La percezione del tempo nell’esperienza dei marinai e dei naviganti

Beginning in the XI century the development of urban centers, maritime cities, as well as the beginning of the Crusades, increasingly expanded space and commerce, establishing a solid network of markets and ports interlocked with the intensification of naval connections.
Sailors, merchants, soldiers and pilgrims cross the Mediterranean Sea and explore the Atlantic. By the XIIIth century, the Eastern ends, the western seas and the waters of the North Sea meet; they become better known and are measured and described.
The economic time of the city and its rhythms is projected unto the sea, and this translates into the necessity to measure spaces. Thus, the representation of space is defined by the time that must be spent traversing it. The knowledge and the experience of the men of sea is disseminated through the writing of scholars, geographers, annalists, chroniclers, and all those who adopt practical means to provide greater correction and precision to their readers. In this way, the circuit in which detailed information about distances and times of sea routes circulates expands significantly. The circulation of navigation charts and portolani, in the first instance, responds to the demands and the rhythms of an urban society that projects on the sea its economic time. So it is that at first sight, some texts reveal that the perceived human time of the sailors was dependent on specific instruments with which they directed their ships.
Through the implementation of technical comdevelopments,
cities in the late middle ages will impose urban time on the general rhythms of navigation. They surpass the barrier of the seasons, and will . Dithe times of departure and arrival of the -ships with the cycle of production and the market. Something very different will happen with the travel time of ships used for commercial circuits. Beyond all theoretical measurement, a priori, they will continue
sailing according to un-foreseeable time.