Dendrochronology

The twenty-fifth entry is la datazione degli strumenti, and an English reader who meets it in a laboratory report has to work out what is being dated. Lo strumento is one of those Italian nouns that stands where English keeps three. It is the violin, the viola and the lute, which is the sense meant here, because the discipline dates the spruce of a soundboard and the maple of a back. It is also the thing on a workbench that English calls a « tool »: gli strumenti del falegname are chisels and planes, and no music is involved. It is the reading device on a panel, our « gauge » or « meter ». And in law it is the written act, an « instrument » in the sense a solicitor uses. English keeps « instrument » for the musical and the legal senses alone and reaches for other nouns in the workshop and on the dashboard. So this heading is narrower than it looks. It is about violins, and a report on la datazione degli strumenti is not about dating anybody’s equipment.