Comment on 20.3.1826
As Thorvaldsen also writes below, he probably means ‘palme’, a Danish version of the unit of measurement palmi. (See the related article Thorvaldsen’s Spoken and Written Language). It is not known what the measurements mentioned here refer to. It might be a calculation of the dimensions of_Night_, A901, whose diameter corresponds to ca. 4 palmi. However, if they refer to both the works mentioned in the letter, the next measurement should have been smaller, which is not the case. A Roman palmo (from Latin: palmus, i.e. palm of a hand) is 22,3 cm. See also the related article about ” Weights and Measures:/artikler/maal-og-vaegt.
Last updated 12.09.2016