Italian Tradition Research Articles

Animality in Contemporary Italian Philosophy

Animality in Contemporary Italian Philosophy

Netherlandish painting as contemporary art

‘Netherlandish painting as contemporary art’ represents a section from the fifth chapter of the book Die Wahrheit der Niederländischen Malerei. Eine Archäologie der Gegenwartskunst, which has been published recently in German by Brill/Fink in Paderborn in an English translation. The general argument of that book can be found in the assumption that it is not the overcoming of the Italian tradition by singular modernist artists which made modern and contemporary art possible, but rather a subtle and ongoing transformation of the Netherlandish tradition into the institutional, medial and discursive spaces of modernity. The selected section will lead the reader directly into a discussion of painting in Delft in the 1650s, referring particularly to the conceptual framework of what is called ‘the analytical image’, which the author proposes to understand as one of the essential stakes by which painting began to struggle for its status as art in the modern sense.

Техника многохорного письма в сочинениях Миколая Зеленьского

The heyday of the art of polychoral composition in European musical culture falls on the middle of the 17th century. The style originated in the churches of western and central Italy. It united a whole generation of young Polish composers educated in Venice and Rome. One of them is the famous Polish composer Mikolaj Zielenski. In musical style Zielenski follows the traditions of late Renaissance polyphony. His compositions mark the beginning of a long period of influence of Italian style on Polish music. Until today the question remains open, where the composer got acquainted with the Venetian technique of writing multi-choir music. The composer could master the polychoral style without leaving Poland. The polychoral style was then very widespread thanks to the activities of Italian musicians throughout Europe.All of Zielenski 's works known today were published in Venice in 1611. The first of these, Offertoria totius anni, includes multi-choir compositions similar to Giovanni Gabrieli's Sacrae symphoniae. The collection contains 55 compositions, the last of which is the Magnificat for three choirs. Mikolaj Zielenski 's Magnificat can be considered a classical composition for three choirs. In terms of stylistic and compositional features, it follows Italian traditions, in connection with which it is often compared with Giovanni Gabrieli's Magnificat.The history of polychoral style is one of the most interesting pages in the history of European musical culture. The Venetian style influenced the music of Central and Eastern Europe, including Russian musical culture.

“Dolce Stil Novo”: Epipsychidion

ABSTRACT Ever since its publication, Epipsychidion has given rise to biographical speculations, which continue to exert considerable influence on critics and editors, but unsatisfactorily account for the rich, cosmopolitan intertextuality and hybridity of the poem. This essay proposes a fresh interpretation that links Epipsychidion to Shelley’s translingual and transcultural experiences in Italy. Postulating (self-)translation as the fundamental compositional principle of the poem, I argue that Epipsychidion inscribes itself into the early Italian tradition of the dolce stil novo, the “sweet new style” of love poetry that culminated in the lyrics of the Vita nuova. Not only is Dante’s libello the immediate model for the metapoetic journey of Epipsychidion, but the works of the stilnovisti also acted as a catalyst for Shelley’s reflections on poets and their audience, the nature of inspiration, and the limits of language, which emerged in Epipsychidion before finding complete expression in “A Defence of Poetry.”

Italian Politics and Culture from Fascism to Postwar Democracy in the Life and Work of Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello (1906–1969)

Italian Politics and Culture from Fascism to Postwar Democracy in the Life and Work of Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello (1906–1969)

Italy in Philip Massinger’s The Maid of Honour

This article discusses Philip Massinger’s The Maid of Honour, showing how this tragicomedy set in Italy is resonant of stories, ideas, theories and characters from the Italian literary and cultural tradition. On the one hand, I will shed light on Massinger’s use of an Italian ambience, concentrating on the choice of Palermo and Siena as a setting. The pseudo-historic setting of the play may be seen as a pretext to dramatize the author’s moral needs and convey a form of political ideology, which reflects the social tensions and the political concerns of the period. On the other hand, I will discuss the different forms of legacy from the Italian world, focusing on the cultural forces, and the moral and ideological motivations behind the playwright’s choice of the genre of his play, the changes concerning plot, setting and the characters’ names in the original Italian text on which the tragicomedy is based. Moreover, this tragicomedy, characterized by a profound didactic and moral intent, also seems to combine some elements of the late 16th century commedia grave, mainly in the presence of an exemplary female protagonist, Camiola, who embodies the providential spirit of the Counter-Reformist attitudes in vogue in the period. Finally, I will examine the way an image of Italy is portrayed through language, analyzing the very marginal occurrence of the Italian language and the presence of Latin words and tags.

