Italian Tradition Research Articles

The Open Access Companion to the "Canterbury Tales," 2017 ed. by Candace Barrington, Brantley L. Bryant, Richard H. Godden, Daniel T. Kline, and Myra Seaman

Reviewed by: The Open Access Companion to the "Canterbury Tales," 2017 ed. by Candace Barrington, Brantley L. Bryant, Richard H. Godden, Daniel T. Kline, and Myra Seaman Lynn Shutters Candace Barrington, Brantley L. Bryant, Richard H. Godden, Daniel T. Kline, and Myra Seaman, eds. The Open Access Companion to the "Canterbury Tales," 2017. https://opencanterburytales.dsl.lsu.edu/. Chaucer companions appear in cycles, a slew of them cropping up every decade or so. As the last round of companions came out in the mid-2000s, the time is ripe for a fresh spate. What counts as "new" for a companion varies widely, running the gamut from minor revisions of a previous edition to entirely original content. Less frequently addressed [End Page 329] is the question of genre: companions typically consist of chapters governed by particular theoretical approaches (feminist Chaucer, post-colonial Chaucer, etc.), genres (Chaucer's dream visions, Chaucer and romance), or related topics (Chaucer and the Italian tradition, love and marriage in Chaucer). The persistence of this format attests to its value: rarely does one read a companion from start to finish, and a clear organizational apparatus allows readers quickly to identify chapters of interest. Every once in a while, though, a companion offers a surprisingly fresh format, as is the case with The Open Access Companion to the "Canter-bury Tales" (OACCT). This is a companion that makes good on its tagline—"A new way to learn about old books"—in smart and groundbreaking ways. Perhaps its most impressive innovation is in the publication format. As its title suggests, the OACCT is a completely online, noncommercial resource, freely available to all. Remarkably, no presses were involved in this companion's making; at a time when academic publishing has entered troubled waters, this project demonstrates how scholars can work outside traditional publication venues and practices. Moreover, print companions necessarily offer readers a snapshot of a particular moment in Chaucer scholarship. This online companion, by contrast, is intended to be ever evolving; at the time that I am writing this review, the editors have plans to add additional material, including pedagogical resources and "reader contributions." The OACCT specifically addresses itself to university-level, first-time readers of Chaucer. As of this writing, it consists of a user's guide; twenty-nine essay chapters, each devoted to a particular Canterbury tale, plus one on the Host and frame; and six reference chapters, providing cultural, linguistic, and biographical background. With the stated goal of "combin[ing] the dynamism of recent scholarship with pedagogical flexibility," the editors solicited essays that are "question-oriented," are of "cross-historical interest," and engage with "current critical approaches." This is a tall order, but one that the companion achieves. Its essays are by and large excellent, offering the reader—and reviewer —an embarrassment of riches. I therefore single out a few essays as representative of the quality of the whole. Reference chapters are organized by standard topics—"English Society 1340–1400: Reform and Resistance," for example—with one exception: "What Does It Mean to Read a Medieval Text?," a collection of [End Page 330] twelve short essays curated by Moira Fitzgibbons and addressing readers' emotional, intellectual, and imaginative responses to Chaucer. "Readers" here include professors, novelists, video-game designers, a high-school student, and a rapper, among others. The reference chapters are lively and accessible. Simon Horobin, for example, in "Chaucer's Middle English," provides an admirably clear, undergraduate-friendly introduction to Chaucer's English. Kathleen E. Kennedy's "Everyday Life in Late Medieval England" runs through the typical day of fourteenth-century Englanders and provides an array of memorable details: for example, that medieval people wore fur on the inside, rather than the outside, of garments, to maximize warmth. For me, the knockout reference chapter is Alexandra Gillespie and Julianna Chianelli's "Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales." Tackling their topic with verve, the authors counter popular misconceptions about the Middle Ages (nobody could read, there were no books, etc.), guide readers through the "bookishness" of the Canterbury Tales, and explain why that bookishness matters. Particularly fascinating is their section on associations among books, the human, and...

