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By using unpublished documents, the essay retraces the funerals that were officiated in Modena during the first half of the seventeenth century and investigates, for the first time, the ceremonials and catafalques built in honour of Alfonso II (1599), Virginia de' Medici (1615), Isabella of Savoy (1626), Cesare d'Este (1629), Maria Farnese (1646) and Vittoria Farnese (1649). The contribution shows the decorative choices made for the Este family funerals, the iconographies in honour of the departed and the names of the artists who created them. The study includes the reports of the XVII century chronicles and contributions of ambassadors who took part in the Este ceremonies to demonstrate the high political meaning of the ephemeral funerary conceived and developed in the ducal court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. 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 Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. 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 Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. 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 Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. 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 Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. 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 examines an inventory of the merchandise present in a Florentine stationer's shop in 1348. The list not only provides a record of the goods, but also includes their market value, enabling the valuation of the paper notebooks contained in the shop. As a result, it becomes feasible to determine the very high cost of the four large paper notebooks considered a few years earlier as having an equivalent value as the renowned code of Dante's Comedy owned by Giovanni Villani. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the way the British historian Jonathan Parry narrates the economic and political penetration of the British Empire in the Ottoman lands. The author of the paper recognizes that Parry has provided many new and useful information, however notices in his book some questionable aspects: for example, in Parry’s representation, British expansionism was little more than a continuous, necessary reaction to French and Russian ambitions; the “cultural history” side of the book is intriguing but doesn’t provide a deep insight and a comparative pattern; important aspects of the “Ottoman commitment” of some of the dramatis personae (for instance David Urquhart) are ignored. Criticism of the various sections of Parry’s book is the starting point for a subjective conceptual road map, where reference is mainly to either old and neglected books or recent and scarcely known ones. A big parenthesis is devoted to the 3 November 1839 “Rose Garden Edict”. Indeed, the British historian belittles the importance of this document and, in particular, doubts it affirmed the juridical equality among all the subjects of the Ottoman Empire. With an integral translation from Turkish of the first (and more important) part of the edict the author of this paper demonstrates that this famous document really envisaged equality, albeit in the sole possible way the fences of the Koranic law and the spirit of the times allowed, i.e., in an implicit and ambiguous way. In this section and along the paper philological clarifications are provided as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saffron in the Middle Ages was the most precious spice, a luxury good with an important international trade. Italy was the main producer in Europe, together with Spain and, to a lesser extent, France; Italian saffron was among the most valuable and sought-after qualities. In the Peninsula, the cultivation of saffron was practiced in some territorial contexts, including Apulia, the second center in the Kingdom of Naples after the Abruzzi. This contribution will deal with the cultivation and trade of this spice in Terra d'Otranto between the 15th and 16th centuries. The purpose of the paper is to show the importance assumed by saffron in the economy of this province, a periphery at the center of international commercial circuits, a crop often marginalized by historical research, to the advantage of olive growing. Different sources will be used (fiscal, notarial, historical-geographical, commercial) to illustrate the spread of crocus cultivation and its presence on foreign markets thanks to the presence of foreign merchants, especially Germans. After examining the phenomenon in the province, Casalnuovo in the 16th century was taken into consideration as a case study, for which some notarial deeds were examined from which interesting details emerge. Ultimately, the fiscal aspects of the saffron trade were exposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nuova Rivista Storica is the property of Societa Editrice Dante Alighieri s.r.l. 