Iconografia e interpretazioni: ‘Maria Stuarda’ di Adelaide Ristori

The article examines some iconographic sources (two portraits, some photographs, a caricature) that can be traced back to Friedrich Schiller’s interpretation of Maria Stuarda, a famous pièce de resistance of Adelaide Ristori. The identification of the two paintings that the actress used to build the scenic image of the Scottish queen has allowed us to precisely trace the portrait that inspired her for the figurative conception of the character, moving away from the author’s indications. The comparison between the photographs and the caricature allows us to reconstruct still little studied aspects of the actress’s acting style. In the third scene of the third act of Schiller’s play, Adelaide Ristori was able to blend the Italian theatrical tradition with the noblest and most sophisticated features of her new and celebrated manner. The still photos that remained to us, probably conditioned by a precise will for self-representation exercised by the actress-marquise, faithfully render the dignified and composed aspect of her theatrical gestures and pass down the sublime trait, but they do not document the traces of her more energetic physical actions, which can be traced back to her being born into a family of actors. Such traits of realistic prosaicity are instead confirmed by some testimonies and may be found in the image of her vigorous stage action documented by the caricature.

A Hedonic Analysis of Processed Tomato Prices Using Italian Regional Markets Data.

The Italian market of processed tomatoes (whole peeled and unpeeled tomatoes, chopped tomato pulp, tomato purée, and concentrated tomato paste) rose, thanks to the Italian tradition of using such products in many recipes of cuisine, until early 2000; since then, it has declined to date. Moreover, such products are traditionally considered low-price products, and their market is characterized by intense price competition. Thus, recently, producers have started to differentiate their products as a way to achieve higher margins, and escape from competition in price. By using the sales data of Italian processed tomatoes sold in several retail stores and a hedonic price model, we estimated the implicit prices associated with several attributes that are currently available in processed tomato products on the market. We find that a protected designation of origin, organic certification, and flavoring, as well as the indication of tomato variety, are the most valuable features of processed tomato products sold in the Italian market. This implies that product differentiation strategies that could be suggested to producers as the most effective are those aimed at enhancing the territorial link of the product, the environmental sustainability of the production process, and organoleptic product features, as well as its convenience.

Gangliosides and the Treatment of Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Long Italian Tradition.

Gangliosides are glycosphingolipids which are particularly abundant in the plasma membrane of mammalian neurons. The knowledge of their presence in the human brain dates back to the end of 19th century, but their structure was determined much later, in the middle of the 1950s. From this time, neurochemical studies suggested that gangliosides, and particularly GM1 ganglioside, display neurotrophic and neuroprotective properties. The involvement of GM1 in modulating neuronal processes has been studied in detail by in vitro experiments, and the results indicated its direct role in modulating the activity of neurotrophin-dependent receptor signaling, the flux of calcium through the plasma membrane, and stabilizing the correct conformation of proteins, such as α-synuclein. Following, in vivo experiments supported the use of ganglioside drugs for the therapy of peripheral neuropathies, obtaining very positive results. However, the clinical use of gangliosides for the treatment of central neurodegeneration has not been followed due to the poor penetrability of these lipids at the central level. This, together with an ambiguous association (later denied) between ganglioside administration and Guillain-Barrè syndrome, led to the suspension of ganglioside drugs. In this critical review, we report on the evolution of research on gangliosides, on the current knowledge on the role played by gangliosides in regulating the biology of neurons, on the past and present use of ganglioside-based drugs used for therapy of peripheral neuropathies or used in human trials for central neurodegenerations, and on the therapeutic potential represented by the oligosaccharide chain of GM1 ganglioside for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Points of View: Gramsci and “the Question of the Novel”

