Century Italy Research Articles

Kang Yuwei on the origins of Western Civilisation

The article is devoted to the research in the shaping of concept of civilizational development made by the prominent Chinese philosopher Kang Youwei (1858-1927). The vision of Western civilization from the point of view of a Confucian thinker is considered on the basis of the material “Travels to Italy” (1904). Kang Youwei argued that Unity is the basic law of history. From Kang’s point of view, the Roman Empire was an example of a state, which was founded according to the laws of the evolutionary development of nature and society. 19th century Italy was seen as a young state that which had not yet overcome the consequences of the “birth trauma”. Shaping his views within the Sino centric paradigm, Kang Youwei considered the world civilization as a single evolutionary process of ascending from barbarism to the heights of culture, respectively, the positive experience of the West can be used to correct China’s shortcomings and return a high political and geostrategic status to the country.

Public Health Institutions in Italy in the 20th Century

Only recently studied by Italian historiography, public health is one of the most important sectors of a modern Welfare system. During the Twentieth century Italy faced the hygienic and sanitary problem often with different ways and tools than other European countries. The aim of this article is to understand better the attitude and the development of the main public health institutions, both at the central and peripheral level, during the three great phases that marked the history of Italy in the last century: the liberal age, fascism and the Republic, as well as to highlight the organisations, men and structures that exercised decisive functions in the bureaucratic and administrative State machine. The essay focuses on the most significative legislative measures (for example, the “Testi Unici” of 1907 and 1934) and the turning points that have changed the sector on the institutional plan, from the creation of the Directorate-General for Public Health inside the Ministry of the Interior, and destined to remain for the entire Fascist period, to the birth, in the post-war years, of the High Commission for Hygiene and Public Health, then replaced by the Ministry of Health, until the establishment of the National Health Service in 1978. Keywords: Welfare State, social policies, public health, assistance, institutions

Case study of an aged paper tube structure

The paper tube structure was installed on a rectangular area of 10 m x 15 m and covered with polycarbonate panels built on September 17, 1995 to serve as a temporary building for the Takatori Catholic Church in Japan. The interior of the church adopts an oval design, which is based on the church designed by Bernini in the 17th century in Italy. It is made of 58 paper tubes with a diameter of 330 mm. The wall is 15mm thick and 5m high. A case study was conducted to evaluate the mechanical properties of aged paper tube structure used over 10 years in Japan. These experimental tests include compressive strength, axial tensile test, tensile elongation test, flat crush compressive test, hardness test, and bending strength test for the elastic modulus. These test results indicate that the difference of hardness values and elastic modulus for new and old tube structure in Shigeru Ban projects is less than 5%; it is telling that old paper tube is still available for loading. The fact is that the aged paper tube structure has endured over 25 years of service in Japan and Taiwan environments. The expected lifetime of the paper tube structure affected by the environmental impact estimated at ten to twenty years. Therefore, the paper Dome maybe still be required for conducting a preliminary inspection and maintains public safety in the further.

Unequal Unification? Income Inequality and Unification in Nineteenth Century Italy and Germany

Unequal Unification? Income Inequality and Unification in Nineteenth Century Italy and Germany

Machiavelli and Guicciardini on the Fate of Renaissance Italy

By the early sixteenth century Italy was the richest, most prosperous and advanced country in Europe, the centre of the Catholic world. Yet, it was the scene of wars fought by neighbouring powers for dominance of the peninsula. On the one hand, paradoxically, they contributed to a sharpening of the proto-national consciousness, fuelled also by the historical memory of the former greatness of ancient Rome. On the other hand, the cultural and political situation called for a reflection on the immediate situation and the fate of the country. This problem was most clearly expressed in the writings of the Florentines Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini, including their polemics on whether Italy would have benefited from unification under one of its states, what was the role of the Church in its history, and finally whether the Renaissance heyday foreshadowed the tragic events of the early modern period. Both thinkers were supporters of a republican order, yet both were forced by circumstances to collaborate with the Medici family. Machiavelli, in his famous treatise The Prince, expresses hope for the unification of Italy under the Medici; Ghicciardini, in his Maxims and Meditations (Ricordi) and in his commentaries on Machiavelli's History of Rome by Titus Livy, is more sceptical; in his view, the Renaissance prosperity of Italy owes much to her polycentrism. These texts are well known and have been evaluated in various ways and are still controversial to this day.