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 confinement of Michelangelo Florio in the Roman prison in Tor di Nona and later in the monastery of Santi Apostoli from February 1547 until his escape in May 1549 was known only from his Apology (1557); but the records of his examinations (beginning from October 1548) are preserved in the very earliest papers of Archivio storico of the former Congregazione del Sant'Uffizio, which was opened to the scholars only in 1998. These papers report only brief notes about cardinals and officers involved and resolutions taken and unveil some details about the long confinement and the remarkable escape of the former fra Paolo Antonio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the symbolic dimension of Vesuvius in the Middle Ages, with particular reference to its characterisation as a place devoted to the punishment of the sinners. Starting from a comparison with Etna, a volcano that enjoyed a more deeply rooted "infernal" tradition, the sources examined (ranging from Jordanes to Pier Damiani) are analysed not so much to retrace the chronological succession of Campania volcano's eruptions as to highlight how lava became an effective metaphor for interpreting the moral sense of reality. The magmatic spectacles, in fact, had contributed to making Vesuvius a popular literary topos for representing infernal punishments, although the damage caused by its eruptions was also well known, and these destructive events had also contributed to the creation of legends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze Yugo-Anglo-American relations during the first phase of the Yugo-Soviet rapprochement, which took place between 1953 and 1955. To this purpose, it is necessary to study some important events occurred in 1952, when a number of negative factors started to affect Yugo-Western relations, months before Stalin’s death and Khrushchev’s overtures to Tito. The failure of the military talks held in November 1952 had deep negative consequences on Yugo-Anglo-American relations. The US and Great Britain aimed to achieve some important goals by “keeping Tito afloat”: firstly, to encourage a joint military planning with Yugoslavia, in order to strengthen the Southern flank of NATO; secondly, to exploit the Yugoslav example as a sort of “wedge” to undermine the cohesion of the red Bloc; lastly, in the very long term, to favor a “regime change” in Yugoslavia, through the progressive democratization of the political life and free elections. From the very beginning, Tito and his closest associates judged Western economic and military cooperation as widely unsatisfactory for Yugoslavia, even if it was essential for its survival. In their opinion, the Western aid proved to be a form of political pressure, aimed at reducing Yugoslavia’s independence without providing a full guarantee in terms of security. As a consequence, when the USSR changed its approach towards Yugoslavia, Tito was eager to set up new relations with Moscow, and to develop his foreign policy towards equidistance and non-alignment. Given the Soviet not-so-hidden effort to reassert ideological and political control over Yugoslavia, the Yugo-Western relations retained a great importance for Yugoslavia; however, in Tito’s mind, these relations had to change deeply. In the new scenario, he needed political support and economic aid from the West, while military cooperation became useless, if not harmful, to his purposes. For the US and Great Britain, the problem was that all Western projects about Yugoslavia depended on a stable and fruitful military cooperation. Therefore, during the years analyzed in this paper, Yugo-Western relations continued to develop, but new problems arose: while the Western side tried to keep the military cooperation alive, Tito moved staunchly towards equidistance, refusing military commitments. The illusory successes kept in 1953-1954 (namely the Balkan Pact, the London memorandum on Trieste and many agreements in the economic and military field) could not prevent a progressive weakening of Yugo-Western relations, that ended up with the official recognition of East Germany and with the definitive interruption of military aid, both decided by Tito at the end of 1957. These traumatic events, however, had their roots in the slow but steady worsening of Yugo-Western relations that occurred between 1952 and 1955, in consequence of the Yugo-Soviet rapprochement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the activity related to the production of weapons in the period between the end of the twenties and the early forties, in the electrochemical site of Bussi in Abruzzo. The Site was a strategic plant for the Italian government which productions were subjected to the strictest military secret. The plant was producing chemical weapons (phosgene and mustard gas) and super explosives such as the T4, the most powerful explosive in the world that together with the pentrite, always produced on site, were considered essential products for the defense of the Italian country. In particular, the T4 was produced for the first time in the plant with a process that was using only domestic raw materials, so an independent process that set Italy free from German imports. Additional military productions of interest of the Abruzzo's plant were the chlorate-based explosives for which it was initiated a completely new industrial cycle that boosted even further the capacities of Montecatini. Finally, in the paper we report the production of antiknock compound for fuels and the complex relationship between the Italian State (site of Bussi) the General Motor Chemical Company and the Du Pont de Nemours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses Orazio Cancila’s latest work dedicated to the town of Castelbuono. It is a book on local history that recounts the thousand-year history of the urban community, both highlighting the epochal, problematic passages and illuminating, with careful descriptions, the most significant characters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of the hospital runs by the confraternity of S. Giovanni Battista, the most emblematic institution of the Genoese community in papal Rome, has not been fully detailed, primarily due to difficulties in accessing the scarce archive resources available. The hospital, however, is a chapter of the broader history of the social, cultural, political, and financial exchanges between Genoa and the papacy, in the context of that “Genoese Rome” which is still, overall, poorly documented. The hospital was founded in the early sixteenth century to assist the Genoese seamen who landed at the Rome port of Ripa Grande, continuing operating until 1704, even with some shady crisis in the decades leading up to the mid-seventeenth century. Specifically, this paper analyses that crisis thanks to the dispatches exchanged by the government of the Republic and its emissaries at the papal court. It seems that S. Giovanni Battista greatly strayed from the eminent standards set by the Genoese administration, representing a charitable institution (largely subsidized by means of bequeaths) the efficiency of which was disputed by the Genoese philosopher and political theorist Andrea Spinola (1562-1631). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relations between the cities of Tuscany and Pope Gregory XI, in relation to Florence's desire to push Lucca and Pisa to join the anti-papal league formed with Milan in the summer of 1375. In this relationship between Florence and the two cities of north-western Tuscany, Saint Catherine of Siena's role is highlighted. At the same time, new questions are raised for future research: what was the attitude of the Tuscan clergy? And what was the attitude of the papal rectors in central Italy? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the diplomatic relations between Venice and the Ottoman sultan Mehmed I (1413-1421), focusing on the negotiations for the release of the Venetians captured during the ottoman raid in Negroponte (1414). The ransom of the captives will be analysed as a part of the flexible Venetian diplomacy, with the aim to study the original sides of this activity and its practical aspects, such as the role of the diplomatic actors and the impact of privateering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims to deepen the events linked to Italian affairs in the Horn of Africa, from the first statements of interest during the pre-unification period to the paradigm shift that led our country to promote - albeit unevenly - a colonial policy crowning with the rise of nationalism during Fascism. Eritrea will thus be analyzed as officially proclaimed in 1890 the first colony gained by Italy. The paper will profit from some unpublished manuscript and printed sources found in the historical archives of the Grand Orient of Italy and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome by investigating the Masonic presence there from 1891 - shortly after its proclamation - to 1956, with a break from 1925 to 1941. It will show how the lodges were essential centers of sociability and gathering through which the universal Masonic values of brotherhood and solidarity were conveyed. The Freemasons actively boosted the development of the colony, supporting the establishment of public facilities and opposing the regime through the foundation of national liberty movements and antifascist initiatives - such as the National Antifascist Union. From some files preserved in the archives of the Grand Orient of Italy, it emerges how the fascist services - working covertly in Eritrea after the freeing by the English in 1941 - considered Freemasonry and the Eritrean Lodge of Asmara, founded in that very year, as the heart of antifascism, persecuting its members and killing its worshipful master. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tries to provide an analysis and some reflections on the space that studies relating to "Ecclesiastical Control", "control of consciences and ecclesiastical organization in the social context", inquisition and heresies, cults, identity and holiness, politics and religion have occupied in the Italian historiographical panorama of the last twenty years. This analysis was drawn using the metaphor of the "parable", as already done by other scholars and in other fields, to indicate the alternating historiographical fortunes of some specific themes within this area of studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the book that V. Camelliti has recently dedicated to «artists and art patronage in Pisa in the 13th-15th centuries». Camelliti shares the criticism expressed by A. Savorelli about the interpretation of Pisan typical «red banner» proposed by local chroniclers in the late 14th century. Although the origin of this Pisan «vexillum» can be effectively traced back to the concessions made to Pisa by emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1162), in the Trecento Pisan citizens believed that the red banner had been granted to the city by the popes of early 11th century, in order to promote the liberation of Sardinia from the Saracens. Not before the end of the 13th century the red banner was added with a white cross, which became the typical sign of the Pisan «Popolo». The pages written about this matter by Camelliti perhaps need a more precise anchorage to the political context of the city between 13th and 14th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present the unique case of Marino Mauriello, a notarychronicler active in Benevento, papal enclave in the Kingdom of Naples, between the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. It relies on studies dedicated to the propensity of notaries to extend their duty of preserving memory from the habitual transactions recorded in notarial acts to accounts of historical or more personal facts, in order to discuss the (re)discovered short historical notes of Mauriello. It interprets what Mauriello's historical accounts reveal about the man and his work, his cultural and political influences in the context of the notarial profession and the survival of notarial documentation in Benevento. It further investigates his political affiliation through two