Perhaps the most essential device for the organization of the novel form is narrative point of view. Mikhail Bakhtin, in “Discourse in the Novel” (1934–1935), maintains in fact that “every language in the novel is a point of view, a socio-ideological conceptual system of real social groups and their embodied representatives. … Any point of view on the world fundamental to the novel must be a concrete, socially embodied point of view, not an abstract, purely semantic position.” György Lukács, too, having discovered the particular Standpunkt of the proletariat in History and Class Consciousness of 1923, would define the novel—for instance The Historical Novel in 1938—as the “conscious and consistent application of … specifically historical viewpoints.” On closer inspection, Antonio Gramsci, only a few years earlier, had touched on similar theoretical issues in a (somewhat cryptic) observation on the Italian novelistic tradition: “the ‘point of view’ of the key cannot be that of the lock.” This observation in turn opened the way to a veritable taxonomy of various ways of representing “the people” in the Italian novel - from Manzoni’s “paternalism” to Dostoevsky’s “con-science.”

THE ITALIAN BRANCH OF THE FOLLOWERS OF ANDREA PALLADIO. 17TH-18TH CENTURIES

The article is devoted to the study of the specific features of the development of the Palladian architectural system in the architect’s homeland in Italy. On examples of specific monuments, drawings and projects created during two and a half centuries, the peculiarities of the author’s transformation of style in the work of Andrea Palladio’s followers, the continuity of tradition, deviations from canonical rules and the results of this process are consistently studied. The buildings of the Italian branch of the architectural movements, little-known in Russia, are highlighted. The topic of cultural continuity and, at the same time, the rivalry between the Palladian style and the Baroque is touched upon. Particular attention is paid to the Italian tradition of research, additions and commentaries to the works and buildings of Andrea Palladio. The tradition developed among the professional architectural community of the Veneto region in the 18th century, significantly enriching the modern understanding of the master’s heritage.

The modern Italian debate on the Walrasian theory of capitalization (1960-1971)

Historians have studied the intellectual relationships between Walrasian eco-nomic thought and the Italian tradition with a primary focus on nineteenth-century economic thought. Nevertheless, in the 1960s heated controversy over Walras's capitalization theory, prompted by Sraffa (1960) and, even more, by Garegnani (1960), developed in Italy. This paper aims to reconstruct that debate to illustrate that, even during such a period of critical reappraisal, a number of Ital-ian economists held a fundamentally sceptical attitude towards a criticism of Walras's scheme.