Architectural conjectural mapping: two examples

Mapping is a key research tool to understand the relationship between specific geographical features and territorial transformations (settlement patterns, hydraulic works, new rail and road infrastructure, land-use change). Starting from the Italian academic tradition (Muratori, Caniggia, Rossi) that focused mainly on the urban context we have developed mapping for fringe-areas at various scales: from city and countryside to expanding rural areas that mark the shifting boundaries(using the agricultural Behera-Region/Alexandria in Egypt and the Belgrade urban evolution in Serbia). Mapping should envision not only the geomorphological features but also the complexity of the landscape structure, as a repository of layers, questioning what are we looking for through mapping and constructing the legend accordingly: selecting which elements need to be highlighted or remain latent and which additional elements need to be identified with the help of complementary sources. GIS holds potential for showing key physical features, their extent, quantity and position in a single glance but is mapping the same as tracing? Is it capable of showing the space-time whirl in landscape transformations?

Светская архитектура эпохи мануэлино в Португалии: своеобразие стиля в Лиссабоне в контексте итальянской традиции

Светская архитектура эпохи мануэлино в Португалии: своеобразие стиля в Лиссабоне в контексте итальянской традиции

Die Kathedrale „Esztergom II“ der bau der St. Adalbertskathedrale im 12. Jahrhundert

The cathedral “Esztergom II”. The construction of the St. Adalbert’s Cathedral in the twelfth century with an Excurse: To the chronology of the Early Gothic in the middle of the Kingdom as witnesse...

BIO-IMAGING IN OUR KITCHENS: TO THE DISCOVERY OF PRODUCTS OF ANIMAL ORIGIN

The growing demand for real-time monitoring of food products has encouraged the use of rapid, accurate and non-destructive techniques, which are able to guarantee safe and high quality products on the market. In recent years, industries have invested in image diagnostic techniques (IDT), such as spectral and hyperspectral imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT). These techniques are frequently used to evaluate the structure and microstructure of meat and fish products, and/or to monitor the changes that occur during their processing and ripening. Recently IDT have been successfully applied to the evaluation of cured meats of the Italian tradition. With our research we visualize the marbling of both fresh and frozen bovine cuts of meat intended for the production of “Bresaola” by CT in parallel with histological and biochemical analyses. CT allowed selecting in a quick non-destructive way the “leanest” cuts of meat, to be used for the production of good quality Bresaola and to optimize the processing times. Similar analyses have been applied to Parma ham and “Nero di Parma” to characterize the two dry-cured hams on the basis of the quali-quantitative levels of adipose tissue infiltrates. Finally, by IDT we identified big fishes when marketed as slices. Using MRI we demonstrated that it is possible to distinguish the swordfish (Xiphias gladius) from the mako shark (Isurus oxyrhincus) slices, by the position of Vogt muscle: this allows to reduce the sales of low quality commercial products (mako shark), instead of high quality ones (swordfish), to protect consumers and limit commercial frauds.

Gli hegeliani di Napoli e il Risorgimento: Bertrando Spaventa e Francesco De Sanctis a confronto (1848-1862)

The aim of this article is to analyse the role of Neapolitan Hegelianism within the general context of the Risorgimento highlighting the connections between Hegel’s reception in Italy and the process of national political emancipation. It first describes the relations between Hegelianism and the Risorgimento and then focuses on the confrontation between the two prtogonists of Hegelianism in Naples, Bertrando Spaventa (1817-1883) and Francesco De Sanctis (1817-1883). Aiming at understanding the whole phenomenon from a transnational perspective it highlights this aspect both in Spaventa’s “theory of the circulation of Italian and European thought” (1862) and by means of De Sanctis’ exile experience in Zurich (1856-1860) and his reflections on the Italian republican tradition.