anonymous epitaphs that the notary copied in one of his protocols. Finally, the complete historical notes are published in the Annex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing interest that has been given to diplomatic documentations in the past two decades has brought forth “schools”, editions of letters and correspondence, symposiums and dedicated publications. The analysis of this sources is showing its inherent interdisciplinary potentialities. Taking the production of the past three years as a starting point and focusing on four recent editions and two collections of essays, this paper will highlight methods and problems of such a research strand. While letters are extraordinary information deposits, they can also be a labyrinth where one must not lose his way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to explore the historical approaches of the exiled Jesuit Mariano Llorente (1752-1816). For this analysis, I deepen vision of the Spanish colonies in America and the defense of the image of the king Felipe II. I pretend to understand better the writing and patriotic sensibility of this Valencian Jesuit, in accordance with other contemporary members of the Society of Jesus. I will focus his written production as a reaffirmation of imperial authority in America and exercise of appropriation of Spain’s history. Within the framework of the Eighteenth Century intellectual debates on history and «national characters», this novice performs an exercise of cultural distinction between Spain and the rest of European powers. His writing produces many stereotypes that reinforce, at the same time, the inequality between Europe and America. Llorente’s work, apparently coherent, highlight certain contradictions that question a pronounced dichotomy between Europe and its others, a cultural relationship that cannot be reduced to a single definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caucasian diaspora was formed when refugees came from their native lands in Northern and South-western Caucasus, as a consequence of the extermination and expulsion policies that were implemented by the Tsarist Empire. In the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, displaced Caucasians not only represented a considerable proportion of the Muslim population in Anatolia, but also came to occupy a large part of the Ottoman state apparatus, especially in the army. This paper provides due preliminary information on this scarcely known topic that pertains to millions of people in modern-day Turkey, the majority of which are Circassians. During WWI, individuals and communities from the Caucasus acted as loyal and willing Ottoman Muslims, but, at the same time, they strove to return to their lost native lands. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire and the Mudros truce, many Caucasians had a prominent role in the “Turkish national struggle”, but were reluctant to abandon the irredentist perspective; many others joined the loyalist, anti-nationalist camp and it was a Circassian, the Circassian par excellence, Ethem Dipsheu, who openly challenged Mustafa Kemal’s leadership inside the nationalist movement. Before the foundation of the Republic, some Circassian communities who had reportedly committed betrayal were punished with deportation from the Marmara Sea region to Eastern Anatolia. In this way Mustafa Kemal warned both the powerful Caucasian lobby inside the establishment and the whole population of the “new Turkey”: nothing other than complete commitment to the Turkish nation would be accepted and the expression of separate identities would be totally forbidden. Hence, the Circassians were the first victims of the Kemalist regime’s massive repression. With few exceptions, the Caucasians bowed their heads, whereas many Kurds did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the end of WWII, Dodecanese was set by the British Army. The Italian administration, that collaborated with the Wehrmacht after September 1943, was arrested and deported. Only very few people were allowed to stay and work for the British Military Administration. Among them, the former Podestà of Rhodes, Antonio Macchi, and the sergeant of the Carabinieri Francesco Corletti, who tried to destroy - in collaboration with the Italian government - the most compromising Italian documents, hiding the misdeeds of the past regime. Although they stated, that they had burned the most relevant documents, recent archival discoveries lead us to doubt their words. In 2013 a small group of scholars from Greece and Italy brought to light the important archive of the Royal Carabinieri Group - Special Central Office, hosted for all these years within the Rhodes police station. Founded in 1932, the archive preserves bureaucratic certificates, such as permits and authorizations, as well as confidential reports, records of personal habits and their political views. The new archive contains about 90,000 personal files that include information of a private nature on Italians, Greeks, Turks, Jews and foreigners who lived in Rhodes and on the other islands. Since some of the documents have, in part to do with Jewish citizens, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum of Washington D.C. has expressed a large amount of interest in this archive, offering a grant in order to digitize part of it. As is shown in the paper, Corletti and Macchi over-exaggerated the level of their authorisation to access files kept within archives to Rome. For these reasons, it is difficult to state exactly, what had been destroyed by Macchi and Corletti in 1945-1947. Actually, the fact that they weren't able to touch any important paper from the former Italian administration is more than a