Class Composition, Labour's Strategy and the Politics of Work

AbstractThis article locates the emergence of new thinking on the left around work, age and assets within the lineage of ‘class composition’ analysis arising from the autonomist movement in mid‐twentieth century Italy. With reference to contemporary debates around electoral and political strategy within the Labour Party, the article critically appraises the potential applicability of this extra‐parliamentary ‘militant methodology’ for the present day identification of ontologically and epistemologically privileged class actors and political subjects in a first past the post parliamentary system. Noting the resemblance of such approaches to the orthodox Marxist ‘gravedigger thesis’, which reads off from economic relations the existence of agents of social transformation, the article argues that this analytical and strategic framing represents a flawed approach for Labour and the wider left. Other approaches are needed to navigate successfully the pluralist construction of consent through coalition building and compromise on which parliamentary politics rests.

Urban and Cultural Resilience: Built Heritage, Culture, Technology, Future

In the Western and in the Mediterranean cities a broad reading of cultural dynamics, together with the overlapping of the historical layers and an historical-based reading of cities and territories, allows readers to identify the presence of a continuous combination of dynamics of urban and cultural resilience. Appearing in bibliographies separately only in recent decades, urban and cultural resilience, social-economical system (SES) and adaptive circles can be used to theorise structural patterns recurring over time in specific contexts. This essay highlights the resilient structure of urban developments, cultural expressions, design, arts, quality gastronomic products, diffused craftsmanship and diffused know-how in the second half of the 20th century in Italy, delineating some resilient future perspectives for the continuation of these dynamics.

Wall paintings through the ages: the medieval period (Italy, twelfth to fifteenth century)

This paper is devoted to wall painting in the Middle Ages (ca. late fifth to early fifteenth centuries), with a focus on twelfth to fifteenth century Italy. It is conceived as a critical conflation of diverse methodologies, approaches and research tools, with the aim of investigating the topic from different and complementary perspectives. Historical textual sources provide the interpretive framework for the examination, which is conducted on specific, yet interrelated aspects. Special attention is paid to technical features, including the methods and materials used to produce wall paintings. Data from scientific investigations are incorporated into the discussion with the purpose of elucidating theoretical conceptualizations with material pieces of evidence. A number of selected case studies is presented within the text in order to keep the focus of analysis on the materiality of the paintings, hence avoiding the formulation of abstract concepts in favour of more pragmatic approaches.

How to Read Carnatic Music on Violin

The violin is a major stringed instrument in South Indian music. It is played as the main instrument in Carnatic music and as an accompaniment to musical performances such as vocals. This is not the heritage instrument of India. Today there is no concert without Carnatic music. Thus it plays an important role in Carnatic music.The present form of this violin was composed in 16th century Italy. The violin, a folk instrument, was first used in South Indian music in the 18th century. It is also more important than any other instrument. It also plays an important role in major concerts. There are many reasons why it is played as the main instrument in Carnatic music more than any other instrument. It has developed to the point where it can be read more than any other instrument in the 20th century for various performances such as vocals, other instrumental events, orchestras, and dance performances. It is also found that Carnatic musicians (male/female) can adjust their pitch to suit their convenience. Since its introduction to Carnatic music, many great scholars have read and succeeded in Carnatic music. In addition, it plays a very important role in Palliya music and has a wide place in Carnatic music.

Il sistema degli établissements publics a Venezia Un nuovo modello di rigenerazione urbana nel XIX secolo

In 19th century Italy and Europe the phenomenon of religious buildings as State-owned properties and their reuse as ‘public services’ assumed the characteristics of a real urban and cultural revolution. In the case of Venice, this phenomenon consisted in an effective project of ‘regeneration’ of an historical city. Thanks to the extensive use of archival sources, this article investigates Venice as a case study of a complex urban plan that occurred massive transformations, especially considering the suppressions of religious buildings undertaken between 1805 and 1808 in the lagoon area. The papers also offer an insight on the French plan of reuse of ‘emptied’ buildings for allocating there new services.

