Pigliare un quadro di sito alla strada croce

Question

I'm trying to understand the following. It is a text from the seventeenth century that describes a procession:

Si dovrà pigliare un quadro di sito alla strada croce detta Borgo di S. Pietro in modo che le Carrozze possino uscire dalla porta della Città medesima.

But I'm not sure what 'quadro di sito' means. Can anybody explain, either in Italian or English?

Are you sure about the definition you are giving? Can you add the relative link ? — , May 02 '15 at 12:31
This sentence is difficult to understand without some more context. Could you please provide it? — Charo, May 02 '15 at 15:31
Definitely need context. It also doesn't even sound like proper Italian, more like translated literally from English into Italian (Crossroad -> "Strada croce"). Come on, we're all curious here :) — laureapresa, May 02 '15 at 15:49
It's definitely real Italian! Although it's from the seventeenth century. It's describing the route that a procession will take. After passing through a gate, the procession "Si dovrà pigliare un quadro di sito alla strada croce detta Borgo di S. Pietro in modo che le Carrozze possino uscire dalla porta della Città medesima". I've left the capitalisation, spelling etc. as in the orginal (handwritten) document — Neil D, May 02 '15 at 17:18
It's from a handwritten, seventeenth century manuscript in an archive in Italy — Neil D, May 03 '15 at 13:14
I don't give this as an answer, because it is just a very wild guess: it looks like the text instructs to leave some unoccupied space (sito) at that crossroad, so that coaches can go thru and exit out of the city gates. I'd surmise that quadro is to say that the space has to be square in shape (or it might even be a measurement for areas). — DaG, May 03 '15 at 15:52
This "quadro" may be some traditional unit of area: http://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unità_di_misura_della_provincia_di_Pavia. Do you know in which town this procession takes place? — Charo, May 03 '15 at 18:53
@Charo: in the link you provide "quadro" stands for "quadrato", squared, so it is not a traditional unit or similar.
Concerning the question, could OP please provide the city or village this is talking about? I have an hypothesis but would like to check the city if possible. — Riccardo I., May 05 '15 at 20:32
@RiccardoI. - the town is Perugia, and this describes what happens after the procession goes through Porta S. Girolamo, as it turns down towards the monastery of S. Pietro — Neil D, May 06 '15 at 06:27
@RiccardoI.: Precisely, areas are always measured in "quadrati", but at that time the universal system of units wasn't yet used. So, if this "quadro" is a measure of area (that's an hypothesis, I'm not sure about that), it must be a traditional unit. — Charo, May 06 '15 at 06:30
@NeilD: keep in mind that this is NOT an answer but a supposition. I think in this case quadro might be used as quarto, quarter. I came to this conclusion because if you look at the crossroad, you can imagine the procession faced with 3 choices: left, straight, right. From where they stand, left is 1st quarter, straight is 2nd quarter and right is 3rd quarter. To go from S. Girolamo to S. Pietro they have to turn left, hence, 1st quarter or "quadro". Another, much simpler, explanation is that "quadro" is mispelled and should be "quarto". Handwritten, the two are not too different. Cheers. — Riccardo I., May 06 '15 at 06:46
@Charo: no, that is not right. I really doubt it's a traditional unit. Even today we used metri quadri as a unit. It is very common. Furthermore, the use of quadro as a unit of area wouldn't make any sense in the sentence. — Riccardo I., May 06 '15 at 06:57
@RiccardoI. - is 'pigliare un quarto' a common expression? If so, it would be an excellent explanation. The handwriting definitely says 'quadro' but it could easily be a spelling mistake or a mis-transcription of an earlier document. — Neil D, May 06 '15 at 07:01
@NeilD: prendere un quarto is a common expression but not in this context. Not today at least. Mi dia/Prendo un quarto di toscano in a bakery is rather common. On the other hand, it might have been used for roads and indication in the past as well. The mispelling is the explanation that kind of sway me to it... — Riccardo I., May 06 '15 at 07:06
@RiccardoI.: You can see here that the traditional unit of area in Tuscany is precisely "il quadrato". And Perugia is near Tuscany. — Charo, May 06 '15 at 17:04
This "quadrato" corresponds to 34 dam2, which is quite a big area. — Charo, May 06 '15 at 17:17
@Charo: these are proper examples and I agree with you on them. The previous ones were not. As I said in the first one, quadro was used following piede and standing for quadrato as in metro quadro. Anyway, that's not really to the point, since a measurement of area would make very little sense in this context. — Riccardo I., May 07 '15 at 07:18
@RiccardoI.: As DaG has explained in his comment, the measurement of area do make sense as the amount of unoccupied space that had to be left at that crossroad, so that coaches can go thru and exit out of the city gates. — Charo, May 07 '15 at 07:29
But it can also simply mean that this unoccupied space at the crossroad is square in shape. — Charo, May 07 '15 at 07:32
Ours are all guesses. That's the problem with old italian: it is not italian!!! :D Unfortunately italian is not french and it has evolved very much in the centuries to the point that 15th century italian is not readable directly for italians and all we can do is making guesses. Now, to the point once again. It might be that this is an area they're talking about but an area of 60x60 meters would be very large to simply accomodate coaches. Furthermore, that crossroad does not even has so much area. — Riccardo I., May 07 '15 at 08:20
Just one last point. The context of the text is not clear/complete. If it is from "religious" instructions for a procession I doubt there will be indication for coaches. On the other hand if it is from indications in a document from the town hall, then it is possible. Once again, only guesses with old italian... :( — Riccardo I., May 07 '15 at 08:23
In Liber Liber you can find the book Isole appartinenti all'Italia by Leandro Alberti (1550). In this book there is a description of the Zisa, a castle in Palermo, where you can find some sentences which contain the word "quadro" used in a quite similar way as in the sentence reported by you. — Charo, May 07 '15 at 16:10
"Più oltre incontrasi in un quadro di ambito per ciascun di loro di piedi dieci. Et in ciascun di questi tre lati è un picciolo sacello, che esce fuori di detto quadro due piedi, e mezo. Il perchè risultarebbe la larghezza di tutto questo ambito da quindici piedi, et parimente nella lunghezza altretanto, stringendo dentro imperò il vuoto della porta quanto occupano le sopranominate colonne." — Charo, May 07 '15 at 16:11
"Et tutto il pavimento di esso di quadrate pietre di bianco marmo, nel mezo di cui passano l’acque dell’antidetta fontana per uno artificioso ruscelletto di candido marmo, per poco spatio, et entrano in un bello et misurato quadro di quattro piedi, e mezo per lato, pur anch’egli di finissimo marmo fregiato, con alcuni curiosi lavori alla Mosaica." — Charo, May 07 '15 at 16:12
In these sentences, "quadro" is used to describe the space and the square shape ("un quadro di piedi dieci", "quadro di quattro piedi, e mezo per lato"), so it's probably the same in your sentence. — Charo, May 07 '15 at 16:16
I think you've all proven that it's an ambiguous and odd sentence - no wonder I was struggling! — Neil D, May 07 '15 at 20:11
It would be very helpful if you could post a picture of the original manuscript. I suspect there is something you didn't quote precisely. — Marco Gusy, May 12 '15 at 22:27

