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This article analyses Italian illustrated editions of Little Women published between 1908 and 1945. After an overview of the publishing history of the novel in Italy, the paper will examine Italian illustrations as hermeneutic tools in order to examine their ideological function in the representation of gender. The belated reception of Alcott's novel in Italy, caused by its representation of a nonconformist educational model for girls, is mirrored in the tension between the nationalistic drive and the influence of foreign models that can be pinpointed in the illustrated editions. By analyzing adaptations of American illustrations, original Italian creations, and omissions of iconic illustrations, this paper will unveil how much the visual element is embedded in the Italian historical and cultural context, as the choice (or omission) of particular images impacted the interpretation of the book. By examining the Italian editions of Little Women published in this time frame, we will also be able to retrace the links with the American illustrated history of the book and bear testimony to the powerful impact of the 1934 film version on printed editions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the history of stratigraphy, geological and mining travels, and their significance within the Italian context of Earth sciences. The article highlights six papers presented at the STRATI 2019 conference in Milan, which aim to investigate and compare the development of stratigraphy with other research fields in geology and mining. The papers cover various topics, including the meaning of stratigraphic studies in Italian mountain areas, the role of mining and visual culture in Earth sciences, and the results of fieldwork undertaken by Italian geologists during extra-European travels. The article emphasizes the importance of these papers in reassessing the research on the history of stratigraphy and promoting interdisciplinary approaches within the historiography of Earth sciences. [Extracted from the article]

This paper aims to analyze the role of natural heritage cataloging when criminal events challenge natural history museums. This study investigates the rhino horn thefts in Italian natural history museums from 2011 to 2015 to provide a comprehensive framework for these robberies while highlighting the weaknesses and strengths to prevent thefts and safeguard both rhino horns and natural history collections from future targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of synthetic dyes completely changed the industrial production and use of colorants for art materials. From the synthesis of the first synthetic dye, mauveine, in 1856 until today, artists have enjoyed a wider range of colors and selection of chemical properties than was ever available before. However, the introduction of synthetic dyes introduced a wider variety and increased the complexity of the chemical structures of marketed dyes. This work looks towards the analysis of synthetically dyed objects in heritage collections, applying an extraction protocol based on the use of ammonia, which is considered favorable for natural anthraquinone dyes but has never before been applied to acid synthetic dyes. This work also presents an innovative cleanup step based on the use of an ion pair dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction for the purification and preconcentration of historical synthetic dyes before analysis. This approach was adapted from food science analysis and is applied to synthetic dyes in heritage science for the first time in this paper. The results showed adequate recovery of analytes and allowed for the ammonia-based extraction method to be applied successfully to 15 samples of suspected azo dyes from the Azienda Coloranti Nazionali e Affini (ACNA) synthetic dye collection, identified through untargeted HPLC-HRMS analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 16th century, Ovid's Metamorphoses was the object of several translations and rewritings, either of single books or the whole Latin poem, which were often accompanied by valuable illustrative sets. This paper examines the different versions of Pluto's abduction of Proserpina as described in the main Italian translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses printed in the 16th century (Agostini, Dolce, Anguillara). My primary focus is on the illustrative sets which are essential to understanding to the transmission of classical mythology between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. On the one hand, the article aims to understand the artists' choices of which elements of the story to illustrate, and the relationship between the text and the images. On the other hand, my purpose is to situate these versions of the myth of Proserpina in both the literary and artistic history of the Italian Renaissance, by comparing the rewritings of Ovid's Metamorphoses with other broadly contemporary works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest reorganization of the Vertebrate collections preserved at the "Pietro Doderlein" Museum of Zoology of the University of Palermo (Italy) has made it possible to draw up a check-list of the Mammal taxa present in the stuffed (M), fluid-preserved (ML) and anatomical (AN) collections. The intervention was planned under the National Biodiversity Future Center (NBFC) agenda, focused on the enhancement of Italian natural history museums. The growing interest in museum collections strongly demands databases available to the academic and policy world. In this paper, we record 679 specimens belonging to 157 specific taxa arranged in 58 families and 16 orders. Most of the species (75.1%) come from the Palaearctic