The Slaves of the Churches

This ambitious book discusses the attitudes that “the Churches” (almost always identified with the pre-reform Catholic Church) had vis à vis slaves and slavery from the New Testament era to early modern times. In the introduction, Sommar warns that the lack of records about the social practices of slavery forces her study to focus on church norms regarding its unfree dependents. Her statement, however, is only partially true: Dozens of studies, particularly of the medieval period, investigated the social and legal practices of ecclesiastical unfree people in many parts of Europe, Italy, Russia, Eastern Europe, France, and Germany. Unfortunately, this volume ignores these sources almost entirely, making use almost exclusively of an English-written historiography with a few exceptions in German. This approach is regrettable for a study concerning European continental areas about which copious discussions and valuable source materials are available.Chapter 2 discusses the way in which the New Testament presents slavery and relates it to ancient Roman and Jewish law. Unsurprisingly, it concludes that the New Testament did not condemn slavery per se. Chapter 3 treats slavery in the early Church, presenting first “non-biblical texts” before moving to post-apostolic generations and finally proto-canon law regarding slavery. Sommar’s main conclusion is that Christians did not treat their slaves better than the Romans did. Chapter 4, which examines slavery in the imperial Church, provides examples drawn from imperial legislation in general as well as from such areas as Gaul, Spain, Africa, and Italy. According to Sommar, texts in all these areas reaffirmed the biblical command for slaves to obey their masters and for masters to treat their slaves decently. Chapter 5 explores ecclesiastical slavery in the Germanic kingdoms (strangely including Byzantium). Unlike previous chapters, this one raises analytical questions primarily about differences between Visigothic/„Frankish societies and Lombard traditions in their rules about slavery. Sommar wonders whether these differences were “simply cultural manifestations or the accident of geography.” She concludes that “it is hard to say.” Chapter 6 investigates “Carolingians and Ecclesiastic Servitude,” a title that is problematical because it presupposes a discussion about forms of servitude other than slavery in the book. Sommar concludes that the sources do not reveal any legal or practical distinctions. Chapter 7 argues that classical canon law (a widely investigated topic) followed the general social evolution of unfree people: By the thirteenth century, differences between free and unfree laborers had become irrelevant because peasants were increasingly bound to the land and because chattel slavery continued all across the Mediterranean. In this context, unfree ecclesiastical dependents were treated no differently than were their counterparts who had lay masters. Sommar’s final point, that a new kind of legal thinking—known as the ius commune—eventually spread throughout Europe, marking the end of slavery, as well as the Church’s hold on unfree people, is also problematical. Ecclesiastical serfs, bonded people, and even slaves appear in historical documents as late as the nineteenth century in Italy and in Central and Eastern Europe.This book will be valuable to those who are curious about how individual churches in Europe regulated slavery and serfdom. However, it will not answer questions about the social practice and meaning of bondage in the Church as a whole.

Alda Merini’s Memoir: Psychiatric Hospitalization, Institutional Violence And The Politicization Of Illness In 20th Century Italy

ABSTRACT In 1964, the Italian poet Alda Merini was hospitalized in a mental hospital in Milan as the result of a violent fight with her husband. Merini would spend ten years in and out of hospital, while her relationship with her family and with the literary circles in which she moved deteriorated. Merini’s experience in the asylum is narrated in her memoir L’altra verità. Diario di una diversa (1986). Through an analysis of some crucial passages in the memoir, this article seeks to demonstrate that Diario is a work charged with both literary and historical value that deserves more scholarly attention. Merini’s memories shed new light on the situation of psychiatric patients, and especially of women, in Italy before and after Basaglia’s reforms on mental institutions. Demonstrating how the abuse that she suffered in the hospital reflects society’s attitudes toward mental illness, disability, and women, Merini shows that the type of trauma narrative that is produced under institutions of coercive control – such as the mental asylum – will often be one of resistance to oppression.

Why Do We Go to the Cemetery? Religion, Civicness, and the Cult of the\xa0Dead in Twenty-First Century Italy

BackgroundWhile attitudes towards death and dying have attracted much scholarly attention, surprisingly little is known about the practice of visiting cemeteries. According to the secularization thesis, the fate of cemetery visits conforms with declining church attendance. A de-secularization theory suggests that, in the modern world, cemeteries increasingly became spaces for a society of families rather than for a religious community, suggesting that visiting the tombs of the dead might grow alongside secularization. Finally, a ‘civic community’ theory, inspired by Putnam's work, sees cemetery visits as an expression of a social obligation among and across generations rather than a religious activity.PurposeAnalyzing one of the least secular countries in Europe, Italy, we attempt to respond to an apparent paradox: Why is the share of people paying tribute to their deceased loved ones at cemeteries in areas of greater secularization higher than in more religious areas?MethodsWe take advantage of a rich time use dataset from a representative sample of Italian families surveyed in 2013. To test our hypotheses, we run a series of nested logistic regressions for the probability of visiting the cemetery, jointly considering both individual and contextual features.ResultsOur results confirm that individual religiosity is a pivotal predictor of cemetery visits. Yet, even after controlling for religiosity, the probability of visiting a cemetery remains higher among people living in the more secularized part of the country. Our models show that one important reason for this divide is the different level of civicness, here measured at province level. Hence, net of individual religiosity, the frequency of cemetery visits increases with level of civicness in a community.Conclusions and ImplicationsIf religious people visit cemeteries in order to pray for the dead, our results also provide support for the hypothesis that the non-religious people living in civic societies visit cemeteries as way to connect with past generations and with their own communities. Our results are thus consistent with the civicness hypothesis, with the caveat that religion and civicness do not seem to cancel each other out.

