If you like the idea of \u200b\u200ba journey through the mysteries of gravity, your first goal can only be Campogalliano. Twelve miles from Modena, Campogalliano has always proclaimed the capital of weights and measures, the natural home of the Museum of Libra. Founded in 1989, the Museum tells the story of the instruments that measured, with the goods, the good faith men. An important place will have the means used in the past to ensure the reliability of measures and weights. Edicts have strict procedures laid down in the centuries covered and threatened penalties against violators. Appropriate staffs controlled weights and banished to the tools you do not trust the protection of public faith: in Modena and in other cities of Emilia worked the office of the "bona opinion." In the Middle Ages many municipalities requiring use of "public weighs" for goods of greater value and of course corresponded to each weighing a heavy tax. Seven centuries ago in France by Philip the Fair, the merchants had to "punch" the scales at least three times a year, while similar obligations incumbent on any person engaging in commercial activities in ancient states that preceded the unification of Italy. The 450 "pieces" at the museum of Campogalliano are all fully functional and they tell seven centuries of measurements, from containers and rods used in Modena by the officers of the "Bona review" to-kilogram sample that the Duke bought for the price of twenty francs in Paris in 1850 in order to finally unify the system of weights referring to an internationally accepted parameter.
Scales ceiling
The visit to the medieval part of the ancient market to achieve balance to showcase innovation and industry, with modern electronic balances in special panels illustrate the operation. It 's a journey of great beauty, a journey through human history certainly recommend to adults and children (the phone number to reach you to arrange a visit 059-527133). The variety of instruments produced documents the long and painful labor difficulties faced over the centuries to compare methods of measurement, which varies from region to region, often from municipality to municipality. Leagues, miles, feet, pounds, tubs, Biolcati, arms, jug, tomoli, burdens, buckets, poles, barrels, poles, trees, ounces, barrels, Carozzi, barrels, Mondello, quartigli: infinity to navigate the maze of local measures needed intricate tables and calculations so difficult to make it easier to cheat. Weighed 340 grams in a pound, but 361 Modena to Bologna. A Mirandola was lighter, just 326 grams. A Brescello a tub "grape" corresponded to 34 kilos and 800 grams of today, but the tub weighed twice Carpi, 68 pounds. In some parts of Italy the variety of weights representing mainly the arrogance of those who had imposed. The Sicilian barons used in the fourteenth century "tomoli" of two types: one to measure the grain given by farmers to master the other, smaller for the grain that the owner sold the is home to contadini.Campogalliano Bilanciai. The first person in history was called Francesco Crotti. Was a blacksmith by trade: he had the idea to start manufacturing scales in 1840, when the unification of Italy was still a hope. His tool offers all the precision possible in those days and in a few years they imposed themselves on the market. The "National Award-winning works of weighing instruments", founded by Crotty became what today is called a leader, so that was required to provide a balance weighing children in the Royal House that day in 1937 that saw the birth of Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia , eldest son of the then Crown Prince Umberto. Factories similar in the meantime had multiplied: the need for a universally valid system had prevailed at that point finally, to dust the attic delivering an endless series of measures and weights room, where the variety was endless faith in the multiplicity of terms used Until the nineteenth century. The story does not keep track of who invented the scale. The instrument dates back to very clearly at the dawn of civilization. The need to measure the weight was felt in life as in the commercial activities of the spirit: the iconography of Etruscan tombs in the decoration of Greek vases used the reason of God which assesses the merits and faults of the deceased by putting them on the plates of scale. One such tool was found during excavations in Egypt in Naqada, age seven thousand years or so. With the passage of time scales have evolved, of course, adapting to new conquests tecnologiche.Fra the surprises that await the visitor to Campogalliano, weighing the "space" is not to be neglected: they say what the appropriate balance would weigh on Jupiter or the moon moving . It can be an incentive to go on a diet.
Museum of Libra, via Garibaldi 34/aI - 41011Campogalliano MO
open Saturday and festivi10 - 12.30 15 - 18.30
and always by appointment +39 527 133 59 - fax +39 59 527 084
museo.bilancia @ cedoc.mo.it http:/
www.unimo.it/lbo/museo.htm