Creative principles of Mykola Manoilo’s vocal pedagogy

Statement of the problem. The article is devoted to the outstanding figure of vocal art of Slobozhanshchyna Mykola Fedorovych Manoilo (1927–1998), the opera singer, who was awarded the title of “People’s Artist of the USSR” (1976) for impeccable performance of baritone parts of the classical repertoire on the stage of Kharkiv Theatre of Opera and Ballet, as well as of the chamber repertoire compiled of Ukrainian folk songs and works by Ukrainian composers. Based on his own experience of studying in the class of solo singing of M. Manoilo (1988), the author of the article offers the experience of scientific and methodological generalization of creative principles of vocal pedagogy of the teacher, while emphasizing the role of Manoilo as a unique singer. The relevance of the topic and its practical significance are stipulated by the urgent need of vocal pedagogy to form a tradition of scientific reflection on the specialization of the vocalist, the representation of classical guidelines and methods in the modern dimension, establishing creative contacts of different generations. The purpose of the article is to reveal the pedagogical principles by M. Manoilo as an outstanding representative of the Kharkiv vocal school, genealogy and dominant features of his performing creative work. Analysis of recent research and publications. The creative figure of M. Manoilo has not yet received serious coverage in the domestic musicology yet. Existing sources are brief biographic descriptions in reference books and encyclopaedias, the anthology “Ukrainian singers in the memoirs of contemporaries, compiler I. Lysenko (2003), or mentions of his name in books on the artistic life of Kharkiv (O. Chepalov, 2012; Tsurkan, 2013). The methodology contains a number of interrelated approaches to the study of the phenomenon of the singer’s artistic personality: historiographical, biographical, performing, and phenomenological. Presentation of basic research material. M. Manoilo inherited the principles of vocal pedagogy from P. Golubev, who taught at the Kharkiv Conservatory (1930–1953) and was the successor of the classical school of Italian bel canto singing, as a student of F. Bugamelli, which was involved by I. Slatin in teaching vocals at the Kharkiv Music College (1901–1918). The creative principles of the artist-interpreter M. Manoilo are a compendium of his mastery: ● orientation on the generally accepted standard of sounding of a voice (bel canto); ● persistent search for individual reading of the role on the path of constant musical and intellectual self-growth; ● word culture; ● unity of sound-forming technology and artistic and aesthetic principles of a musical work, due to its genre and stylistic nature; ● psychological authenticity (own experience of “entering” the image and its “living-through”) and the singer’s ability for self-analysis; ● mental and psychological signs of artistic personality – great persistence and strength of character, the desire to reach the highest point (acme) of creative self-representation. The “denominator” of M. Manoilo’s performing skills is the style – the performer’s orientation for the accuracy of the composer’s text. The results obtained. The principles of M. Manoilo’s vocal pedagogy were based on the basis of generalization of own scenic experience as a system of generally acquired and personality-oriented principles: – sound culture (uniformity of construction of the singing range; flexibility, strength, flight of voice, use of mixed register, rounding, covering); sound word culture; attention to diction; – author-centrism of the singer’s interpretation of the vocal-stage image; – high artistic taste, which is formed through the education of musicality, diverse repertoire, and a sense of performance drama; – high artistic taste, which is formed through the education of musicality, diverse repertoire, and a sense of performance drama; – trust in intuition, which the singer should constantly “check” with his/her own intellect according to the composer’s text. Conclusions. As the heir of the Italian tradition of singing, in all genres of performance M. Manoilo represented such qualities as: proper breathing (free passage of all resonator zones), beautifully designed, high-quality singing tone, theatrical voice, which was overlapping the sound of the orchestra, sonority, flight, equality of the whole range. From the domestic singing paradigm one should add to Manoilo’s artistic portfolio the following: ● recitative-speech cut of vocal intonation (melodic nature of singing is enriched by the relief of declamatory vocalization); ● clear diction of the word being sung to reach the minds and hearts of listeners and establish a dialogue with the author; ● cordocentrism – a particularly intense intra-emotional tone of performance as a personification of the Ukrainian “philosophy of the heart” (Н. Skovoroda); ● integrative type of performing thinking – the unity of poetic-intonation and stage-artistic image of the singer. If a super-goal of music is, according to Aristotle, the entelechy, then singing technique is a way to achieve it. Such was the universal basis of M. Manoilo’s requirements of to himself, as well as to the students of his solo singing class

Local Recipes in the National Kitchen: The Life and Legacies of Ada Boni’s Il talismano della felicità

Ada Boni’s 1925 Il talismano della felicità has for almost 100 years been the Italian domestic manual par excellence. Whether actively used or simply preserved as a family keepsake, Boni’s cookbook has been a fixture in generations of Italian kitchens. This article argues that Il talismano is a major work of Italian national literature. Boni rejects the model established by Pellegrino Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene, offering instead a female-focused domestic manual by a woman and for women. Over its long publication history, Il talismano transforms from an instructional guide for bourgeois housewives into an artifact of Fascist nationalism, and then into a comprehensive compendium of all the foods eaten in Italy. Ongoing revisions and adaptations – including an important 1950 American edition – reflect Il talismano’s desire to provide a model of Italian identity rooted in the hyperlocal variety of Italian culinary traditions and practices.

