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metro

Metro is also the Italian name of the meter.

In the Ottoman Empire, at least as early as the 14ᵗʰ century – 19ᵗʰ century, a unit of capacity for wine, varying by locality. Although containers with standard capacities were made, it was the practice to describe liquid capacity in terms of weight, usually the weight of water—in the case of the metro, however, as the weight of the wine.

Members of the French Chamber of Commerce in Constantinople noted the following weights in the 1890's:

Poids, Mesures, Monnaies et Cours du Change dans les Principales Localités de l'Empire Ottoman a la Fin du 19^e Siècle.
Carnets du Bosphore VII.
Istanbul: Les Èditions Isis, 2002.

Pages 18, 19 and 66. This publication reprints material from the Chambre de Commerce Française de Constantinople: Bulletins no. 77, 78, 79, 80 and 81 (1892-1893) and the Chamber's Compte Rendu des Travaux, Année 1892.  In the BNF's copy of the latter the issues for 1891 and 1892 are bound together (Constantinople:impr. de A. Zellich fils, 1892-1894).
Our calculation of liters is based on 1 oke = 1.282945 kg, and a wine density of 950 grams per liter.

sources

1

Botte 1 di mena di Napoli di vino greco fae alla Tana metri L.

One botte di mena of Naples of Greek wine is 50 metri in Azov.

Pegolotti, 1341.

2

Vino greco si vende [in Constantinople] a pregio di tanti perperi la botte di mena di Napoli, la quale si ragiona che tenga 48 metri.

Greek wine is sold at so many perperi per botte di mena of Naples, which is accounted to hold 48 metri.

Pegolotti, 1341.

In more recent times the Neapolitian botte di mena was 523 liters. Chiarini wrote (in 1481) that it was equal to the Florentine cogno, which, again in more recent times, was 456 liters. Peglotti's statements would thus suggest the 14ᵗʰ-century metro was around 9½ to 10½ liters.

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Last revised: 18 January 2016.