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This paper analyses the poetic form and language of two poems by Grigoris Ałt‘amarc‘i, a prominent Armenian poet from the early modern period, in the multilingual and multireligious environment of Anatolia and Armenian highlands. Through an analysis of the forms, expressions and symbolism found in the poems Tał Astuacatur Xat‘ayec‘un i Grigoris kat‘ołikosē Ałt‘amarc‘oy and Du es aregak, as well as the linguistic data collected from them, this paper explores the stylistic kinship between early modern Armenian and new Persian poetry. It discusses the ways in which Ałt‘amarc‘i navigates the predominantly Persian and partly Turkish languages in the Islamicised milieu, and composed poems with an Armenian affiliation.

John Paul II’s World Youth Days (hereafter WYDs) were mega-events that happened eight times between 1987 and 2002. They took place in Europe, Asia, North America and South America. Observing the role women played in these global gatherings of young Catholics provides essential insights into gender issues within Catholicism during John Paul II’s pontificate. First, this paper shows that, within the organization chart of the WYDs, women faced a “stained glass ceiling”, but a few did manage to obtain a position of responsibility. Secondly, the paper studies how Catholic feminist culture found a place in WYDs, even though theologically conservative prelates, who did not back the idea of an inclusive Church, often organized them. This second part is focused on the Denver WYD (1993), marked by several feminist performances, which led to strong disputes between liberal and conservative Catholics. The way in which women became involved in this debate and the reaction of the Catholic hierarchy is studied in the third part.

This paper examines the use of Middle Armenian in the medieval kafas (short monorhymed poems) associated with the legendary history of Alexander III of Macedon in its Armenian translation. These poems, composed in Armenian in the 13th-16th centuries, contain classical and vernacular language. Examining the interplay between the poetic requirements of meter and rhyme and the linguistic features of Middle Armenian, this paper points to cases in the kafas where the choice between words and grammatical forms is dictated by poetry. This includes the use of both classical nominative plural ending -ք and the medieval (and modern) -(ն)եր, and the concurrent comprehensibility of the present and imperfect indicative both with and without the particle կու.

This paper explores the use of deixis in the Armenian translation of the Greek New Testament, with a focus on the medial deictic forms in the gospel of Matthew. Against the two-way deictic distinction in New Testament Greek with proximal οὗτος and distal ἐκεῖνος, the three-way system in Armenian based on the proximal -s-, medial -d- and distal -n- raises questions of how and why the Armenian medial forms are used. Through comparison with Latin, which also has a three-way system (proximal hic, medial iste, and distal ille), and close analysis of key passages, this paper highlights both the semantic values of the Armenian medial forms and the issues of translation that arise as a result of their employment.

This paper studies the formal distinction of the indefinite article from the quantifier ‘one’ in Early and pre-Modern Armenian texts by three 18‑19th century authors as well as in a colloquial Modern Eastern Armenian dialogue. The key question is whether these sources use the same forms for both functions. The paper gives typological, diachronic, and areal perspectives to the analysis of non-standard data rarely included in discussions of the historical grammar of Armenian. It also touches upon some general issues of grammaticalization of the forms of ‘one’ as an indefinite article and the use of numeral classifiers in colloquial Eastern Armenian.

In her poetry collection falsche freunde the German-speaking artist Uljana Wolf develops a translinguale Lyrik, a poetic voice dwelling on a linguistic and geographical border zone. Building on Emily Apter’s concepts of untranslatability, this paper investigates how Wolf’s structural and thematic checkpoints instil a strong political commitment into her poetry. Furthermore, this engagement is here interpreted as the expression of the paradigm of the postmigrantische Gesellschaft. Finally, the paper argues that through the choice of the term ‘alien’ over the category ‘fremd’ Wolf suggests an innovative shift in the representation of migratory dynamics, from their cultural dimension to their biopolitical significance.

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the attitude of the Holy See towards the international ecumenical movement during the pontificate of Pius XII, analysing in particular the debates triggered by the question of the participation of Catholic observers in the various international conferences and assemblies of the Faith and Order movement and the constituent Ecumenical Council of Churches. This analysis will be carried out through the study of Vatican documents, in particular from the archives of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Secretariat of State and the nunciatures, in order to trace the choices and strategies adopted by the Holy See in the face of the challenges posed by the growing importance of the World Council of Churches on the international scene.

