Denys Stephens at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > "Costo en Roma 110 quatrines por Setiembre de 1512." > > I am neither a linguist nor a numismatist, but I guess this refers to > the cost of the book? Can anyone throw any light on what this means, > and if it is the cost, how it relates to the present day?
An extremely difficult task. In modern Italian, says my dictionary, a quattrino is a moneta di poco valore, translated along the lines of "farthing," or "penny" or "cent." "Non valore un quattrino" means worthless. I'm guessing it's not a common expression, because none of the Italian-speaking correspondents have offered this information. This doesn't necessarily tell you what a quatrine was in 1512. The word, like the English "farthing," may mean a quarter of a penny. Scholars who try to provide context for old currency amounts (this came up in very good book about Mozart, a propos of exploding the myth of his poverty; I wish I could remember the title or authors) start by examining common known expenditure items: rent for a dwelling, or the annual earnings of a servants or others whose salaries were recorded, or the cost of a horse. But here's the hard part: even if you could figure out how many loaves of bread, shoes or lute strings 110 quatrines could buy in 1512, you'd still be at a loss to come to an equivalence in 2003 currency, because people bought different things and things had different value--you don't know whether bread, shoes and lute strings were more expensive or less relative to each other or something else, and so many of the things we buy now (computers, newspapers, CDs, laser surgery, stereo equipment, gasoline, powered sex toys, heroin, cars, elections, hamburgers, electricity, potatoes) didn't exist then. Try this: does $10,000 US buy more, or less, than it used to? It depends on the standard you use to measure. About 20 years ago, if you wanted a computer, $10,000 would buy a Lisa, now known as the forerunner of the Macintosh. These days, the same money will get you five or six Macs that make the Lisa look like a toy. On that measure, currency is worth more. On the other hand, $10,000 would have bought my house when it was built in 1949. These days, good luck finding a new car for that money. These days, we have a cost of living index that creates a serviceable average of such things for general purposes, but it doesn't tell you much if you're in a non-average economic position (for example, if a great deal of your money is spent on theorbos and strings). If you actually do come up with enough information to equate 110 quatrines with modern currency, you'll probably want to write a book about it. If you do, I trust you'll mention me in the acknowledgments page
