1 The fight of Bolognaâs administration against graffiti has been recorded by the local press. See, for instance, Gian Luca Terio, âAvanti contro i graffi,â La Repubblica, Cronaca di Bologna, September 12, 2007; Elisa Anzolin, âParte il piano contro i graffiti: Via le scritte dal ghetto e Zamboni,â La Repubblica, Cronaca di Bologna, September 19, 2007; Silvia Bignami, âLotta ai graffiti, la Cancellieri accelera,â La Repubblica, Cronaca di Bologna, May 6, 2010; Eleonora Capelli, âLa fama internazionale dei writer Ăš iniziata sui muri di questa cittĂ ,â La Repubblica, Cronaca di Bologna, May 6, 2010.
2 Paolo Segneri, âIl Confessore istruito,â in Opere, 4 vols. (Venice: Baglioni, 1712), 4:641.
3 For instance, an instance of this use is in Franco Sacchetti, Il trecentonovelle, ed. Emilio Faccioli (Turin: Einaudi, 1970), CCVII, p. 628: âper ovviare alla infamia dellâordine.â
4 Edmund Husserl defines philosophy as the science of the most obvious truth (selbstverstaendlich). Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen (TĂŒbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1993), 22. See also Francesca Rivetti BarbĂČ, Essere nel tempo: Introduzione alla filosofia dellâessere, fondamento di libertĂ (Milan: Jaca Book, 1990), 15â16.
1 Wenzel Gustav Kopetz, Allgemeine österreichische Gewerbs-Gesetzkunde, 2 vols. (Vienna: Friedrich Folke, 1830), 2:332.
2 Alfred Francis Pribram, Materialien zur Geschichte der Preise und Löhne in Ăsterreich (Vienna: Carl Ueberreuter, 1938), 121. Leopoldâs edicts date to March 13, 1781, and July 11, 1782.
3 Emanuele Lugli, âCesare Beccaria e la riduzione delle misure lineari a Milano (1771â1789),â Nuova informazione bibliografica 12, no. 3 (2015), 579â601.
4 For instance, the king of Sicily, Ferdinand III, introduced new standards with the law of December 31, 1809. See Codice metrico siculo (Catania: Stamperia dellâuniversitĂ , 1812), 57.
5 The quest of Florenceâs standards of measurements is described in Leonardo Ximenes, Del vecchio e nuovo gnomone fiorentino e delle osservazioni astronomiche, fisiche ed architettoniche fatte nel verificarne la costruzione (Florence: Stamperia imperiale, 1757), 1â10. For an equivalent quest in Milan, see Cesare Beccaria, âDella riduzione delle misure di lunghezza allâuniformitĂ per lo stato di Milano,â in Opere, 2 vols. (Milan: SocietĂ tipografica dei classici italiani, 1821â22), 2:453.
6 The renowned historian Gaetano de Sanctis is often credited with the aphorism âMetrology is not a science; it is a nightmareâ (La metrologia piĂč che una scienza Ăš un incubo; unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own). For an example, see Vincenzo Banzola, âLe antiche misure parmigiane e lâintroduzione del sistema metrico decimale negli Stati Parmensi,â Archivio storico per le province parmensi 18 (1966), 139. I do not know whether de Sanctis ever said that, but in his writings his skepticism is somewhat softer. See Gateano de Santis, Scritti minori, 6 vols. (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1966â72), 2:191. Even when de Sanctis is not cited, such a view is pervasive. See Juergen Schulz, âLe antiche misure lineari secondo Sebastiano Serlio e il problema dei loro valori,â in Lezioni di metodo: Studi in onore di Lionello Puppi, ed. Loredana Olivato and Giuseppe Barbieri (Vicenza: Terraferma, 2002), 363â71; Bruno Andreolli, âMisurare la terra: Metrologie altomedievali,â in Uomo e spazio nellâalto medioevo, 2 vols. (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sullâalto medioevo, 2003), 1:172â73. The earliest definition of measures as an âintolerable nightmareâ (unleidlichen Alptraum) that I could find is in Karl Anton Henschel, Das bequemste Maas- und Gewichts-system gegrĂŒndet auf den natĂŒrlichen Schritt des Menschen (Kassel: Bertram, 1855), 9. Thanks to a translation published in the same year, the book became very popular also in France.