This paper proposes some considerations through a cross-reading of the articles published in this issue. The new research reveals several protagonists of the curial environment in the elaboration of Pius XII’s magisterial documents: the consultors at the Holy Office Franz Hürth, Sebastiaan Tromp, the better-known Augustin Bea; the secretary of Briefs to Princes Antonio Bacci. The role of the Society of Jesus is also relevant: it is able to mitigate or deflect curial proceedings initiated against its members. The articles add important contributions to our knowledge of Pius XII’s modus operandi at the head of the Catholic Church, with the support of his main collaborators (Montini, Dell’Acqua) and in the context of the internal dialectics within the Holy See. At the doctrinal level, the question of modernism and its new expressions appeared central throughout Pacelli’s pontificate. The text also offers some methodological considerations regarding contemporary research in the field of the history of Christianity and the Churches.

This paper proposes an analysis of in-verse reworking of vernacular Legenda aurea by Cristofano Guidini. In his cantari for the festivities of the liturgical year, we can find a rich interlacing of textual sources, historical records, oral or written testimonies. Here we want to demonstrate how the translating rewriting by Guidini works, starting from its performed destination and from didactic usefulness of legendary narrations.

This article aims to provide a general overview of settlement patterns in Armenia and neighbouring areas from the Early Bronze Age to Early Hellenistic times. The southern Caucasus presents unique features. For those approaching the subject for the first time, this paper aims to summarise the primary evidence for the development and transformation of the human landscape. Starting from the 4th millennium BC, it is possible to trace the outlines of a general process of sedentarisation of communities on the highlands, which took different forms and characteristics. Mobile villages dominated the Bronze Age settlement structure. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the highlands were characterised by a general development of fortified settlements, generally referred to as ‘cyclopean fortresses’, which will also be one of the main features of the later Kingdom of Urartu. Following the two centuries of Achaemenid rule, with its elusive settlement pattern, the last centuries of the 1st millennium saw the spread of Greek culture following the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors. With the creation of large urban sites based on Hellenistic models, the concept and structure of the Mediterranean city spread across Armenia and adjacent areas.

The phenomenon of Suffixaufnahme refers to a type of morphosyntactic agreement whereby a dependent noun phrase shows case agreement with its head in addition to its functional case marking. The phenomenon is best known from Old Georgian and Hurro-Urartian, but also occurs elsewhere (Caucasus, ancient Mesopotamia, Australia), mainly in agglutinative languages. Classical Armenian shows a very similar type of agreement: dependents of heads in the accusative marked by the direct object proclitic z= may also receive the same proclitic marking regardless of their functional case. This paper explores two dimensions of this agreement phenomenon in Classical Armenian: a classification of its usage in fifth-century texts; and an attempt at explaining its likely origin outside of Armenian.

The aim of this paper is to propose five new emendations to the Armenian translation of George of Pisidia’s Hexaemeron: at v. 172 of the Armenian Mekhitarist edition read բացելով; at v. 584 read նուրբ; at v. 616 read շարադրեալս; at v. 768 read խորացեալ; at vv. 1329‑30 read զայն զարդարէ նոր որպէս. Some remarks on the peculiar rendering of hendiadyses through a single word in the Armenian translation follow. Lastly, two corrections of the editor princeps Tiroyean are reconsidered.

Making use of theoretical insights from ‘history of the bookʼ scholarship, this paper examines the way in which Mxit‘ar of Sebastia made use of paratexts (title pages, frontispieces, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, illustrations, headings, epilogues, appendices, etc.) in his ‘publishing mission’ (to use Sahak Čemčemean’s appelation) to shape readerly taste and influence the way in which his books were read, received, and interpreted. Through introductory poems, illustrations, and playful word games, he presented himself as a second Maštoc‘ and his own students like the famous fifth-century disciples of that vardapet, who were meant to transmit and create in the same Armenian Christian literary tradition, under the aegis of the Roman Catholic Church.

