I've been slowly developing a long term plot involving Ptolemy's Geography and his astronomical works, the Criamon, the End of the World, and how to get one of our magi to tramp all over the world, and I was doing a little research into Eratosthenes' method of calculating the size of the world, and I went to investigate where the 45th parallel was, and discovered that it runs along the approximate location of Harco, assuming I've got the location of Harco roughly correct.
I think that's interesting, and would like it to be a case of design; the idea that the Mother Covenant of the House most dedicated to travel is halfway between pole and equator intrigues me.
Thought people would like to know about this odd bit of trivia.
Making that work IYS should be easy, as the very rough description in HoH:TL p.79 box Harco, Domus Magna can be read to point to a location in the Susa Valley.
The map from ArM3 Tribunals of Hermes: Rome p.13 puts Harco further south, but you safely can ignore that.
I recall at one point describing Harco having a trading chapterhouse connected by portal on the Italian coast, closer to where the Rome Tribunal book depicts it. Was that perhaps in the Belin legend? That had a fairly detailed section on Harco.
Not sure how you get that reading from it - the text says nothing about a valley, just that it is in Piedmont ner a town by the same name (not clear if this means named Harco or Piedmont...
the center of Piedmont is at 45.06 degrees North...
I assume the town of Harco is fictional, probably close to the Po, and as the text says, mostly a trade center. It's probably where the Order and mortal society are most closely entwined.
What intrigues me about this is that it indicates whoever founded Harco (probably Mercere or possibly his parens, or maybe an ancient priest of Mercury if the site had been a Mercurian site) had an excellent measurement of the exact size of the Earth.* This makes the location of Harco a clue to an ancient mystery.
*Which Eratosthenes had, but there was a question of which stadia length he used, and the problem that the two points used for the calculation were not due north-south. Also, I am assuming the Earth is a perfect sphere, which fits the Medieval Paradigm.