suspicion. At the same time, one can underline the attitude of the new democratic Italy, that appears complicit in trying to cover events and misdeeds of the Fascist Regime in Dodecanese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Late Middle Ages, "robba" was a general term used in documents to reference clothes, ornaments and objects such as caps, doublets, candles, knives, buttons, trimmings, and so on. The letters written by Margherita Datini to her husband Francesco, a wealthy merchant of Prato, between 1384 and 1410, inform us precisely of what consisted this so-called "robba". If the first section of this paper will reason about the objects recorded in the Datini correspondence, a second part will reflected instead on the excellent surveillance, management and administration of these goods that made Margherita a good administrator and also a capable economic operator. Once acknowledged Margherita's abilities, in this paper one intends to focuse on the goods described by the merchant's wife. Through a lexical analysis, said things and their different acquisition forms of registry will be studied: for example, sometimes she urged her husband to buy directly some of these items, while others, they were simply moved from one of their homes to another, since Francesco and Margherita did not live together. Besides this lexical aspect, this research will also try to shed light on the Datini's practices and logistics in acquiring goods, especially on the time required for buying and receiving these objects, and on who was in charge to do this. Particularly regarding these purchases, the recipients of such merchandise as well as the prices of acquired goods will be, when possible, reported, as well as their origins and possible places where they were kept. After examining the "robba", the third part of this paper will be dedicated to their administration and also to how Margherita managed the family's financial resources. To better contextualize her role as an economic operator, this study, at last, will reason on the relationship between women and work in the Late Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a reading of Francesco Senatore's Una città, il Regno: istituzioni e società a Capua nel XV secolo, Roma 2018. Moving from the analysis conducted by Senatore on the urban society of a celebrated city in the XV century, the essay aims to discuss three major points: the long-standing comparison between northern and southern cities in Italy; the evolution of the Universitas as an articulation of the Reign; the barons and their presence within the walls of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The priest Domenico Costantini from the oratory of St. Phillip Neri in Reggio Emilia was a cleric investigated for sexual offences and Satanism between 1772 and 1779. He incurred into two trials over that period: the first one was held by the Inquisition Court, as widely researched by Giuseppe Orlandi, while the second, almost unknown to the academic world, was led by the Episcopal Court of Reggio Emilia. The paper suggests the re-enactment of the legislative procedures related to this father of the Saint Phillip Neri clerical order, through archivist research, related to this particular period of time where the main clerical courts of the city were losing influence in favour to the ducal ones during the jurisdictionalism. These two trials, analysed in this paper, fully show how the collective consciousness on the satanic rituals was still deeply rooted in the citizenry and it exposes the existence of sexual crimes within the ecclesiastical community, which was constantly chased but hard to get rid of and still extremely current. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Ukrainian crisis, since 2014, the international community witnessed multiple breaches of the liberal international Western-led order. One of the most blatant regarded an agreement signed by the parties involved in the conflict over two decades earlier in Budapest. The paper analyzes the nature, the content and the uchronic sides of the agreements signed in the Hungarian capital which have had substantial implications on the dynamics of the ongoing Ukrainian conflict as well as the evolution (involution?) of Kiev’s security. As a matter of fact, one of the first international agreements largely disregarded during the Ukrainian crisis was indeed the Budapest Memorandum. What was it about? It is commonly unknown that during three years since its independence, Ukraine was the third largest nuclear power in the world, holding approximately 4000 nuclear weapons. In 1994, at the edge of the Budapest Summit Conference on Security and Cooperation within European Countries, the three depositary states for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (TNP) – namely the United States, the Russian Federation and Great Britain – agreed to (supposedly) guarantee for the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus in exchange for the surrender of their entire nuclear arsenals to the Russian Federation, sole heir to the Soviet Union. In view of the current military confrontation between Kiev and Moscow, the essay will look into how this decision taken more than twenty years ago, would have direct effects on one of the most relevant geopolitical crisis of the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of this paper is the historical reconstruction of the relations between the Cannes and Venice International Film Festivals on the eve of the Second World War and during its course. On the one hand, the paper aims to show the direct interconnections and mutual influences between these two cultural institutions; on the other hand, the contribution intends