7 Ugo Tucci, âPesi e misure nella storia della societĂ ,â in I documenti, vol. 5.1 of Storia dâItalia, ed. Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti (Turin: Einaudi, 1973), 581â612. An exception is Witold Kula, Les mesures et les hommes (Paris: Editions de la maison des sciences de lâhomme, 1984).
8 The best book on the history of the metric system is Ken Alder, The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World (New York and London: Free Press, 2002). Also useful are the slim exhibition catalogue Lâaventure du mĂštre (Paris: MusĂ©e national des techniques, 1989) and Louis Marquet, LâEpopĂ©e du mĂštre: Histoire du systĂšme mĂ©trique dĂ©cimal (Paris: DĂ©lĂ©gation Ă lâinformation et Ă la communication, 1989).
9 Maurice Crosland, âThe Congress on Definitive Metric Standards, 1789â9: The First International Scientific Conference?â Isis 60, no. 2 (1969), 226â31.
10 Alder, The Measure of All Things, 301â8.
11 Emanuele Lugli, UnitĂ di misura: Breve storia del metro in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2014), 37â52.
12 See Kathryn M. Olesko, âThe Meaning of Precision: The Exact Sensibility in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany,â in The Values of Precision, ed. Matthew Norton Wise (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 103â34.
13 [Arthur-Jules] Morin, âNotice historique sur le systĂšme mĂ©trique, sur ses dĂ©veloppements et sur sa propagation,â Annales du Conservatoire ImpĂ©rial des Arts et MĂ©tiers 9 (1870), 611â13.
14 HĂ©ctor Vera, A peso el kilo: Historia del sistema mĂ©trico decimal en MĂ©xico (Santa Ărsula Xitla: Libros del escarabajo, 2007), 15â39; Tamano Mitsuo, âJapanâs Transition to the Metric System,â Commercial Weights and Measures, no. 3 of US Metric Study Interim Report (July 1971), 97â102.
15 Maurice Crosland, âNature and Measurement in Eighteenth-Century France,â Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 87 (1972), 277â309.
16 Helen E. Longino, The Fate of Knowledge (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), 97â123.
1 âNĂŽtre corps nâest pas une rĂ©gle absoluĂȘ, sur laquelle nous devions mesurer les autres.â Nicolas Malebranche, De la recherche de la veritĂ©, ed. Jules Simon (Paris: Charpentier, 1842), 36.
2 âPour comparer les choses entre elles, ou plutĂŽt pour mesurer exactement les rapports dâinĂ©galitĂ©, il faut une mesure exacte, il faut une idĂ©e simple et parfaitement intelligible, une mesure universelle et qui puisse sâaccommoder Ă toute sorte de sujets.â Malebranche, 487â88.
3 âNon vâha matematico, che di questo non faccia il maggior uso.â Girolamo Francesco Cristiani, Delle misure dâogni genere antiche, e moderne (Brescia: Bossini, 1760), 10. The AcadĂ©mie des sciences had sent French measurements to numerous European institutions, as recalled in MathĂ©matiques, ed. Jean-Baptiste le Rond DâAlembert, vol. 13 of EncyclopĂ©die mĂ©thodique (Paris: Panckoucke, 1789), 130â31.
4 The Royal Society of London asked Christiaan Huygens for a sample of the Rhenish standard in 1664. See Joella G. Yoder, Unrolling Time: Christiaan Huygens and the Mathematization of Nature (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 154. Twenty years later, the Florentine scientist Vincenzo Viviani sent the Florentine standards to Pietro Paolo Caravaggio, a math professor in Milan. See Vincenzo Viviani to Pietro Paolo Caravaggio, 31 October 1684, in Florence: Biblioteca Nazionale, Fondo Galileano 256.
5 Antonio Favaro, Il metro proposto come unitĂ di misura nel 1675 (MĂącon: Protat, 1901), 17â19 and 108â10; Ken Alder, The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World (New York and London: Free Press, 2002), 97.
6 Klaus A. Vogel, âCosmographyâ in Early Modern Science, vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of Science, ed. Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 493; Paolo Casini, Newton e la coscienza europea (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1983), 60.
7 Gabriel Mouton, âNova mensurarum geometricarum idea,â in Observationes diametrorum solis et lunae apparentium (Lyon: Mathieu Liberal, 1670), 427â48.
8 Bruce T. Moran, âCourts and Academies,â in Early Modern Science, vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of Science, ed. Katharine Park and Lorraine Daston (New York: Cambridge...