The specificity of interpreting the image of Vassili from the opera “Siberia” by Umberto Giordano

The specificity of interpreting the image of Vassili from the opera “Siberia” by Umberto Giordano

Italian Progressive Rock as Indigenous Psychedelia

ABSTRACTProgressive rock was Italy’s manifestation of psychedelic music. The product of a meeting of conservatory-trained musicians and countercultural interests, progressive rock constituted much of the soundtrack to Italy’s own psychedelic renaissance as expressed in rock festivals and youth activism. More grounded in classical and Italian song traditions than in the blues, this music represented Italy’s psychedelicizing its own heritage. It was another mode of psychedelic rock, more cerebral and formal than unbridled and improvisational. Understanding progressive rock as Italy’s psychedelic music acknowledges the existence of different versions of psychedelia around the world and raises the idea of indigenous psychedelias.

WILLIAM MCGIBBON AND THE VERNACULARIZATION OF CORELLI'S MUSIC

ABSTRACTIn his 1720 poem ‘To the Musick Club’ Allan Ramsay famously called upon an incipient Edinburgh Musical Society to elevate Scottish vernacular music by mixing it with ‘Correlli's soft Italian Song’, a metonym for pan-European art music. The Society's ensuing role in the gentrification of Scottish music – and the status of the blended music within the wider contexts of the Scottish Enlightenment and the forging of Scottish national identity – has received attention in recent scholarship. This article approaches the commingling of vernacular and pan-European music from an alternative perspective, focusing on the assimilation of Italian music, particularly the works of Arcangelo Corelli, into popular, quasi-oral traditions of instrumental music in Scotland and beyond. The case of ‘Mr Cosgill's Delight’, a popular tune derived from a gavotte from Corelli's Sonate da camera a tre, Op. 2, is presented as an illustration of this process. The mechanics of vernacularization are further explored through a cache of ornaments for Corelli's Sonate per violino e violone o cimbalo, Op. 5, by the Scottish professional violinists William McGibbon and Charles McLean. The study foregrounds the agency of working musicians dually immersed in elite and popular musical traditions, while shedding new light on McGibbon's significance as an early dual master of Italian and Scots string-playing traditions.

Antonio Gramsci on Italian Futurism: Politics and the Path to Modernism

ABSTRACTThis article catalogues and contextualizes Antonio Gramsci’s pre-prison newspaper articles on Futurism, as well as each reference to Futurism in the Quaderni del carcere, to show that Gramsci is equally attentive to aesthetic and political concerns in his evaluation of the movement, and that they present an evolving but coherent view. This perspective is conditioned by awareness of Futurism’s interventions in the context of efforts at creating a ‘contemporary romanticism’, to use Gramsci’s term. Furthermore, this view is predicated on Gramsci’s insistence that Futurism fails in its aim to create a national(ist) art and culture because its leader, F.T. Marinetti, cannot overcome his attachment to the Italian high literary tradition, and the role of the artist within it.

The Iceman's lithic toolkit: Raw material, technology, typology and use.

The Tyrolean Iceman, a 5,300-year-old glacier mummy recovered at the Tisenjoch (South Tyrol, Italy) together with his clothes and personal equipment, represents a unique opportunity for prehistoric research. The present work examines the Iceman’s tools which are made from chert or are related to chert working - dagger, two arrowheads, endscraper, borer, small flake and antler retoucher - and considers also the arrowhead still embedded in the shoulder of the mummy. The interdisciplinary results achieved by study of the lithic raw material, technology, use-wear analysis, CT analysis and typology all add new information to Ötzi‘s individual history and his last days, and allow insights into the way of life of Alpine Copper Age communities. The chert raw material of the small assemblage originates from at least three different areas of provenance in the Southalpine region. One, or possibly two, sources derive from outcrops in the Trentino, specifically the Non Valley. Such variability suggests an extensive provisioning network, not at all limited to the Lessini mountains, which was able to reach the local communities. The Iceman’s toolkit displays typological characteristics of the Northern Italian tradition, but also comprises features typical of the Swiss Horgen culture, which will come as no surprise in the toolkit of a man who lived in a territory where transalpine contacts would have been of great importance. Ötzi was not a flintknapper, but he was able to resharpen his tools with a medium to good level of skill. Wear traces reveal that he was a right-hander. Most instruments in the toolkit had reached their final stage of usability, displaying extensive usage, mostly from plant working, resharpenings and breaks. Evidently Ötzi had not had any access to chert for quite some time, which must have been problematic during his last hectic days, preventing him from repairing and integrating his weapons, in particular his arrows. Freshly modified blade tools without any wear suggest planned work which he never carried out, possibly prevented by the events which made him return to the mountains where he was killed by a Southern Alpine archer.

