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Venice
units of capacity for wine, 19ᵗʰ century

For Venetian measures of oil, see miro and migliao.

The old wine measures of Venice have given writers of merchant manuals trouble for several centuries. Paucton¹ (1780), after stating that the anfora = 2 bigoncia = 4 mastelli = 336.8 pinte de Paris (about 320.4 liters), adds (translated) “I also found the following reports, which seem at fault: Anfora = 4 bigoncie = 8 mastelli = 56 secchie = 224 bozze.”

An official publication² of 1809, after the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venice's adoption of the hectoliter under the name soma, described Venice's old wine measures as*:

*In the charts on this page, values explicitly stated in the source are in black or green type. Values that are white text on green were calculated using only that source's data.

 As can be seen, the 1809 Tavole's anfora is 8 mastelli, the value Paucton rejected.

In 1840 Horace Doursther published his highly-influential Dictionnaire Universel des Poids et Mesures,³ which provides the following information on Venetian liquid measure:

Doursther's ratios are identical to those given earlier by Kelly (1835), page 348, as the magnitude Kellyfor the anfora, 518.4 L. (Kelly omits the boccale.) The volumes from mastello through botte that Doursther gives are significantly smaller then those given by other 19th century sources. His secchio and bozza, however, basically agree with other sources, including the 1809 Tavole. Why is this?

In his entry on the mastello (page 258), Doursther remarks that, “following Petters⁴, le mastello = 7 secchi = 28 bozze, 75.10 liters”.

In his bozza entry (page 70), he remarks (our translation) “This same measure is in use in Tripoli-de-Barbarie, and it represents the 24th part of the barile. Following Petters, the bozza of Venice … = 2.682 liters”.

Doursther does not provide a line item for Venice in his baril entry, but in the Tripoli de Barbarie line item he says (page 47) “Le barile vin et spirtueux = 24 bozze égaux à ceux de Venise … 64.80 [liters].” In the mastello entry he assigned the same value, 64.80 liters, to the mastello. We know of no location where mastello and barila are synonyms.

In other words, Doursther knew of a 24-Venetian-bozze, 64.80 liter barile and he knew of a 7-secchi, 28-bozze 75.10 liter mastello.

Applying this to the chart of the system of units he presented, the column headed “concia or mastello” should be labeled “barila”, and a new column inserted to the right, labeled “concia or mastello” with 7 secchi, 28 bozze and 75.10 liters. Omitting the barila is the cause of Doursther's incorrect magnitudes.

Possible sources of confusion

A clue to the source of the confusion regarding whether the mastello is 6 or 7 secchi may be found in a work by Lewes Roberts⁵ published in 1637:

“Wines are sold in Venetia two wayes, either in grosse, or by retaile, the grosse by the Amphora and Bigonsa, and by retaile, by the Quart, the Sachio, and Lire, where note that the Amphora is foure Bigonsa, and the bigonsa is 4. quarts, and 1. quart is 4 sachi, and 1. sachi is 4. liras or pounds, but buying the same in gross, that is by the Amphora and the Sachio, 1. Amphora is 14.quarts, and 1. bigonsa is 3 .quarets and halfe.”

Charting Roberts' description:

Roberts doesn't mention the mastello. but if it had then the meaning of half a bigonsa, as it certainly did in the 19th century, in retail trade would be 8 secci to the mastello, as in the report Paucton rejected, , and the wholesale trade 7 secci. By the 19th century there was no 8-secchi unit and the choice was between a 6- and 7-secchi unit. Obviously the system was changing.

A second possible source of confusion. For example, within the province of Venezia some districts subdivided the secchi into bozze, others into boccali, while in others, including Venice proper, bozze and bocalli were synonyms. See mostello.

Recorded values after Doursther

In 1855 a Venetian⁶ published in Venice the following ratios and values. Presumably, being on the ground, he had ready access to the facts.

This is essentially the same as the 1809 Tavole.

The following data was provided by Martini⁷ (1883):

When a row filled with non-integers and odd values appears in charts like these, it is often a sign of a collision and merger between two systems of units measuring the same property.  Cloth, land and itinerant distances are all lengths, and in many areas each had its own system of units.  In this case, the join line is at the level of the barila. One can speculate that this represents the merger of a sytem of smaller units, and one tf ,  which sharde as their base unit the same standard, the volume of a lire of wine.

In 1887 another set of tables⁸ of official conversions was published. It is noteworthy that the only unit for which a value was given was the barila.

1. Paucton, 1780, page 809.

2. Tavole di Ragguaglio fra le nuove… , 1809. Pages ix, x, 271 and 272.

3. Doursther, 1840. Pages 14, 47, 54, 56, 70, 258, 432, 456, 482.

4. We have not been able to identify Petters. Reader, can you help?

5. Lewes Roberts, 1638. Page 71.

6. Girolamo Antonio Gennari.
Ragguagli delle antiche misure lineari, superficie, di capacita e di peso del Regno Lombardo-Veneto, degli altris Paesi che con detto Regno costituivano quello d'Italia, delle Capitali ed altri Paesi Italiani, non che di Londra, Parigi e Vienna colle nuove misure metriche; e viceversa queste colle misure antiche, ridotte le Frazioni di esse a parti deimali, con Esempj sull' uso detti Ragguagli.
Venice: dalla Tipografia di Giovambatista Andreola, 1855. Pages 44-45.

7. Martini, 1883. Page 818.

8. Tavole di Ragguaglio dei Pesi… 1877. Pages 742 and 743.

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Last revised: 20 July 2022.