In the mid-thirteenth century, the Mongol invasion spread fear from China to France. Yet, over subsequent decades, the threat waned, leading to a need for political and economic rebalancing. The Mongols swiftly conquered Asia and even reached Europe, reshaping the continent’s political landscape and fostering an interconnected trade network. This transformation attracted diverse merchants to new ‘intermediate’ settlements like Tana at the Don River’s mouth. Initially established by the Latins with Mongol Khan’s approval, it became a crucial stop on the ‘Mongol route to China’ in the fourteenth century. Genoese, Venetians, Catalans, Central Asian traders, Mongols, and Armenians settled there. The Armenian community, amidst growing political turbulence, demonstrated integration and sustained commercial activity. This paper explores Tana’s Armenian community in the late fourteenth century amid weakening Mongol power.

In this paper, Old High German mood alternations in the different types of subordinate clauses (complement, adverbial and relative clauses) are discussed. The use of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses is notoriously more frequent than in Modern German and has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Based on a comprehensive corpus study, the paper will show that the licensing conditions for the subjunctive in Old High German are determined by notions such as veridicality and – in relative contexts – specificity. These conditions are thus similar (but not always identical) to those observed for Modern Greek and Romance languages. Furthermore, a syntactic analysis is provided in order to account for the licensing of the subjunctive in each type of subordinate clause.

Theo Padnos published My Life Had Stood A Loaded Gun in 2004, when Prison Studies were burgeoning and gaining academic attention globally. Neglected by critics, the book relates the author's experience as literature instructor in an American prison. Engaging methods of pedagogical research and reader-response criticism, the paper investigates the role of literature in the cultural activities of young male inmates in a medium security jail in Vermont. An original amalgam of crime reports, pedagogy of literature, and autobiographical criticism, Padnos' study for the first time confronts young criminals with a literary canon dripping with violence. The experiment sheds light on the reading activities of prisoners, on their and the author's social background, and on the power of American literature to speak to marginal groups.

Linguists argued that the Cockney dialect, in London, is expected to be replaced by Multicultural London English in the years to come. However, this does not imply that Cockney is dead, as recent research revealed that it just moved to Essex. This paper aims at examining whether (l) vocalisation, a common feature of Cockney, is still present in the London district of Bermondsey. Ten working-class English speakers, stratified by age and sex, have been recorded by means of sociolinguistic interviews. The results, discussed both quantitively and qualitatively, show that: (a) (l) vocalisation is present in all age cohorts, with young speakers favouring the non-standard feature; (b) preceding long vowels trigger (l) vocalisation.

The so-called indirect passive, where the subject is not the argument of the underlying verb that bears the Theme/Patient role, is generally understood to be a bi-clausal phenomenon (cf. Kuno 1973; Shibatani 1978; Kuroda 1979). In other words, the passive morpheme rare is merged with a clause, and then the resulting item is combined with the subject. In this paper, however, we argue that the indirect passive is best understood as a mono-clausal phenomenon. We first point out that with some instances of the indirect passive, the passive morpheme rare is not understood as being combined with a verb or clause in syntax. Thus, we are led to assume that the lexicon contains numerous instances of the Vrare form. This implies that even when the passive morpheme rare is combined in syntax, it forms a constituent with the relevant verb; hence, the indirect passive is a mono-clausal phenomenon. We furthermore maintain that when the indirect passive involves the merging of rare with a verb in syntax, the verb must be a volitional verb, and demonstrate that this generalization, as well as the case particle alternation involved in the indirect passive, poses a challenge to the bi-clause analysis but not to the mono-clause analysis. Finally, we review one of the main arguments for analyzing the indirect passive to be a bi-clausal phenomenon, which concerns the antecedent of zibun. We show that it is inconclusive at best.

The goal of this paper is to reconcile the definite marking with the indefinite-like semantics of those superlatives that take a relative/comparative reading. Following Szabolcsi (1986) and Heim (1999), we will assume that the difference between absolute and relative readings of superlatives is represented at the syntactic level of semantic representation, LF (Logical Form). We will however depart from Heim’s hypothesis that what raises at LF is the superlative operator itself (EST). We will instead assume a quantificational-determiner analysis of EST, which involves two raising operations at LF: EST-raising to Spec,DP and raising of the whole superlative DP (Determiner Phrase) to a scope position in the sentence. We will examine the relative readings of quality superlatives. The generalizations and the proposed analysis are not assumed to extend to quantity superlatives.

