The word arroba has its origin in Arabic ar-rubʿ (الربع), the fourth part (of a quintal).
Arroba was a Spanish and Portuguese unit of weight, mass or volume. Its symbol is @. In weight it is equal to about 25 pounds in Spain, and 32 pounds in Portugal.
An Italian academic claims to have traced the @ symbol to the Italian Renaissance, in a Venetian mercantile document signed by Francesco Lapi on May 4, sent from Seville to Rome, describing the goods and treasures arriving on a ship from the Americas to Spain 1537.[1]
The Aragonese historian Jorge Romance located the appearance of the @ symbol at the "taula de Ariza" registry from 1448, to denote a wheat shipment from Castile to the Kingdom of Aragon.[2]
The unit is still used in Portugal by cork merchants, and in Brazil by cattle traders, defined as 15 kg.
In the Spanish language and Portuguese language, the term arroba has now become synonymous with the symbol due to its use in e-mail addresses.
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References
- ^ merchant@florence wrote it first 500 years ago | Technology | The Guardian
- ^ "La arroba no es de Sevilla (ni de Italia)" (HTML). purnas.com. Jorge Romance. http://www.purnas.com/2009/06/30/la-arroba-no-es-de-sevilla-ni-de-italia. Retrieved on 2009-06-30.
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