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 18 '20 at 08:30

Pigliare un quadro di sito seems to mean more or less occupy an area.

Luca Landucci writes in 1505 in his Florentine Diary:

E questo è un disegno di fare un tempio a San Giovanni Vangiolista, in quel luogo ove egli è, dirimpetto a San Lorenzo; cioè pigliare un quadro quanto tiene la piazza di San Lorenzo, ch'è circa cento braccia per ogni verso, come per una scritta l'ò avvisato

And this is a plan to build a church to St. John the Evangelist, in that area in front of S. Lorenzo; that is, to take|reserve|occupy an area as wide as S. Lorenzo square, which is around one hundred yards in each direction, as I notified him in writing...

The word sito usually means a location, so that you would say "Nel sito sono stati ritrovate sepolture del 1300" (Burials from 1300 have been found at the site). It is also an old participle for situato, meaning located: "l'immobile sito in Vicolo Stretto..." (The building located in Narrow Alley...). But it also has¹ an archaic meaning of space: occupare quanto più sito possibile, occupy as much space as possible.

In that case, sito would have been needed to specify what the quadro was to be taken of: a quadro of meadow, of water, of empty air?, hence quadro di sito.

It is not clear whether this area is to be kept free as to allow passage for the coaches, or whether the procession is to be constrained inside the area so that space enough for the coaches is left around it.

¹ As a curiosity, in Tuscan vernacular it has the further meaning of especially bad smell, pong: if you hear senti che sito in Florence, they're not complimenting the site - they're bemoaning the horrible smell (there was even a local newspaper title on the Florence landfill, Case Passerini, making a pun and referring to the site of the landfill with an ambiguous il sito di Case Passerini).

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 19 '15 at 17:39

A me sembra che "pigliare un quadro di sito" possa significare "prendere misure, fare disegni e piani" per permettere all'amministrazione locale di tentare di risolvere il problema dell'incrocio ("strada croce") vicino all'uscita della città.

I think that "pigliare un quadro di sito" may mean "take the necessary measures, drawings and make plans" to allow the local administration to try to solve the problem of the crossing ("strada croce") near the city gate.

Pigliare un quadro di sito alla strada croce

2 Answers2