This paper analyses Angela Carter’s desecrating tendency to taboo-breaking in thematic and formal terms. By referring to her short-fiction production and focusing on “John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore", I intend to show how gender/patriarchal and genre/authorial taboos are similarly broken and transmuted into daringly subversive outcomes. In line with her feminist agenda and postmodern transformism, Carter superbly challenges, sabotages, violates, de- and re-constructs traditionally codified sexual and gender taboos by mimicking such reversals through new narrative solutions. If diversity, multiplicity and change guarantee the continuity of life, incest can easily metaphorise a taboo relationship based on repetition of the identical, sameness, and immobility, to be finally transformed, if not avoided. Consistent with many of her female characters’ incestuous relationships with parents or siblings, Carter also establishes incest-like relationships with previous authors and narrative discourses, which she predatorily appropriates. Carter’s resulting narrative testifies to the fact that taboos must be first experienced to be eventually broken. It is in the dialectic between rule and infraction, taboo and its violation that Carter’s writing is rooted, constantly looking for borders to be crossed.

Designed as a paper reflecting on the editorial mediation of early modern French literary texts, this article maps the educational activities conducted on the Tragiques Inventions site since 2020. In particular, it delves into the procedures linked to documenting, generating and manipulating descriptive and analytical (meta)data. A new concept of ‘hand-reading’ is being developed – the possibility of using digital technology to prioritize human intervention in the construction of knowledge through textual editing. This concept will bring a fresh perspective on early modern literary texts.

There is a substantial body of scholarship arguing for the relevance of magic realism to Toni Morrison’s fictional production, with one exception being her last novel God Help the Child, which, in that respect, has been remarkably overlooked. The present paper intends to fill this scholarly gap by focusing on what Morrison called “enchantment”, a powerful blend of magic and realism that she employed to represent a host of racial and ancestral issues of Blackness, often of a traumatic kind.

Sylvia’s Lovers is a novel about war. It is a historical novel set in the years 1793-1800 during the Napoleonic wars, and written by Elizabeth Gaskell in the years 1859-1862 when the American Civil War broke out, in April 1861. Examining Gaskell’s correspondence with Charles Eliot Norton in the years 1861-63 and the articles Norton wrote in support of the War and the anti-slavery cause, this paper explores the way in which the news coming from America and the debates on the contemporary events left a significant mark on the second part of the novel. The implied reference to the context of the American Civil War would shed new light on Gaskell’s narrative choices concerning the plot and the main male character’s development, which has been substantially overlooked.

Linguists argued that the Cockney dialect, in London, is expected to be replaced by Multicultural London English in the years to come. However, this does not imply that Cockney is dead, as recent research revealed that it just moved to Essex. This paper aims at examining whether (l) vocalisation, a common feature of Cockney, is still present in the London district of Bermondsey. Ten working-class English speakers, stratified by age and sex, have been recorded by means of sociolinguistic interviews. The results, discussed both quantitively and qualitatively, show that: (a) (l) vocalisation is present in all age cohorts, with young speakers favouring the non-standard feature; (b) preceding long vowels trigger (l) vocalisation.

The so-called indirect passive, where the subject is not the argument of the underlying verb that bears the Theme/Patient role, is generally understood to be a bi-clausal phenomenon (cf. Kuno 1973; Shibatani 1978; Kuroda 1979). In other words, the passive morpheme rare is merged with a clause, and then the resulting item is combined with the subject. In this paper, however, we argue that the indirect passive is best understood as a mono-clausal phenomenon. We first point out that with some instances of the indirect passive, the passive morpheme rare is not understood as being combined with a verb or clause in syntax. Thus, we are led to assume that the lexicon contains numerous instances of the Vrare form. This implies that even when the passive morpheme rare is combined in syntax, it forms a constituent with the relevant verb; hence, the indirect passive is a mono-clausal phenomenon. We furthermore maintain that when the indirect passive involves the merging of rare with a verb in syntax, the verb must be a volitional verb, and demonstrate that this generalization, as well as the case particle alternation involved in the indirect passive, poses a challenge to the bi-clause analysis but not to the mono-clause analysis. Finally, we review one of the main arguments for analyzing the indirect passive to be a bi-clausal phenomenon, which concerns the antecedent of zibun. We show that it is inconclusive at best.

