Le unità di misura nella progettazione architettonica in Mauretania Tingitana

Camporeale, Stefano

doi:10.3917/dha.hs93.0079

Cited by 14 publications

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Mosaics of Knowledge

Riggsby

2019

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The book examines the invention, use, and diffusion of ancient Roman information technologies. In particular, it looks at technologies defined in conceptual terms—lists, tables, weights and measures, perspective and related artistic devices, and cartography—rather than mechanical ones (e.g., “tablet” or “scroll”). Each is viewed from both social and cognitive perspectives, as well as with attention to the interaction between the conceptual and its material instantiation. The study is particularly focused on the most powerful technologies, whose uptakes are in most cases sporadic across time, space, and use context. These systems display a tolerance for error and/or omission remarkable unless they are considered in the narrowest possible use-context. Similarly, they often presuppose shared knowledge (both of form and of content) that could only have existed in highly localized contexts. Further constraints on the use of these devices arise from preferences for facts that are constituted by the record, rather than recorded, and (at least in elite circles) for linear exposition on the model of oral discourse. As a consequence, on the one hand, Romans lived in a balkanized informational world. Persons in different “locations”—whether geographical, social, or occupational—would have had access to quite different informational resources, and the overall situation is thus not controlled by the needs of any particular class or group. On the other hand, seeming technological weakness often turn out to be illusory if we set them in their actual use-contexts.

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