Traditions synthesis as "Fontainebleau style" international character foundation in French art of the XVI century

The article is dedicated to one of the least explored in the art history the art culture of France phenomena in the XVI century – the School of Fontainebleau. The Fontainebleau style stages formation analysis is presented, First and Second Schools founders’ creative works main trends are described. First School nature with its dominant Italian traditions as manner foundation, Second School style with its leading northern influence is analyzed. First and Second Schools of Fontainebleau trends comparative analysis was carried out. Italian, French and Flemish traditions synthesis is positioned to be the main School of Fontainebleau style-forming art feature, represented as French local Mannerism version core in the history and art culture

Nicolas Bernier’s ‘Principes de composition’ and the Italian partimento tradition

Abstract French compositional treatises penned between c.1600 and c.1750 rarely if ever provide any instructional exercises with basses, from which apprentice composers could create multi-voice pieces by applying the rules described by their authors. Instead, these treatises—of which the most famous and widespread were no doubt those by Parran (1639), Mignot (1656), Masson (1697) and Rameau (1722)—reproduce a number of more or less extended examples to illustrate particular theoretical points. Nicolas Bernier’s handwritten ‘Principes de composition’ (c.1726–1734) stands out as the only known French tutorial of the period to supply basses akin to the contemporary partimenti used by Italian music teachers to instruct young pupils in the art of extemporaneous composition. Bernier is said to have studied with Caldara—though Corelli is more likely—in Rome, before settling in Paris in 1692. Thus not only do the partimento-like basses included in his ‘Principes de composition’ offer an echo of his studies with these Italian masters, but they may also reflect the Roman beginnings of the pedagogical partimento tradition. The Bernier treatise provides rare testimony of the importance of Corelli’s six opuses in the Italian contrappunto pratico tradition in the period 1690–1730. This article puts Bernier’s ‘Principes’ into context, and then examines his hitherto overlooked basses, their originality, and their pedagogical implications.

CREATIVITY BETWEEN EXPERIENCE AND COSMOS: C.S. PEIRCE AND A.N. WHITEHEAD ON NOVELTY, BY MARIA REGINA BRIOSCHI

Reviewed by: Creativity Between Experience and Cosmos: C.S. Peirce and A.N. Whitehead on Novelty by Maria Regina Brioschi Fernando Zalamea Maria Regina Brioschi Creativity Between Experience and Cosmos: C.S. Peirce and A.N. Whitehead on Novelty München: Verlag Karl Alber (Whitehead Studies 6), 2020. 318 pp. Primary and Secondary Bibliographies (22 pp.) Indexes of Names and Concepts (6 pp.) Many natural connections between Peirce and Whitehead have been appearing since Peirce’s manuscripts (around 100,000 pages) began to be published in Harvard’s Collected Papers edition (1931–1935–1958). The resemblances are profound, based on speculative philosophies founded on interactions between science and philosophy, in turn erected over a wide understanding of mathematical thought. Some doctoral dissertations (Murphy 1940, Green 1968, Limper 1975, Sinclair 2007) have explored the field, but a full monograph was still needed in order to clarify the panorama. Maria Regina Brioschi’s Creativity Between Experience and Cosmos. C.S. Peirce and [End Page 631] A.N. Whitehead on Novelty provides the sound, exact, and extremely precise work that was required, and constitutes the first published book-length investigation of the interactions between Peirce and Whitehead. Reason, relation, and realism connect their systems, addressed to a broad understanding of knowledge, as in the citation from Whitehead that appears on the back cover of Brioschi’s book: “At this moment scientists and skeptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted; fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure. The Universe is vast”. Vastness is directly related to the problem of novelty, which requires the imaginary multidimensionality of human thought, helping us to escape a detail-focused complacency (the closures of analytical philosophy), and yearn for new adventures (the openings of synthetic philosophy). The architecture of Brioschi’s book is meticulous, well balanced and clear. Part I (“The Problem of Novelty Between Peirce and Whitehead”, pp. 19–76) studies the problem of novelty at large (Chapter 1), offers a view of the interactions between Peirce and Whitehead (Chapter 2), and provides a discussion of the state of the art and a map of the book (Chapter 3). Part II (“Peirce’s Account of Novelty”, pp. 77–172) investigates Peirce’s categories and the experience of novelty (Chapter 1), Peirce’s gnoseological account of novelty (Chapter 2), and Peirce’s cosmological account of novelty (Chapter 3). In a similar methodological vein, Part III (“Whitehead’s Account of Novelty”, pp. 173–273) studes Whitehead’s phenomenological account of novelty (Chapter 1), his gnoseological account of novelty (Chapter 2), and his cosmological account of novelty (Chapter 3). A Conclusion (pp. 274–288) sums up the main points of resemblance and divergence between Peirce and Whitehead, previously stated in Part I, Chapter 2. An up to date large Bibliography (pp. 289–311) includes primary and secondary literature on Peirce and on Whitehead, and a section on common secondary literature as well. An Index of Names (pp. 313–316) and an Index of Concepts (pp. 317–318) serve as useful guides for the reader. One of the main points of the book is to offer a careful analysis of the complementary dimensions of knowledge captured by both Peirce and Whitehead: philosophies which address—in a unifying manner—the individual and the cosmos, human mind and nature, reason and imagination, concreteness and generalization, continuity and process. Maria Regina Brioschi has profited from her insertion in the careful Italian tradition on Peirce studies (led in part by Rossella Fabbrichesi in Milano, Brioschi’s teacher) and from her own attentive handling of Whitehead (translation and edition of Whitehead’s Process and Reality: A.N. Whitehead, Processo e realtà. Saggio di cosmologia, Firenze: Bompiani, 2019, 1366 pp.) Both expertises are well reflected in Brioschi’s Creativity Between Experience and Cosmos, where the young [End Page 632] Italian researcher is able to weave our infinitesimal place in nature with the infinite wanderings of the cosmos. The back-and-forth between the local (at experiential human scale) and the global (at universal cosmological scale) is in fact one of main forces of Peirce and Whitehead’s approaches to knowledge, and Brioschi surveys the many...

