Charles Searson (asker) Apr 28, 2021:

I decided that 'metrica' didn't refer to poetry after all. A complicated text; thank you for your help.

martini Apr 27, 2021:

agree with Barbara https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/metrica 2.

Barbara Carrara Apr 27, 2021:

Lara I know that, Lara, but I'm interested in the reason Charles thinks it might have that meaning, rather than a mathematical one.

Lara Barnett Apr 27, 2021:

@ Barbara Metre is a term used in poetry:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre_(poetry)
And also used by Shakespeare, in the form of iambic pentameter. Anyone who knows their English Literature history would know that.

Barbara Carrara Apr 27, 2021:

Euclidean space? Metric mapping? What makes you think 'metrica' might be a poetic term here? Because of the Land and Soul refs?

You know more than we do, of course, but the Italian term might just as well be referring to metric space.

'The most familiar metric space is 3-dimensional Euclidean space. In fact, a "metric" is the generalization of the Euclidean metric arising from the four long-known properties of the Euclidean distance. The Euclidean metric defines the distance between two points as the length of the straight line segment connecting them.'
(from Wikipedia's metric space def.)

Metric mapping might be another lead.

HTH

Charlotte Fleming Apr 27, 2021:

"Cannot be measured" perhaps? You can't put a figure on a beautiful landscape, as it were.