Region (southern Mediterranean and North Africa), with a minority of taxa coming from the Afrotropical (7.8%), Neotropical (4.6%), Indo-Malayan (3.4%) and Australasian (1%) regions. Among the 24% of the taxa listed in the IUCN categories as threatened (VU, EN, CR, RE) the specimens of the Sicilian wolf, a regional endemic subspecies that became extinct in the last century, stand out. Even if small (<1000 specimens), the collection of mammals of the Museum of Zoology is an important asset for research on biodiversity in the Mediterranean area, representing an international reference for those wishing to conduct morphological and genetic studies in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Il Capitale Culturale: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage is the property of Il Capitale Culturale Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We reply to the comments made by Benvenuti et al. (2022) about our paper on the Italian natural history museums and scientific collections and the need of a centralized hub and repository. While agreeing that digitization is a useful tool to valorize each museum and collection, we still believe that the suggestion of a centralized hub is valid and necessary. This would largely help in boosting coordination among museums, sharing personnel and resources, and in providing a place to deposit scientific collections that do not fit the scope of smaller museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Linguistica Pragensia (Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts) is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Die unter dem Namen „Memoriale di Aldo Moro" bekannten Schriftstücke sind im Original nicht überliefert; es handelt sich dabei um Aufzeichnungen, Reflexionen und Verhöraussagen, die der Politiker während seiner fast zweimonatigen Entführung durch die Roten Brigaden im Frühjahr 1978 schriftlich niedergelegt bzw. gemacht hatte. Nach seinem gewaltsamen Tod drang die von General Dalla Chiesa geleitete Spezialeinheit im Oktober 1978 in die konspirative Wohnung ein, die sich in der Via Monte Nevoso in Mailand befand, und stieß dort auf eine partielle schreibmaschinenschriftliche Transkription dieses Materials sowie auf Fotokopien von weiteren handschriftlichen Texten, Briefen und Testamenten; zwölf Jahre später kamen in derselben Wohnung noch einmal 420 Briefe und Blätter mit Erinnerungsaufzeichnungen zum Vorschein. Der vorliegende Aufsatz erörtert weniger die Inhalte, sondern vor allem die redaktionelle Anordnung dieser Dokumente, die sich in einen thematischen und einen nichtthematischen Teil untergliedern, aber keine durchgängige Nummerierung aufweisen; vor allem aber versucht er auf die Frage zu antworten, ob die Gesamtanlage der Fotokopien, wie sie 1990 vorgefunden wurde, auf einen verborgenen Eingriff der staatlichen Sicherheitsapparate seit Herbst 1978 beruht, wie Miguel Gotor in seinem Buch „Il memoriale della Repubblica" annimmt. Gegenüber dieser nicht überzeugenden These gehen die vorliegenden Ausführungen davon aus, dass die von den Roten Brigaden vorgenommene Strukturierung des Materials maßgeblich ist, auch wenn spätere begrenzte Eingriffe und Unterschlagungen nicht ausgeschlossen werden können: grundlegend bleibt die Unterscheidung zwischen den Texten, deren schreibmaschinenschriftliche Transkription (natürlich vor dem 1. Oktober 1978) durchgeführt worden war, und denjenigen, deren Bearbeitung aus inhaltlichen, zeitlichen oder beiden Gründen unterblieb. The document known as „Aldo Moro's memoirs" consists of statements, reflections and the politician's answers to questions asked by the Red Brigades, the terrorist organization that held him captive for almost two months in the spring of 1978 before murdering him. The original document has never been found, and it is known only in a partial typed transcription – discovered in October 1978, immediately after the joint police-force raid led by general Dalla Chiesa into the brigatists' den in Via Monte Nevoso in Milan – and in photocopies of autograph manuscripts inserted among copies of his letters and wills, discovered twelve years later in the same place (420 pages of memoirs and letters). This article does not focus on describing the contents of the memoirs, but instead on a correct contextualization of the compilation of these writings, which can be subdivided into thematic and non-thematic but which lack a unitary numerical code. Above all, it tries to answer the persisting questions as to the overall sequence of the copies found in 1990; in other words, if this sequence is the result of a covert intervention on these papers by the State security services after the autumn of 1978, a theory supported by Miguel Gotor in his book „Il memoriale della Repubblica". In my opinion this theory is unconvincing. Though we cannot rule out a limited manipulation of the papers after their handling by the Red Brigades and the removal of documents, I believe that the sequence of pages was decided on by the Red Brigades, making a distinction between the texts they had typed out (obviously before 1 October 1978) and those that had not been typed by this date, due either to a lack of time, or because it was deemed unnecessary, or both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Die jahrhundertealte Präsenz italienischer Migranten in Istanbul durchlief im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts einen tiefgreifenden Wandel, der zunächst durch den Zustrom politischer Exilanten des Risorgimento, dann großenteils durch die Wirtschaftsmigranten ausgelöst wurde. Im folgenden Artikel werden diese Bevölkerungsgruppen vor allem in ihrer zweiten Generation, das heißt an ihren im Osmanischen Reich geborenen Kindern untersucht. Ohne