Microclimate monitoring and conservation issues of a Baroque church in Italy: a risk assessment analysis

ABSTRACT The preservation of historic churches and their most precious artefacts usually includes a monitoring campaign of the indoor microclimate conditions. This research presents the information that can be obtained through the application of a novel set of risk indices to the monitored data acquired in a Baroque church of the 18th century in Italy. The main risks found with this comprehensive methodology, i.e. the biological risk that induces the growth of mould and the chemical and mechanical risks due to unsuitable indoor parameters, would not have been identifiable using the traditional approach based on the National UNI 10829 Standard. Indeed, such an approach only shows that indoor air temperature (below 15°C for 71% of the time) and relative humidity (over 85% for 73% of the time) are outside the range suggested for the conservation of the frescoes. On the other hand, the indications provided through risk indices can be used for more detailed information on the nature of the risks to assess, also in the case of a low-resolution monitoring campaign, so as to benefit the conservation of the widespread heritage inventory, for which funding is usually scarce.

Образы, техника и стилистика барокко в творчестве уральских камнерезов

The article examines the particularities of the development in the Urals region of the genre of fi gurative sculpture of small forms from assembled stone by means of comparison with the art of the Italian masters from the baroque period, the establishers of this type of stonecutting art. The small fi gurative sculpture from assembled stone (polylite), which has developed as an independent genre of the art of stonecutting in the 17th century in Italy, acquired further development not only in Western Europe, but also in Russia, in the large-scale centers of artistic elaboration of stone in the country. In the region of the Ural Mountains, notwithstanding the pre-revolutionary conditions, the mastery of the principles of preparation of anthropomorphic images in the polylite technique took place only during the Soviet period as a particular school of preparation of specialists. At the contemporary stage it becomes possible to observe an active development of this genre in the artworks of the stonecutters of the Urals. The present-day fl ourishing of the polylite fi gurative sculpture of small forms in the works of the Urals-based stonecutters is connected here not only with the culture of elaborating this material and the successive continuity of the skills of working in the polylite technique, but also with the turn to the traditions of polychrome fi gurative compositions of Florentine masters of the Baroque Era, the effectiveness and naturalist qualities of their depiction.

Conrad’s Critical Fortunes in Early Twentieth Century in Italy. Carlo Placci and Other “First Readersµ

Conrad’s Critical Fortunes in Early Twentieth Century in Italy. Carlo Placci and Other “First Readersµ

Manuscript Illumination in 19th-century Italy. Material Analysis of Two Partial Copies from the Squarcialupi Codex

Abstract The illuminations in two Italian manuscripts are still a mystery today. Both manuscripts were based fully or partly on the Florentine Squarcialupi Codex (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Med. Pal. 87) dating from around 1410/15. With the help of a multi-analytical, non-destructive approach employing mobile instrumentation (XRF spectroscopy, visible reflectance spectroscopy and infrared reflectography), we examined the manuscripts Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, MSS 09700 and Düsseldorf, Kunstpalast, Inv. K 1925-67 for the first time with regard to their production processes. The identification of modern pigments allows them to be contextualized in illumination practices of the 19th century. Manuals of that time provide a wealth of information on specific illumination practices and the availability of writing and painting materials, which correlates with the actual artefacts.

A note on the notion of dialect in Cesarotti and 18 th century Italy

A note on the notion of dialect in Cesarotti and 18 th century Italy

Textile Prices in Early Byzantine Hagiographic Texts. Three Case Studies

This text analyzes three early Byzantine source accounts on clothing prices from the beginning of the 5th to the early 7th centuries in Italy (Rome), Palestine (probably in Jerusalem), and Egypt (Alexandria). The compiled and discussed narrations were compared with other contemporary source reports, which feature analogical figures describing the amount of prices, wages, taxes, and other values or distances. By making a comparative analysis, the author came to the conclusion that these data are recurrent, and, therefore, unreliable. This observation also applies to the clothing prices discussed in the text, which, undoubtedly, should be considered topical.

Albinism in Natrix tessellata (Serpentes: Natricidae)

Albinism in Natrix tessellata (Serpentes: Natricidae). The Dice Snake, Natrix tessellata, varies in color and pattern, and has several color morphs. Except for melanism, color aberrations are quite rare in the species. Of the two published records of albinism in N. tessellata, the first, from the mid–19th century in Italy is dubious; the second is from Israel. Herein, albinism in juvenile N. tessellata from Slovakia is documented, and the occurrence of albinism in all species of European snakes is discussed.