Mese

Let's explore the concept of month together!

Hello friends, today we are talking about one of the most important concepts for organizing time: the month! The month is a subdivision of the year, which includes a variable number of days, usually between 28 and 31. But it's not just that! Let's discover together what the month means, beyond its definition.

What does the month mean?

The month comes from the Latin word "mensis," which means "month" but has even older origins in the Sanskrit language. Already in ancient times, many cultures based their calendar on lunar cycles, and in fact, a month was the time that elapsed between one full moon and the next. This is because the moon has a cycle of 29.5 days, and therefore, over time, the definition of a month of 30 or 31 days was reached. However, the division of time into months of 28 days was even more common in some ancient societies, such as the Mayans or the ancient Egyptians.

Month: History, Curiosities, and Meaning in the Calendar

The month in the calendar

As we have seen, the month plays a fundamental role in the calendar, and there are different types, such as the Gregorian calendar, which is still the most used in the world, but also the Julian calendar, used in the past by the Orthodox Church, the Hebrew calendar, which is based on both solar cycles (12 months) and lunar cycles (13 months every so often), and many others. Each month of the calendar is identified by a number, starting from January, which, although not coherent with the lunar cycles, has a very important historical tradition.

Curiosities about February

Of all the months, one stands out for its peculiarity: February. In fact, February is the only month of the year to vary in duration, depending on the leap year. Usually, February has 28 days, but every four years, in years divisible by 4, an extra day is added, February 29th, to bring the year to 366 days instead of 365. This peculiarity was introduced by the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar and is still in force today, even though, in reality, an additional day is needed every 128 years or so.

Month, commune, and city!

In addition to the temporal definition, the word "month" can also have other meanings. For example, Mese is the name of an Italian commune, located in the province of Sondrio, in Lombardy. The town offers many tourist attractions, such as the church of San Rocco and the Madonna dei Monti, which make it a destination for art and religious tourism. Furthermore, always with the name of Mese, we also find a Burmese city, in the Kayah State. In this case, Mese is also one of the main Burmese tourist destinations, thanks to its vast forests and the possibility of encountering many local tribes.

Let's explore Via Mese

"On Via Mese," instead, is a phrase that takes us back in time, to ancient Constantinople. In this city, in fact, Via Mese was the main commercial street of the city and ran through the entire historic center. Precisely for this reason, it was also the pulsating heart of business and social and cultural life in that historical period. If you like Byzantine art, furthermore, know that this street was flanked by numerous monuments of great historical and artistic importance.

In conclusion, the word "month" may seem like a simple piece of time, but it contains many curiosities and details that make it very interesting. We hope that this information has been useful to you and that now you know a little more about the great importance of the month!

Paola Santoro
Wrote by Paola Santoro
Updated Friday, Feb 3, 2023