ein Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl vorauszusetzen, beschreibt der Artikel ihre Sozialität, ihre Loyalitäten und Identifikationen, um auf diese Weise den „italienischen" bzw. „osmanischen Anteil" ihrer Persönlichkeitsstruktur auf verschiedenen Ebenen und in ihren jeweiligen Ausdrucksformen zu erhellen. Nach einem Überblick über die Geschichte der italienischen Bevölkerungsgruppen analysiert der Artikel die Instrumente, die man bei der Entwicklung einer Italianität mit Blick auf die Herausbildung des italienischen Nationalstaates einsetzte (Vereine, Schule, Sprachenpolitik), arbeitet aber auch ihre Grenzen heraus. Am persönlichen Lebensweg von Angelo Scanziani, dem Sohn eines lombardischen Migranten, Sekretär und Übersetzer von Sultan Abdülhamid II., lässt sich beispielhaft aufzeigen, wie vielfältig die Loyalitäten waren und wie das Zugehörigkeitsgefühl dabei eher individuellen als nationalen Kriterien gehorchte. Aus einer solchen Perspektive verstehen sich Sprachen nicht etwa als Instrument einer ungreifbaren nationalen Identität, sondern vielmehr als einsetzbares und fruchtbringendes Kapital. The centuries-old Italian presence in Istanbul was profoundly affected during the 19th century by the arrival first of Risorgimento exiles and later of mainly economic immigrants. This paper investigates these reconfigurations by focusing on the second generation – i. e. the children of Italian immigrants born in the Empire. Without assuming that they had a sense of belonging to a community, the paper examines their sociability, loyalties, and identifications in order to investigate their „Italian part" and their „Ottoman part", as well as the internal nuances of these two parts and their possible articulations. After an overview of this new presence, the paper analyses the establishment of a national Italianity and its means (associations, schools, linguistic policies) in relation to the construction of the Nation State in Italy, and its limitations. By examining an individual trajectory – that of Angelo Scanziani, son of a Lombard immigrant, dragoman of the sultan Abdülhamid II – the paper shows that loyalties were multiple and that affiliations were more individual than national. In this regard, languages are a capital rather than the instrument of an elusive national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into students' view on English-medium instruction (EMI) in two South European countries, Italy and Spain. In particular, two topics which have been less frequently investigated are addressed: the linguistic demands of students and the need students may feel for some form of language assistance. To this end, a paper-based questionnaire was given to 290 undergraduate students, 145 of whom being Italian (from the Department of Engineering) and 145 Spanish (from the Departments of Business Administration, Engineering, Economics, History, Economics and Law, Marketing, and Public Administration). The questionnaire contained close-ended and open-ended questions regarding their preuniversity EMI experiences, whether content teachers should be assisted by language experts, and what aspect of EMI teaching should be paid heed to. The results revealed some agreement between the two nationality groups, with some interesting exceptions regarding the language skills students viewed as more difficult, and as a result, the areas in which they feel the need for language support. In general, both groups favoured language assistance, although they considered that this responsibility does not fall within the remit of content lecturers. The data also showed differences linked to the specific disciplines, thereby confirming the impact of students' specialization on the EMI experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ricerche di Pedagogia e Didattica is the property of Universita di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Educazione and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Women movement have long seemed little interested in law, and traditional legal scholars were little interested in gender studies. However, throughout the twentieth century, women's movements produced a real revolution in the legal order. This paper discusses the different stages of the relationship between women's movements and the Italian way to gender equal opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Il Capitale Culturale: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage is the property of Il Capitale Culturale Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is a short history of Italian marine biology, starting from the mid 16th century. During the Renaissance, a profound curiosity for marine sciences animated the scientific thought and several Italian naturalists started to collect rare and unusual marine items, sometimes acting with little critical sense towards medieval unbelievable legends. The 17th and 18th centuries saw a development of botany and zoology as modern disciplines and Italian scholars started to study the Mediterranean fauna and flora. They became active mainly at the Universities of Trieste, Venice, Palermo, Naples, Rome and Genoa and in other scientific institutions that arose under the different political regimes in which Italy was divided at that time. The Kingdom of Italy, born in 1861 with enormous financial difficulties, was interested in reaching an international scientific limelight: hence, some oceanographic expeditions were organized all around the world with a significant collection of data and specimens. The scientific interest for sea life increased and became at international level at the end of the 19th century, with the foundations of the first shore-based Zoological Stations in Trieste and Naples. At the beginning of the 