On the Art of Fighting: A Humanist Translation of Fiore dei Liberi’s Flower of Battle Owned by Leonello D’Este

Abstract The author presents a study of Bibliothèque National de France MS Latin 11269, a manuscript that he argues was associated with the court of Leonello d’Este and which represents an attempt to “fix” or “canonize” a vernacular work on a practical subject in erudite Latin poetry. The author reviews the life of Fiore dei Liberi and Leonello d’Este and discusses the author’s intentions in writing, how the manuscript shows clear signs of Estense associations, and examines the manuscript both in light of its codicological context and in light of humanist activity at the Estense court. He also presents the evidence for the book having been in the Estense library. Finally, he examines the place of the manuscript in the context of the later Italian tradition of fencing books. A complete concordance is presented in the appendix.

Hrvatska epika XVI i XVII stoljeća prema evropskoj književnoj baštini

Pišući kako je svoju Juditu (1501) sastavio »po običaju naših začinjavac i jošće po zakonu (...) starih poet«, Marko Marulić je nedvosmisleno i točno odredio svoje pjesničko ishodište u knji- ževnoj tradiciji vlastitog jezika i u bogatoj epskoj tradiciji evrop- skoj, u prvom redu grčkoj i rimskoj, a onda i talijanskoj. Odredio je u stvari putove na sjecištu kojih se rodila čitava hrvatska svje- tovna književnost, i ne samo rodila nego i dalje rasla, samo su funkciju »začinjavac« sve više preuzimali sami tvorci te književnosti, pa je gotovo svaki od njih kao svoga »začinjavca« mogao naznačiti kojega od svojih prethodnika ili više njih. U takvu se odnosu — imamo li u vidu epiku — sasvim lijepo mogu promatrati Zoranić i Krna- rutić prema Maruliću, Baraković prema Zoraniću i Maruliću, Gun- dulić prema Vetranoviću i vjerojatno prema Maruliću, a N. i P. Zrinjski prema Kmarutiču.

Beyond virtues and vices: Antonio Genovesi's and Adam Smith's “science of relationships”

ABSTRACTSome recent literature has rediscovered the Italian tradition of “civil economy”. This literature has underlined how the discourse about virtues and vices was fundamental in order to establish how, in a political and economic context, a harmonious order could be established. On the basis of this main focus on virtues and vices, it was stated that Genovesi's thought is essentially different from Smith's one. In this article, I argue that the direct focus on questions of virtues and vices does not help capture the novelty introduced by these authors and the relational value of their agency theory.

James M. Buchanan and the Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice: extending the Italian tradition of public finance

The Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice began publication in 1983 under the title Economia delle scelte pubbliche/Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice, changing to Journal of Public Finance and Public Choice/Economia delle scelte pubbliche in 1997. Under either name, the Journal reflected the founding editor’s (Domenico da Empoli) desire to amplify and extend the Italian orientation toward public finance that Antonio de Viti de Marco (1888) set in motion. It’s fitting that James Buchanan’s (1983) ‘The public choice perspective’ opened the Journal, for Buchanan (1960) was instrumental in promoting awareness among Anglo-Saxon scholars of the Italian tradition that da Empoli sought to carry forward in establishing the JPFPC. With da Empoli’s death in December 2016, the Journal is now proceeding with a new editorial team (Emma Galli and Giampaolo Garzarelli) and a new publisher (Bristol University Press). The Journal’s orientation, however, remains unchanged, in that it continues to welcome contributions within public finance and public choice within the broad tradition outlined here. In this essay, I mark this change in editorial regime by reviewing how Buchanan’s orientation toward public finance continues and extends the tradition that de Viti (1888) began.

