##Circumference and size of Earth in Columbus time

If you remember a post I made a while back I listed various theories on circumference of Earth in circulation when Columbus was pitching his western idea. Since then I did a little more reading on origin of those values, some consulting with amazing /u/qed1 and I actually have to reevaluate some of my attitudes. Nothing major I would say, but perhaps most intriguingly for the general audience, it is probably a bit too harsh to claim Columbus estimate that one degree has length 56 2/3 miles was a radical and dumb idea.

In fact it seems to me now it was one of more common values thrown around in medieval times. However, it is still true that by the end of 15th century Iberian cosmographers moved away from this value in favor of ones closer to reality. For example in the negotiations for Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 and attempts to determine the demarcation line there was a vivid discussion between two values of length of degree: 16 2/3 leagues backed by Spanish and 17 1/2 leagues pushed by Portuguese, both larger then Columbus' proposal. We'll examine here how did they reach those numbers, but I think this it's best to make some introduction into terms we are using here.

Degrees, miles, leagues, stades

Generally speaking we are discussing about circumference of Earth which is the length of equator or meridian circle spanning the entire Earth. Size of Earth is the point of discussion in most medieval and ancient greek texts, and is given either in directly miles or more commonly in Greek units of stades. By the time of Columbus though, discussion about size of Earth moved from domain of theoretical to more practical navigational concerns and it became more focused not on the size of Earth, but on the more practical length of one degree (circumference divided by 360°). Columbus in his notes made his remarks about the length of degree and he usually talked about this value in miles (56 2/3 miles). At the same time Portuguese and Spanish when talking about length of degree preferred expressing the value in own favorite unit - leagues. The two values commonly given were 16 2/3 leagues and 17 1/2 leagues. Iberian league was and is usually approximated to 4 miles to a league, and converted the values are usually given to 66 2/3 and 70 miles respectively. (as a note: when discussing different theories I will try to list all of the values - circumference, degree in miles, degree in leagues - so hopefully there will be less confusion)

This discrepancy between units used was widespread in those times. There were even differences in between same nominal units, like miles. There were numerous different mile lengths out there, and while most European ones were close enough to wave it off, some key ones had radical differences. The major one was the difference between Italian-Roman mile which was commonly used and which today we estimate at around 1480 meters, and Arabic mile which we usually consider today as 1850m or 1947m, in any case somewhere in 1800-2000 meter range.

Similar thing applied to Greek stades which also differed from place to place, and from time to time. While authors knew absolute values of circumferences given in Greek stades, they faced a problem of how to convert it to mile or leagues or other values used at their time (and the problem exists today still)
We think today that Roman/Italian miles converts by ration of 8 stades to 1 mile, while Arabic converts by 10 stades to 1 miles and it seems the late medieval Europeans thought something like that too. There were throughout history actually more proposed values of conversions between stades and mile, most of them centered around 8:1 ratio (several propositions include 7.5:1, 8.333:1, 8:1, 8.25:1 etc )

But overall in medieval works there was rarely a sense of awareness of this discrepancy. A mile was always a mile, no conversion or adjustment needed and chances for erroneous conversion were abundant and common.

Week 44

 

This is part three of a detour on the role of the Italian press from the unification to the Great War and some. It is somewhat self-consistent but you may go back and check the previous two weeks if you find that interesting and you have a few extra minutes to spare.

 

If the Corriere della Sera had been – under the direction of Ernesto Torelli-Viollier – one of the most influential newspapers of the late XIX Century, during the first twenty years of the XX Century it was “the” influential newspaper, the one everybody read (as long as they were reading something), the one many imitated, many opposed and many followed.

In a way the general impression was true; that being the Chief Editor of the Corriere della Sera was – as noted P. Alatri - “something more rather than something less than the leader of a political current”. That position fell onto Luigi Albertini.

Albertini had joined the Milanese newspaper in 1896, at the beginning of that convulsive and involutive phase of political conflict that marked the end of the XIX Century in Italy. When in May 1898 Torelli-Viollier – who had been chief editor of the Corriere for over twenty years – resigned over a conflict with the reactionary-authoritarian political line that one of the newspaper's financiers, Ernesto De Angeli, was trying to impose, Albertini disapproved of his replacement with Domenico Oliva. By any account a conservative himself, Albertini, rather than following the repressive tendencies and violent aspirations of certain parts of the Italian establishment, sought for a return to a liberal tradition (that of the early years historical right) that saw politics as an occupation for enlightened gentlemen, that called for the government to be both “strong and secure as well as morally beyond reproach”. This deeply moral concept of political life would be a decisive factor in his consistent opposition to the entire power apparatus of future Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti; it was also a reason to look with a certain disdain at the illiberal and repressive practices put in action by the weak governments of Rudinì first and then of General Luigi Pelloux.