20th century, intensive studies of inshore benthic communities by dredging and, afterwards by diving, started concurrently with those on structure and dynamics of plankton and fish populations which yielded a significant knowledge of the marine life from the Mediterranean continental platform. After the Second World War, the fundamental studies conducted at the Zoological Station of Naples on genetics, embryology and developmental biology using marine organisms as study models, were spread to different universities, going to constitute an Italian school of experimental embryology of international value. Today, the modern Italian marine biology is increasingly multi-disciplinary, requiring the participation of biochemists, geneticists and mathematicians and it opens up to new frontiers often linked to the global changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studia Historica Brunensia is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Natural history museums are irreplaceable tools to study and preserve the biological diversity around the globe and among the primary actors in the recognition of species and the logical repositories for their type specimens. In this paper we surveyed the consistency of the preserved specimens of amphibians and reptiles housed in the major Italian scientific collections, and verified the presence of threatened species according to the IUCN Red List, including the Extinct (EX), Extinct in the Wild (EW), Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), and Vulnerable (VU) categories. Altogether, we analyzed 39 Italian zoological collections. We confirmed the presence of one extinct reptile (Chioninia coctei) and five extinct or extinct in the wild amphibian species (Atelopus longirostris, Nectophrynoides asperginis, Pseudophilautus leucorhinus, P. nasutus, and P. variabilis). Seven CR amphibians, fourteen CR reptile species and the extinct skink C. coctei are shared by more than one institution. Museums which host the highest number of threatened and extinct amphibian species are respectively Turin (17 CR and 1 EX), Florence (13 CR and 1 EX), and Trento (15 CR and 1 EW), while for reptiles the richest museums are those from Genoa (15 CR and 1 EX), Florence (11 CR and 1 EX), and Pisa (7 CR). Finally, we discussed the utility of natural history museums and the strategies to follow for the implementation of their functionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present a brief overview on Emanuele Casamassima and his research on palaeography and the history of the book. The following topics are discussed: - cataloguing manuscripts according to different models (analytical, short, shared descriptions) - restoration of manuscript and printed books - palaeographic doctrines from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance - importance of sixteenth-century Italian writing masters for the study of the history of handwriting - aspects of the history of the handwriting in the late Middle Ages (the writing of Petrarch and Boccaccio; the humanistic graphic reform) - palaeography as a study of graphic structures, with a focus on the cursive tradition, especially during the Roman age (1st-4th centuries) and in the Middle Ages (10th-13th centuries). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper deals with Italian modernist movement within the Catholic Church as it was reported in the Rinnovamento magazine. The aim is also to examine how the magazine influenced this movement. After an introductory part the reasons of the magazine’s origin is explained and is completed with the presentation of its program declaration. Then the attention is focused on the modernist movement. Firstly the word “modernism” is explained through its different interpretations. After that the main thematic areas are presented. These areas were considered to be the basis of so called “modernist teaching” fought by the Authorities of the Catholic Church. The conflict with religious authority is described in the next part. Rinnovamento’s influence on the modernist movement is evaluated in the final part. The magazine is an important source of information for studying this critical moment of the history of the Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Review of International Affairs (04866096) is the property of Institute of International Politics & Economics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Historiografía Lingüística (BSEHL) is the property of Sociedad Espanola de Historiografia Linguistica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Groundwater contamination due to municipal solid waste landfills leachate is a serious environmental threat. During recent years, the use of stable isotopes as environmental tracers to identify groundwater contamination phenomena has found application to environmental engineering. Deuterium (2H) and oxygen (18O) isotopes have successfully used to identify groundwater contamination phenomena if submitted to interactions with municipal solid waste landfills leachate, with a significant organic amount. The paper shows two case studies, in central and southern Italy, where potential contamination phenomenon of groundwater under municipal solid waste landfills occurred. In both cases, isotope compositions referred to 2H and 18O highlight a δ2H enrichment for some groundwater samples taken in wells, located near leachate storage wells. The δ2H enrichment is probably caused by methanogenesis phenomena, during which the bacteria use preferentially the hydrogen "lighter" isotope (1H), and the remaining enriched the "heavier" isotope (2H). The study of the isotope composition variation, combined with the spatial trend of some analytes (Fe, Mn, Ni) concentrations, allowed to identify interaction