The History of the New World: Benzoni’s Historia del Mondo Nuovo

Girolamo Benzoni’s The History of the New World (1565) is a foundational text in the development of the Black Legend, the stereotypical portrayal of Spaniards as uniquely evil and exploitative colonizers. Though long overshadowed by Bartolomé de las Casas’s Brevíssima relación de la destrucción de las Indias, Benzoni’s book probably had a greater impact in his own time, appearing in seventeen editions, in multiple languages, by the end of the sixteenth century. A resident of the Duchy of Milan, Benzoni built on an Italian tradition of both resenting and belittling the Spaniards. His account consistently presents them in a negative light, as untrustworthy, braggadocian upstarts who delight in heedless destruction: “You find among the Spaniards not just cruel people but the very cruelest of people” (51). Moreover, he asserts that their unchecked greed and ambition has proven counterproductive, wiping out the population of potentially valuable regions and impeding missionary efforts. Benzoni objects not to the concept of colonization but to the Spaniards’ methods; in effect, they have given Europeans a bad name. He clearly relishes relating Spanish failures and reversals, including an incident when one group of natives poured molten gold down the throats of their would-be conquerors. But his text lacks Las Casas’s systematic presentation of evidence and moral purpose. Benzoni frankly admits that he came to the Americas to satisfy his curiosity and to find riches. His work is less a treatise than an adventurous travelogue with a captious narrator. Benzoni journeys through the Antilles, Central America, and the Andes, reporting on “what I saw in the Indies.” However, this matter-of-fact approach can be highly effective. For example, Benzoni’s anecdotes convincingly demonstrate the uncritical acceptance and sheer pervasiveness of indigenous slavery in the Caribbean islands.Yet while he sees the Indians as victims, they are not, in his account, innocents, nor do they give him cause for self-reflection. In this regard, ironically, he echoes his Spanish hosts. Benzoni’s ethnography proves highly selective. Although he frequently references indigenous life ways—sleeping in hammocks, smoking tobacco (which he sees as a hallucinogen)—none of the groups he discusses truly emerge as distinct peoples. His account revolves around an implicit, and sometimes explicit, contrast between the European and the indigenous, almost always to the latter’s detriment. He maintains that Indians are cowardly and easily terrified. He presents indigenous beliefs and practices as profoundly backward, mistaken, and immoral: the Indians continue to worship idols and hold congress with Satan, and revel in polygamy and abandoned sexuality. They “sleep together like chickens” (41), he writes—one of several animal comparisons in the text. Above all, he routinely describes them as cannibals. Benzoni’s depiction of the native inhabitants resonates with his larger vision of the colonial landscape. During his sojourn in the 1540s and 1550s, the Spanish Crown made significant efforts to rein in the conquistadores’ excesses and forge a more stable society. Yet Benzoni’s New World is, for the most part, not that of burgeoning urban centers ruled by royal officials, but of untamed and treacherous terrain, a place where mere survival is difficult and physically taxing. Though he mentions several marvelous creatures and plants, such as manatees, opossums, and syphilis-curing sarsaparilla, he generally has little use for American nature and its products: he finds maize tolerable, but hates manioc, considers potatoes insipid, and (at least initially) regards cacao as pig swill.This account, then, gives readers insight into “the invention of America” by showing how one observer assimilated new lands and peoples into his conceptual universe. Through his writing, Benzoni transformed first impressions into lasting and iconic images: above all, the native savage—not noble (except in resisting the Spaniards), stubbornly attached to unchristian and uncivilized ways, and ultimately unequal to the encounter with Europeans. This makes The History of the New World a fitting entry in the Latin American Originals series, which presents superb English translations of significant but neglected primary sources. The editors have clarified Benzoni’s frequently awkward prose, and stripped away large swathes of historical narrative copied from other books, in order to emphasize his original contribution. The result is a compact and accessible text, ideal for classroom use.