to reveal the variety of factors and actors (political, economical and cultural), that were involved in these forms of international mobilization. In 1938 the Cannes Film Festival's idea had arisen in clear opposition to the Nazi-Fascist drift of the Venice Mostra, but its first edition was cancelled because of the German invasion of Poland. Despite this, since late September 1939 and also during the Nazi-Fascist occupation and the Vichy regime, French organizers tried to find a form of collaboration with Venice officials in order to arrange both manifestations, without competing with the Mostra. This contribution reveals the importance of studying Film Festivals as cultural diplomacy's tools for improving international relations even in wartime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between Perugia and its countryside in the Middle Ages, seen on the overall context of the relationship between the city and the rural area. The study is based on a critical revision of the traditional historiographical reconstruction and on a very large number of unpublished sources, especially related to the XIV century. The essay aims to explain the complexity of the relationship between Perugia, the neighbouring small cities and the local powers, overcoming a linear and teleological vision focused on an urban-centric reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we will try to read the events of the Great Siege of Malta of 1565 taken from La Verdadera relacion of Francesco Balbi da Correggio (1567) with a new perspective through the elaboration of some cartographic translations. The aim of these papers is to visualize and to deal with the relationships of these events with the maritime spaces and with the territory. The design of the places is enriched by a repertoire of signs (points, lines and surfaces) which draw different phenomena in terms of quantity and/or quality. It therefore offers a clear representation of the "movements" of the defense troops and of the places where the Ottoman assaults took place. In this case study we would like also to highlight the potentiality of thematic cartography used not only as simple illustrative tool but also as real interpretative moment applied to the historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On July the 11th 1419, the Community of Cividale signed a pact of friendship with Venice, often mistankenly considered to be part of the numerous "deditiones" (pacts of willing subordination) that were signed between the Serenissima and several cities of Friuli. This paper aims to discuss and emphasize the importance of the deal between Cividale and Venice for the construction of the Venetian Mainland State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the private libraries of Sardinia, and casts a light on the Sardinian intellectual landscape of the fifteenth and sixteenth-century. The analysis is based on notarial documentation, in particular on the post mortem inventories. This paper examines the methodological issues related to the documents it is based on library collections of significance. The libraries' exam and classification allows us to underline their features and those social components who were more involved in the circulation of books. The paper also analyses what kind of books the libraries' owners were interested in and therefore their cultural background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a critical edition of the well-known Testamento de Roger a transcription made by M. J. Quintana from a parchment stored until at the beginning of the XIX century at the archive of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Santes Creus (Aiguamúrcia, Catalonia). The transcription is a will in a solemn form signed by the admiral Roger of Lauria (Kingdom of Sicily, 1245/1250 ca - Valencia, on 17th January 1305), his witnesses and the notary, Michael Gasol, at Lerida, on 10th September 1291. The paper discusses the formal characteristics of the document and finally defines it like a simple instrumentum with which Roger of Lauria commits his body after the death to the monastery. The paper continues with an analysis of the contents in relation to the medieval practice of the commitments for the soul ante mortem and to the historical context that is the War of the Sicilian Vespers (from 1282 to 1302). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death of Charles II of Habsburg and the designation of Philip of Anjou as the legitimate heir caused - in any territory belonging to the Spanish monarchy - the definition of new political languages and the creation of new networks of political and social relationships. This happened also in the Kingdom of Sicily, where the internal and international dynamics were strictly connected. In this context, the role played by the island was not passive, but allowed - respecting the hierarchies of power - to build networks of relationships, to achieve specific goals and to rethink the participation of the Kingdom within the larger context of Spanish monarchy. The paper aims to highlight as well as the Kingdom of Sicily, although it was in a marginal position in relation to the area of conflict, was affected by problems related to the defense, the financial contributions and the redefinition of the practices of loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the question of the national and international causes of the fall of fascism and Mussolini's role before and during the night of 24-25 July 1943. After the second battle of Alamein (23 October - 11 November 1942), in order to save the regime, Mussolini's main concern became how to reach a compromise peace agreement with Soviet Russia. As Hitler remained obdurate, however, the sole option left to the «Duce» was to send stern warnings to Berlin about the precariousness of his domestic position. The historians have often interpreted Mussolini's growing apathy and unusual passivity, facing domestic opposition, as the result of his declining health or of his overconfidence. On the contrary, in his desperate struggle to sway Hitler, Mussolini needed to provide him with a last and unquestionable proof of how awful the situation had become for the regime in Italy and for himself. In Mussolini's twisted calculations, by deliberately provoking the opposition against him, the vote in the Grand Council would have provided that evidence. It proved to be his last political gamble. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the early reception of Ernst Junger's thought and literature in Italy, focusing mainly on the work of the Germanist Adriano Belli. Drawing upon Belli's studies as well as considering his academic activity at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (1933-1943) it is possible to clarify both the early interpretation of Junger's thought in Italy and the connection between politics and cultural activity during the Fascist era. Moreover, the documents help understanding the complicated reception of the National Socialist culture in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay analyzes the 1983 US invasion of Grenada in an historical and diplomatic perspective. For more than two centuries, the small Caribbean island had been a colony of the British Empire. In the 1980s it was still part of the British Commonwealth of Nations and formally ruled by the British Crown. The US invasion aimed to prevent a supposed-irreversible rooting of communism throughout the island, but mostly embarrassed the British government, provoking a short-term crisis for the Anglo-American "special relationship". The paper claims that the US invasion had its historical roots in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which proclaimed the undisputed US hegemony over the Americas, particularly towards the Central American and Caribbean backyard. Through diplomatic documents, memoirs, diaries, speeches and literature, the essay analyzes in an East-West perspective the reasons leading to the 1983 invasion, the reaction of the British government, the lack of consultations between the Anglo-American allies, the US attempts to solve the bilateral crisis and concludes by evaluating its international consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a conference paper delivered March 3, 2011 at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in London, on the millennial anniversary of the Abbey of Westminster. The paper discusses the history of Montecassino, with reference to the history of monasticism and monasteries in the 3rd to 5th centuries in Europe. Topics discussed include the development of monasticism in the Holy Roman Empire, with reference to cultural, political, and economic factors.

The main aim of this paper is to examine, on the basis of relevant and so far unpublished documents from Belgrade archives, the stance of Yugoslav communists towards the Italian left after Yugoslavia's expulsion from the Cominform in 1948. Since the break up with the Cominform in the same time meant the termination of cooperation with the closest party until then - the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), Yugoslavia was very active in trying to win support of other Italian left-wing parties, movements or individuals. This required the widest possible basis for gathering all left-wing members into a broad spectrum which would encompass everybody, from communists to social democrats. The initial attempts to win the support of the Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI ) through the existing sympathies of its leaders did not give the expected results, because this party after some time took the same attitude as the PCI and the Cominform. In the same time they also failed to gain a stronghold with some other parties of the Italian left, like the Partito Socialista Unitario. The Yugoslav attempt to organize a so-called "progressive movement" in Italy, composed of various pro-Yugoslav party dropouts, also had a very modest effect. A bit more significant stronghold was obtained only after the emergence of the two pro-Yugoslav dissidents - Valdo Magnani and Aldo Cucchi - who withdrew from the PCI in 1951 and organized their own Movimento Lavoratori Italiani, which soon grew into the Unione Socialista Indipendente, both movements enjoying the Yugoslav support. After the reconciliation with the USSR, Yugoslavia resumed the relations with the leading Italian left-wing parties - in 1956 with the PCI and the next year, 1957, with the PSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay analyses the case of the Vatican diplomatic position vis-à-vis the Anglo- Argentinian conflict for the Falkland Islands in 1982. This problem intersects the question of the Papal visit to the United Kingdom, scheduled right that year at the end of May. Her Majesty's Government, led by Margaret Thatcher, fearing that John Paul II could be led to an undefined peace-loving position regardless of two UN Security Council Resolutions condemning Argentina's occupation, made it clear that the conditioning of the Papal visit to a ceasefire in the Falkland Islands should be considered as an appeasement to Argentina's unlawful acts. In order to avoid this and to allow the Pope to come to the UK, Ms. Thatcher accepted to deprive Papal visit of every possible political significance. On this Anglo-Vatican agreed line, John Paul II accepted to confirm his own visit. However, he secretly instructed Cardinal Casaroli, the