hours, “beginning with Matins (around 2:00 AM) and ending with Compline, after sunset.”2 By the time of the period covered in this study, the canonical hours were announced with the ringing of the bells in Rome. Moreover, “Italian hours were counted from sunset, from one to twenty-four.”3
The Jewish calendar – based on a lunisolar system of twelve months – begins with the month of Nisan in the spring, although the Jewish New Year, Rosh ha-Shanà, occurs in the month of Tishri (usually corresponding to September or early October in the Christian calendar). Days run from sunset to the next sunset and the week begins on Sunday (yom rishon) and proceed to Saturday (Shabbat).
A conversion of Julian dates to Jewish dates and vice versa has been made possible thanks to one of the calendar converters that may be found on the internet.4
Source: Angelo Martini, Manuale di metrologia ossia misure, pesi e monete in uso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i popoli (Turin, 1883).
Sacha Stern, Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies (Oxford, 2012), 3.
James R. Ginther, “Divine Office,” The Westminster Handbook to Medieval Theology (Louisville, 2009), 54.
Katherine Eagleton, “Clocks and Timekeeping,” in Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, eds. Thomas F. Glick, Steven John Livesey, Faith Wallis (New York-London, 2005), 127.
“CalendarHome,” last modified March 13, 2017, http://www.calendarhome.com/calculate/convert-a-date.