Political realism and models of the state: Antonio de Viti de Marco and the origins of public choice

It is well known that one of the features of public choice, political realism, is embedded in a time-honored Italian tradition going back to Machiavelli and perpetuated by G. Mosca and V. Pareto in their political and sociological writings. The scientific spirit, which in their era led to the foundation of various social disciplines, fostered the application of economic analysis to the political sphere. In that context, Antonio de Viti de Marco (1858–1943) formulated an economic model of the state, consisting of two types of constitutional extremes: the absolute state and the democratic state. We ask herein how that model may be reconciled to G. Mosca and Pareto’s theory of the ruling class, with which De Viti de Marco agreed. Finally, we analyze his political writings in order to reconstruct his interpretation of collusion, rent seeking and “clientelism”, i.e., the redistribution of extracted rent, which takes place in the form of discretionary allocations of public jobs, public contracts and other corporative favors. Collusion is the use of democratic institutions by the ruling classes in order to gain monopoly power. While collusion is the basis of rent creation, rent extraction is not the final goal of politicians; rather, it is a means of strengthening electoral support.

Refashioning Italian Theatrical and Dramatic Conventions: Prologues, Epilogues and Inductions in Early Modern English Drama

Elizabethan drama used a variety of introductory scenes which can be defined as inductions, provided that we distinguish their dramatic and theatrical functions. In the theatre, the induction is a dramatic device, metatheatrical and metadramatic, which emphasizes the nature of the play. Richard Hosley argues that it is “a short dramatic action introducing a full-length play, normally performed by two or more actors and creating a fictional situation different from that of the play itself.” This article contains a survey of such inductions in the English theatre with parallels in the Italian tradition. The article also contains as an appendix a detailed overview of inductions and dumbshows in English plays.

A theoretical contribution to 21st Century problems in financial reporting

The Italian tradition known as ‘Economia Aziendale' is longstanding and well known in Italy. It broadly spans the 20th Century, with its apotheosis appearing in the 1920s with Gino Zappa. It is not very well-known elsewhere. Its logical conclusions for financial reporting are not applied in practice in Italy, and indeed never have been. They are not applied in the (very different) field of IFRS and European Directive requirements either. Our research question is to investigate the proposition that they significantly should be so applied. Our key area of study, therefore, is the complex and multi-faceted problem of income measurement and asset valuation, valuation issues in short. In order to properly investigate these considerations, we present a thorough survey of the theoretical development and arguments of the EA tradition, showing its logicality and usefulness, and contrasting these effects with the present-day regulatory systems. This forms the major theoretical element of the paper. In summary, therefore, the paper could be characterised as an analytical presentation of major theoretical arguments, with significant application to the real world of today and tomorrow. The EA tradition is not new. But we demonstrate its current relevance, and expose it to an international audience.

When is the algorithm concept pertinent – and when not? Thoughts about algorithms and paradigmatic examples, and about algorithmic and non-algorithmic mathematical cultures<sup>1</sup>

Until some decades ago, it was customary to discuss much pre-Modern mathematics as “algebra”, without agreement between workers about what was to be understood by that word. Then this view came under heavy fire, rarely with more precision. Now, instead, it has become customary to classify pre-Modern practical arithmetic as “algorithmic mathematics”. In so far as any computation in several steps can be claimed to follow an underlying algorithm (just as it can be explained from an “underlying theorem”, for instance from proportion theory, or from a supposedly underlying algebraic calculation), this can no doubt be justified. Traditionally, however, historians as well as the sources would speak of a rule . The paper first goes through some of the formative appeals to the algebraic interpretation – Eisenlohr, Zeuthen, Neugebauer – as well as some of the better argued attacks on it (Rodet, Mahoney). Next it asks for the reasons to introduce the algorithmic interpretation, and discusses the adequacy or inadequacy of some uses. Finally, it investigates in which sense various pre-modern mathematical cultures can be characterized globally as “algorithmic”, concluding that this characterization fits ancient Chinese and Sanskrit mathematics but neither early second-millennium Mediterranean practical arithmetic (including Fibonacci and the Italian abbacus tradition), nor the Old Babylonian corpus.