Vatican Secretary of State, to arrange a meeting with Ms. Thatcher on the Falklands question. The secret Thatcher-Casaroli talk took place the very day of Wojtyla's arrival to the UK, as soon as the Pope got ready to start his official pastoral visit. This work is based on primary British, American and Argentinian sources and on Cardinal Casaroli's private papers filed in the Vatican archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional interpretation of the end of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1921 focused on the manoeuvres of the American government at the time of G. W. Harding's presidency and of the Washington conference. Recently however, historians have paid attention to broader factors as well, centring on the change itself of the international system after the First World War and on the strategic calculus of both Japan and the United Kingdom. The paper discusses such historiographical debate, stressing the declining trust of both allies in the efficacy of the partnership between them, but going back to the day after the Russo-Japanese War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Similarly to what happened elsewhere, in Calabria the time of Italy's neutrality was overwrought with internal conflicts. This paper will focus on the elements, which were instrumental for interventionism to take hold and overthrow the initial non-intervention policy, despite it being only supported by a minority in the spring of 1915. Extensive consideration is given to the practices used by Interventionists to influence public opinion in favour of the war, and to contrast non-interventionism supporters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon Ciano's notes about the German Department of Propaganda, this paper reconstructs his role as Italian Minister of Propaganda. This work focuses on the analogies with the German Department and the Ciano's role in the management of Propaganda in Italy. Ciano praised in particular the unconditional control that Goebbels had reached on the radio broadcasts and film production and he would have wanted to reach the same result. Attached is also the transcription of the complete text of Ciano's notes never published to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of the huge amount of studies and researches focused on the dogana della mena delle pecore di Foggia, the custom house that managed the transhumance from Abruzzi to Apulia between the fifteenth and the nineteenth century, few scholars have accurately turned their attention to the varied typology of written records released by kings, viceroys and officials in Naples and Foggia in order to administrate and reform one of the most important and profitable institutions of the kingdom. This paper closely considers the surviving documentation from the Magnanimous reorganization of the dogana (forties of the fifteenth century) to the reintegra (cadastral inquiry) carried on roughly one hundred years later (1548- 1555), throwing new light on the intricate process of drafting and archiving records in Foggia and Naples and, in general, on the functioning of the dogana during its first century of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show how, during the 15th and the 16th Centuries, the institutional life in the most important cities of the Venetian mainland was not exclusively subject to the prerogatives of knights and jurists. Although these two poles have been an active role in organizing the political life of a city like Brescia, the specific object of this work, it should not be forgotten that law and the profession of arms were not the only ways to increase the political education. Recent archival discoveries, in fact, show that both knights and doctors in law from Brescia were not strangers to the practice of trade, through which it was possible to integrate the preparation for the res publica. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

«Notizie Officiali» was a pro-British periodical printed in Messina from July 1806 to February 1807. The propagandistic nature of this journal was clear from the very first issue, as it reported the official notices issued by the British headquarters in Calabria. Through the accounts of «Notizie Officiali» and the study of a series of manuscripts and unpublished documents, consulted at the British Library, this paper intends to examine certain aspects of the “war of opinion" between France and Britain that was waged in the heart of the Mediterranean theatre during the Napoleonic wars. Specifically, this editorial initiative will be framed within the broader strategy pursued by the British to build consensus in the war against Napoleonic France. It was based on the construction of a rhetoric aimed at challenging the widespread belief of the invincibility of the French army and at extolling the British political and constitutional model also as a stepping stone for a greater economic and social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journey of the Florentine clerics Bernardo Michelozzi (1455-1519) and Bonsignore Bonsignori (1468-1530) to Jerusalem, via Edessa, Constantinople and the west coast of Anatolia (1497-98), is one of the most celebrated “humanist" pilgrimages in the early Renaissance. Michelozzi's passionate search for geek books and Bonsignori's unusual attention for ancient sites and monuments has long since attracted scholars interested in the history of ancient heritage. By means of a new transcription (made available by Bruno Figliuolo) of Bonsignori's letters and travel report, the paper offers an ‘archaeological' commentary of the stages of the journey in the light of the up-to-date literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]