A Non-Structural Policy for the Mitigation of Flood Effects: The Arno Project

Abstract

In the streets of Florence in the thirteenth century, though prohibited by law, dice players used to shout “zara” when the total value of the three dices rolling over the table showed the lowest probability sets of results (less than or equal to seven, or greater than or equal to fourteen, meaning “null try”): “quia cum tribus taxillis raro veniunt sex vel quinque et rarius quator vel tria...eodem modo accidit inter quator decim et decern octo” (2). From the arabic “azzahr”, the dice, the sense of rare events, not involving any special connotation of danger or risk, came into French as “hasard”, into Italian as “azzardo” and into English as “hazard”.

Quando si parte il gioco de lia zara colui che perde si riman dolente repetendo le volte e tristo impara ⁽¹⁾ [Dante, Div. Comm., Purg. VI. 1.]