phenomena between the municipal solid waste landfills leachate and groundwater in both case histories. Therefore, these results confirm the effectiveness of 2H isotopes application as environmental tracer of groundwater contamination phenomena due to mixing with municipal solid waste landfills leachate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically assesses Italian scholarship on the history of witchcraft over the last 60 years. Beginning with Carlo Ginzburg's influential Night Battles (published in 1966 and translated to English in 1983) and ending with the recent work of Matteo Duni, Tamar Herzig, Vincenzo Lavenia and Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, the article traces the intellectual contexts and shifts in historiographical debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the fatal grip of the Covid-19 pandemic started to ease, in summer 2022 Italy underwent seismic political developments, which saw the establishment of the first totally populist radical right government in Italian history. On 25 September 2022, the general elections shook up the Italian political scene, with Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) scoring a resounding victory that earned the party the seat of the Prime Minister. Despite fears of a radicalisation of FdI resulting in a neofascist government, evidence points in a different direction. Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate whether, in the first 100 days in government, FdI moderated, radicalised, or displayed continuity with its trademark ideology and manifesto pledges. While acknowledging the copious amount of bills, decrees, and laws proposed by the governing coalition, as well as a plethora of speeches they released, in the interest of space, the scope of this article is circumscribed to the analysis of the new executive, with a special emphasis on FdI, in the timeframe between the election results and the first 100 days of the new government. Considering this evidence, this article argues that FdI is definitely acting as a populist radical right party, tilted towards moderation, and, mostly, continuity with the 2022 electoral pledges, albeit with some oscillations to radicalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alien species are species that are introduced into an area where they are not naturally present. Some of them may exert negative ecological impacts, thus being defined as invasive. The aoudad or Barbary sheep Ammotragus lervia is a north-African ungulate commercialised and introduced for game hunting to Europe, South Africa, and America. As a generalist herbivore, the aoudad has a high capacity to adapt to new habitat conditions, possibly representing a threat to local biodiversity. We studied the aoudad population present in the Beigua Natural Regional Park in Liguria, northwestern Italy. By using historical data and camera trapping data, we reconstructed the colonization process and current distribution, estimated minimum abundance, assessed population trends over the years, and investigated habitat selection and activity rhythms. Aoudads most likely escaped from a game reserve in Ponzone Municipality, Piedmont, and settled in the park at least since 2009. The minimum number alive doubled in 10 years, from 9 to 23, and the population shows an increasing trend. Aoudads showed a preference for steep, rocky and woody areas in the southern and warmer part of the Beigua massif, especially at intermediate elevations. Some observations have recently occurred in the northern part of the Park, potentially due to geographical expansion. Aoudads show mostly diurnal activity, unlike native ungulates such as roe deer Capreolus capreolus and wild boar Sus scrofa which were most active at dawn, dusk and during the night, possibly reflecting anti-predator behaviour towards wolf Canis lupus. Our results are in line with other studies, though births occurred across a wider period of time compared with native populations. As the potential ecological impacts of this alien species in the study area have never been investigated, it will be important to monitor the population and evaluate its ecological effects to provide the most appropriate management solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historia y Memoria de la Educación is the property of Historia y Memoria de la Educacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

During the Risorgimento (1800–61), southern Italy was less industrial than central‐northern Italy and initially agricultural provinces in the north saw rapid structural transformation. During the Renaissance (1400–1600), structural transformation in the south led to a near halving of the initial difference in agricultural employment share between the centre‐north and the south, but convergence came to a halt with the 'seventeenth‐century crisis'. These trends suggest that regional inequality was evolving rather than persistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the history of Snia Viscosa and its moves into the production of staple fibres and cellulose (as well as allied chemicals) between 1933 and 1970. This is a neglected but crucial episode in the business as well as industrial history of Italy and feeds into a variety of debates, most notably the nature and impact of autarky. This article confirms that autarky stimulated innovation via scale economies rather than a demand-induced effect. It also seems to show that, while redistributing resources also towards giant firms not directly involved in the war effort, autarky led to an overexpansion of technologies which were overtaken by wholly synthetic fibres, in the production of which Snia Viscosa lagged behind. One strength of the article lies in its extensive sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sinkholes are a widespread geological hazard, typical of karst lands, where they generally originate as collapse features related to presence of underground voids. Nevertheless, other types of sinkholes can be formed through solution, suffusion and sagging processes. Sinkholes can also be originated in relation to artificial cavities, excavated by man in past times. In Italy, sinkholes interest large sectors of the country, given the very long history of Italy with an intense utilization of the underground. They cause serious damage to infrastructures, economic activities, and human health every year. We present a catalogue on natural and anthropogenic sinkholes in Italy, as the first step toward evaluation of the sinkhole hazard. After introducing sinkholes, which is definitely a highly underrated type of disaster in Italy, we point out their occurrence in the country. We illustrate the methodology used to build the database, with particular focus on accuracy and reliability of the data. Collecting information from different types of sources, a catalogue of some 1190 sinkhole events is built. Database structure and data analysis are then illustrated. Eventually, we draw some conclusions on the likely uses of our work by providing recommendations for environmental management on this very delicate issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines how early moderns used birth horoscopes (genitures) to assess the compatibility of prospective spouses before marriage. Astrologers could probe the horoscope of an individual to investigate his or her present and future physical and moral qualities or compare charts to reveal the personal compatibility of a couple and help establish the best time to consummate their marriage. These practices aimed at ensuring a fruitful marriage and the harmony and happiness of the couple and their families. Focusing on a few key examples, the essay outlines both the astrological theories and the social politics that propelled astrological matching, suggesting that its appeal lay in the promise of informed choice while also preserving free will. Finally, the author suggests ways in which astrological practices and the use of vast amounts of astronomical data share affinities with data-driven matching in our own time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Definition: Frederick III of Aragon, King of Sicily (1296-1337). Frederick III of Aragon was the third king of the Aragonese dynasty on the throne of Sicily. He ruled from 1296 to 1337 and he was the only Aragonese king of Sicily who made a significant use of his image. In particular, we have four official (namely, commissioned directly by him or his entourage) representations of him: the royal seal, the billon silver denaro coin, the lost mosaic from the Church of Santa Maria della Valle (known as Badiazza) near Messina, and the mosaic in the Cathedral of Messina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides the first harmonized quantitative evidence on the rise of mass education across the provinces (today's NUTS 3) of Italy and Spain in the period c. 1861–1921. Visual analysis of this new dataset suggests that an important factor linked to the expansion of schooling was the feminization of the teaching profession, something that has been largely neglected so far in quantitative historical studies of educational development. This hypothesis is put to the test using panel‐data models. The results show that the feminization of teaching went hand in hand with the rise of schooling rates by prompting more girls to enrol into primary education. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Italy's gross enrolment rate had surpassed that of Spain—partly as the result of increasing feminization within the primary‐school teaching profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an early modern wage index for stable rural male workers in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. These wages highlight the importance of distinguishing between locations and contract types when considering historical workers' living standards, and they speak to a longstanding debate about whether Italy's early modern downturn was purely an urban phenomenon, or an all‐embracing one. Our data lend support to the former view, since we do not detect any downturn in our early modern rural wages. This observation informs the little divergence debate. By comparing rural rather than urban wages and stable rather than casual ones, we find that annual English earnings rose from being only 10 per cent higher than those in Italy in 1650 to being a staggering 150 per cent higher in 1800. If wages reflected labour productivity, then unskilled English workers—unlike their Italian counterparts—grew increasingly productive in the run‐up to the industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to rebuild the Italian policies in regards to migrations of the last thirty years by using available statistical data. During these years Italy has finally overcome its old role – being an emigration country – to become a new destination for many migrants. We would like to underline how these policies are not related to actual inflows, and how lawmaking considers the migration phenomenon as a threat to public order. It is possible to highlight a first phase (1980-1990), during which laws are mostly exceptional and administrative measures for managing migrations and recognition of the rights to those who live and work in Italy. A second phase (1990-2001), during which Italian governments try to establish a more systematic framework on immigration; a third phase (2002-2011), during which laws have been changed in a more restrictive and repressive sense.