Under Oliva's direction, the Corriere della Sera had been supportive of Pelloux' attempts to get his “political provisions” Law approved by the Chambers – the law had been going through the steps required for its approval in the early months of 1899, but its iter had been interrupted when the first Pelloux Ministry had been forced to resign in May. Therefore Pelloux, immediately restored by the King to Head of the Government had passed it as a decree while the Chambers were closed. A decision challenged by the oppositions with the Court of Cassation of Rome ruling against the Government and rejecting the decree in February 1900. Pelloux was then facing an even stronger parliamentary opposition in the months of March-May 1900, in an renewed effort to get his decree (actually in large part inspired by Sonnino) converted into law.

On May 17^th Albertini, during an absence of Oliva from Milan, had chosen to publish an opinion piece openly critical of the government's conduct on the matter – something that amounted to an explicit change in the editorial line. In light of the general reaction, Oliva had chosen to resign and Albertini had replaced him in the position of Chief Editor as well as acquiring the legal responsibility for the publications of the Corriere della Sera group [the Italian law of the time had introduced the figure of the gerente responsabile, i.e. the physical person responsible for the publications] – no little part in this favorable turn being played by the actual government crisis that immediately followed and caused Pelloux to resign and call for new elections on May 18^th .

Albertini ascended to his new position officially on July 13^th , two weeks after the King had been shot and killed by Gaetano Bresci. The the Corriere della Sera was rearranged around a society “L. Albertini and C.” with a capital of 168,000 Lire split in 56 shares worth 3,000 Lire – Benigno Crespi, the original founder, retained 32 (but only half of the votes in the administration board); De Angeli had 11; Pirelli 7; Luca Beltrami had 4 and Albertini 2. Nonetheless the agreement allowed Albertini substantial and explicit autonomy in the conduction of the newspaper – only having to secure the administration board's approval for major changes within the editorial board.

Strong of the board's confidence and his recent formative experience in the UK, Albertini ran “his” newspaper like a business. With a clear organization structure, a well defined political line – in substance dictated by Albertini himself, but previously agreed upon by his collaborators (the editorial board became under Albertini's tenure a closely bound organism, with certain “modern” innovations such as a system of shared rewards for good financial and political returns) in order to avoid fluctuations and possible ambiguity – a parallel introduction of technical and managing innovations. Soon the Corriere della Sera had become the voice of the most advanced fractions of the Italian bourgeoisie – a point of reference that had to be at the same time expression of the feelings of the mid to upper classes and influence instrument behind those feelings.

It also was the first organism of the Italian press to become properly independent from the influence of the political world. The Corriere was neither a “ministerial” nor an “opposition” newspaper; it had its own political line, strong and consistent enough to bring other newspapers to look at the Milanese newspaper as a point of reference alternative to that of the government. In a way the first decade of the XX Century marked the definitive end of the “governative” press (as it had been in the last half of the previous century at least) – weakened in its structural means of control and regulation and unable to resist a three front assault, from the socialist, the catholic and the national-conservative press.

 

While for the press, this was certainly the age of the Corriere della Sera and Luigi Albertini, the political world proper was dominated by another prominent figure – in some way the counterpoint to Albertini's moral conservatism – Giovanni Giolitti. The Piedmontese statesman, with his practical-progressive handling of the political matters, could not impress those who within politics sought expression of the highest values and realization of grand ideals.

Over one hundred years after Gaetano Salvemini coined for him the definition of “minister of the underworld”, Giolitti's take on politics may appear closer to our contemporary one than Albertini's was. The five terms Prime Minister though of himself merely as an administrator of the public thing and many of his public and personal papers alike display somewhat of a genuine confidence that the nation would have eventually found its right way without need for a leader, without inspiration and example from above. And yet one must admit that his pragmatism, his over reliance on extemporary means to maintain and secure his political power – when not outright engaging in practices of dubious legality to secure the position of his permanent clientele, especially in the south – his firm belief that a politician had to take care of the country as it was, not as he wanted it to be, according to his well known quip that “a good tailor does not make a straight suit for a hunchback”, proved ultimately damaging to the prestige of the parliament and the state institutions. Nor could Giolitti complete that ambitious and often tortuous process of coalescence of the growing mass forces – socialists and catholics – within and into the declining liberal system.

But this legacy of failure – if one might call one of the most fertile periods of the Italian economical and social history so – was not Giolitti's failure alone. In many ways the Italian society proved unwilling or unready to embrace the opportunity created by the new rising political forces; and an example of this phenomenon within the establishment was certainly Albertini himself, with his rejection of socialism, his ultimately elitist approach to politics and his distaste for a Parliament that appeared merely subservient – almost an appendix to Giolitti's ministry – and ultimately ineffective.

The common fate of the most influential political figures is to be subject to criticism for both the right and the wrong reasons. And this is hardly ever as evident as with Giovanni Giolitti. A man whose principal sin proved eventually to be his inability to inspire in the Italian society – let alone love and confidence in its government – but faith in itself and its own achievement. And curiously enough Albertini would have later to acknowledge his own failure to inspire those same noble, highest sentiments in the Italian establishment when he challenged the nationalist block on the issue of the nationalities and the Italian ambitions towards the Slavic world.