The goal of this paper is to reconcile the definite marking with the indefinite-like semantics of those superlatives that take a relative/comparative reading. Following Szabolcsi (1986) and Heim (1999), we will assume that the difference between absolute and relative readings of superlatives is represented at the syntactic level of semantic representation, LF (Logical Form). We will however depart from Heim’s hypothesis that what raises at LF is the superlative operator itself (EST). We will instead assume a quantificational-determiner analysis of EST, which involves two raising operations at LF: EST-raising to Spec,DP and raising of the whole superlative DP (Determiner Phrase) to a scope position in the sentence. We will examine the relative readings of quality superlatives. The generalizations and the proposed analysis are not assumed to extend to quantity superlatives.

This paper analyses Angela Carter’s desecrating tendency to taboo-breaking in thematic and formal terms. By referring to her short-fiction production and focusing on “John Ford’s ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore", I intend to show how gender/patriarchal and genre/authorial taboos are similarly broken and transmuted into daringly subversive outcomes. In line with her feminist agenda and postmodern transformism, Carter superbly challenges, sabotages, violates, de- and re-constructs traditionally codified sexual and gender taboos by mimicking such reversals through new narrative solutions. If diversity, multiplicity and change guarantee the continuity of life, incest can easily metaphorise a taboo relationship based on repetition of the identical, sameness, and immobility, to be finally transformed, if not avoided. Consistent with many of her female characters’ incestuous relationships with parents or siblings, Carter also establishes incest-like relationships with previous authors and narrative discourses, which she predatorily appropriates. Carter’s resulting narrative testifies to the fact that taboos must be first experienced to be eventually broken. It is in the dialectic between rule and infraction, taboo and its violation that Carter’s writing is rooted, constantly looking for borders to be crossed.

Designed as a paper reflecting on the editorial mediation of early modern French literary texts, this article maps the educational activities conducted on the Tragiques Inventions site since 2020. In particular, it delves into the procedures linked to documenting, generating and manipulating descriptive and analytical (meta)data. A new concept of ‘hand-reading’ is being developed – the possibility of using digital technology to prioritize human intervention in the construction of knowledge through textual editing. This concept will bring a fresh perspective on early modern literary texts.

There is a substantial body of scholarship arguing for the relevance of magic realism to Toni Morrison’s fictional production, with one exception being her last novel God Help the Child, which, in that respect, has been remarkably overlooked. The present paper intends to fill this scholarly gap by focusing on what Morrison called “enchantment”, a powerful blend of magic and realism that she employed to represent a host of racial and ancestral issues of Blackness, often of a traumatic kind.

Theo Padnos published My Life Had Stood A Loaded Gun in 2004, when Prison Studies were burgeoning and gaining academic attention globally. Neglected by critics, the book relates the author's experience as literature instructor in an American prison. Engaging methods of pedagogical research and reader-response criticism, the paper investigates the role of literature in the cultural activities of young male inmates in a medium security jail in Vermont. An original amalgam of crime reports, pedagogy of literature, and autobiographical criticism, Padnos' study for the first time confronts young criminals with a literary canon dripping with violence. The experiment sheds light on the reading activities of prisoners, on their and the author's social background, and on the power of American literature to speak to marginal groups.

Sylvia’s Lovers is a novel about war. It is a historical novel set in the years 1793-1800 during the Napoleonic wars, and written by Elizabeth Gaskell in the years 1859-1862 when the American Civil War broke out, in April 1861. Examining Gaskell’s correspondence with Charles Eliot Norton in the years 1861-63 and the articles Norton wrote in support of the War and the anti-slavery cause, this paper explores the way in which the news coming from America and the debates on the contemporary events left a significant mark on the second part of the novel. The implied reference to the context of the American Civil War would shed new light on Gaskell’s narrative choices concerning the plot and the main male character’s development, which has been substantially overlooked.

This paper deals with Latin discontinuous nominal expressions (hyperbatons) both by a diachronic perspective internal to Latin (I-VI cent. A.D.) and compared to Romance languages. A nominal expression can be considered discontinuous when its word order is interrupted by one or more elements. In these cases a violation of the principle of the ‘domain integrity’ takes place. Discontinuity is typical of Latin and sets it apart from Romance languages, in which hyperbatons are not allowed. It is well attested in all phases of Latin so that it is considered one of the most distinctive feature of Latin word order. In this paper, we explore the hypothesis that not all linearly discontinuous orders are real hyperbatons. In fact, cases in which the order Modif.-N or N-Modif. is interrupted by the complement of one of the two categories are frequent; in this perspective the domain of hyperbatons results consistently restricted. As regards real hyperbatons, we will propose the following three syntactic configurations: Type 1 due to the extraction of an element within the phrase; Type 2 due to the insertion of a weak element in second position; Type 3 due to the insertion of a verb. A final observation will concern the fact that we find in Latin kinds of hyperbatons that can be considered a clear sign of those that will develop later in Romance because they involve clitics which are absent in Latin.