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Background: The cline of human genetic diversity observable across Europe is recapitulated at a micro-geographic scale by variation within the Italian population. Besides resulting from extensive gene flow, this might be ascribable also to local adaptations to diverse ecological contexts evolved by people who anciently spread along the Italian Peninsula. Dissecting the evolutionary history of the ancestors of present-day Italians may thus improve the understanding of demographic and biological processes that contributed to shape the gene pool of European populations. However, previous SNP array-based studies failed to investigate the full spectrum of Italian variation, generally neglecting low-frequency genetic variants and examining a limited set of small effect size alleles, which may represent important determinants of population structure and complex adaptive traits. To overcome these issues, we analyzed 38 high-coverage whole-genome sequences representative of population clusters at the opposite ends of the cline of Italian variation, along with a large panel of modern and ancient Euro-Mediterranean genomes. Results: We provided evidence for the early divergence of Italian groups dating back to the Late Glacial and for Neolithic and distinct Bronze Age migrations having further differentiated their gene pools. We inferred adaptive evolution at insulin-related loci in people from Italian regions with a temperate climate, while possible adaptations to pathogens and ultraviolet radiation were observed in Mediterranean Italians. Some of these adaptive events may also have secondarily modulated population disease or longevity predisposition. Conclusions: We disentangled the contribution of multiple migratory and adaptive events in shaping the heterogeneous Italian genomic background, which exemplify population dynamics and gene-environment interactions that played significant roles also in the formation of the Continental and Southern European genomic landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Italy is plenty of reforms of the electoral system. Many are those implemented since the country's unification: from the majority system to the limited vote, from proportional representation to the majority premium in the liberal era; and, again, in the Republican era, the return to proportional representation and then the use of mixed systems, combining PR with plurality or majority premium. And many other are the reforms which, discussed and sometimes even approved, as in the case of the italicum, have remained dead letter or never saw the light. What explains this Italic obsession with the electoral systems? Why have their reforms been on the parties' and governments' political agenda for so long? The goal of this article is to answer these questions. In the end, electoral reforms have played as instruments of coordination and adaptation in the political strategies pursued by the parties in specific time periods and also as substitute instruments of institutional engineering in the absence of broader agreements on major constitutional reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper deals with Italian modernist movement within the Catholic Church as it was reported in the Rinnovamento magazine. The aim is also to examine how the magazine influenced this movement. After an introductory part the reasons of the magazine’s origin is explained and is completed with the presentation of its program declaration. Then the attention is focused on the modernist movement. Firstly the word “modernism” is explained through its different interpretations. After that the main thematic areas are presented. These areas were considered to be the basis of so called “modernist teaching” fought by the Authorities of the Catholic Church. The conflict with religious authority is described in the next part. Rinnovamento’s influence on the modernist movement is evaluated in the final part. The magazine is an important source of information for studying this critical moment of the history of the Catholic Church.

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Copyright of Ars Adriatica is the property of Sveuciliste u Zadru (University of Zadar) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Altreitalie is the property of Centro Altreitalie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the notebook entitled "Iter Perusinum anno 1643" written by German scholar Lukas Holste. The article states that Holste described his thoughts on a visit to Perugia, Italy, at the behest of Catholic Church cardinal Francesco Barberini in order to observe the war of Castro. The article states that Holste wrote the passages in the notebook between July 10, 1643, and October 26, 1643. The article discusses the significance of Holste's observations concerning antiquities that he discovered during his stay and the origins of the pieces he observed.