Анализ уровня зрелости бизнес-процессов как инструмент совершенствования

Improving the activities of enterprises involves making changes to business processes, while there is always a question of choosing the tools to achieve this goal. The authors of the article investigated the issue of improvement based on their chosen methodology for determining the level of maturity of business processes. The company «Italian Traditions» LLC was used as the object of the study, the results of the analysis of the maturity of business processes made it possible to determine the main vector of its development, taking into account the specifics of the food industry enterprises.

Frame for a Sultan

This essay explores the iconography and significance of the painted frame in the 1480 portrait of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II by the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini. The frame is lavishly polymorphous and functions as an encomium of sorts, a visual praise that sets the royal figure apart and propels it into the realm of the holy. The sultan internalized as well as institutionalized the distant, unapproachable persona of the late Byzantine emperors and, like them, retreated behind elaborate ceremonial and precious materials. Bellini responded to these circumstances and granted the sultan the status of semi-divine being while synthesizing Italian and Byzantine traditions of enshrinement of sacred images and matter.

Финал в зингшпиле «Доктор и аптекарь» Диттерсдорфа и традиции оперы buffa

Doktor and Apotheker, a singspiel by Dittersdorf, is one of the most successful and popular operas of the 18th century. Many researchersclaim that the reason for its popularity is the “chain finale” that was first introduced by the composer. During the theatre reformation under the reign of Joseph II, German opera did not have its own models of final scenes to complete the acts. Dittersdorf was one of the pioneer composers who first applied Italian models to a singspiel. The finale is one of the central scenes in opera buffa demonstrating sophisticated dramatic situations and original music solutions. The article compares the final of the first act of Doktor and Apotheker and central finals of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro as well as Dittersdorf’s Italian opera Democrito Corretto. The detailed analysis of the dramatic line, the structure of final scenes and means of expression shows that the opera embraces Italian traditions on different levels: from plots and characters to specific musical means. All of them make an organic contribution to the traditions of singspiel. Dittersdorf’s new approach to the opera finale laid the foundation for future generations of Austrian and German composers.