This paper investigates the syntax of non-topicalized preverbal subjects in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). In BP, both locative PPs and locative DPs can occur in preverbal position: Na escola do Pedro aceita cartão de crédito; A escola do Pedro aceita cartão de crédito. In the latter case, the verb agrees with the locative. In BP, it is also possible to find non-argument constituents triggering verbal agreement, as in Essa estante cabe muitos livros. These sentences have been analysed as innovative constructions restricted to BP. This paper shows that some of the above structures are also present in other languages, e.g. Italian; not all of them are therefore innovative constructions of BP, and subcases need to be differentiated. The hypothesis is that sentences with preverbal non-argumental subjects have the same syntax as sentences with argumental subjects. What seems to occur in some cases is a modification in the verb thematic grid. We interpret BP’s “flexible diathesis” patterns as revealing that in this grammar, a variety of verbs have undergone a modification of their thematic grid which their counterparts in European Portuguese and other Romance languages did not.

This paper proposes an in-depth analysis of the manuscript tradition of the ancient vernacular translations of Angelo Clareno’s Chronicae. After providing a description and a study of the MS Bertoliano 45, the relationships among some of the codices of the most successful and earliest translation, called A, are investigated. In particular, the text of MS P (Pisa, BLLM, Malagoli 1) is examined to verify if the codex contains the same version A.

Indefinite nominals can typically be modified by pre- or postnominal adjectives in Romance languages. With the exception of a small group of adjectives concerning physical or moral characteristics whose meaning changes according to their pre- or postnominal use, the position of an attributive adjective does not alter its meaning. However, prenominal adjectives in a Spanish indefinite trigger its specific interpretation, thus preventing its variable reading; the same phenomenon obtains also in Catalan. The aim of this paper is to discuss specific cases in some Sicilian dialects – mainly in the dialect of Delia (province of Caltanissetta) – in order to provide further evidence of the fact that prenominal evaluative adjectives force the specific interpretation of indefinites in Romance. Since Sicilian dialects do not typically display prenominal adjectives, this paper will therefore draw on elatives to check whether Sicilian shows a parallel restriction in the postnominal position.

The paper analyses the content of the relationes ad limina drawn up by German bishops between 1948 and 1958. In their abundance of information, these documents make it possible, among other things, to shed light on the episcopate’s view of the material and moral condition of the German Catholic population in the immediate post-war period and in the 1950s, as well as on the situation of the Catholic Church in the two German states (FRG and GDR) separated by the ‘Iron Curtain’. In the last years of Pius XII’s pontificate, a cause of great concern for the ecclesiastical hierarchy was on the one hand ‘practical’ materialism in a West Germany that was experiencing a phase of rapid economic growth, and on the other dialectical materialism in an East Germany under Soviet influence.

This paper analyses and publishes a diptych of texts on the origins of the Orsini family preserved in the manuscript Florence, BNC, II.VII.82. The texts are fully in line with the trend of ‘unbelievable genealogies’ developing in Italy during the 16th century. The first of the texts recounts the remote origins of the noble family and is attributed to an otherwise unknown son of Marsilio Ficino. The second one narrates Orsine events in the Carolingian era and is instead attributed to Francesco Petrarca.

This paper will outline the Armenian tradition of the story of the Man of God who became known in Byzantium and the West as St Alexius (Alexis) the Man of God. The Armenian legend has been preserved in two main versions – as a short synaxaric text, such as the ones found in the synaxaries M1512, M1502 of the Matenadaran, and a fuller Life, preserved in fewer manuscripts (M789, M792). The article will also discuss some specific features of the Armenian text, such as its style, the conspicuous absence of personal names and other details that might allow us to trace the origins of this textual tradition, as well as the possible relations of the Armenian Life to the extant Syriac and Greek texts of the saint’s Life.

Creating a digital corpus enriched by full linguistic annotations is a work which classically integrates several manual steps of acquisition, processing, and data display. Processing presupposes the existence of dedicated and specialised analysis tools, adapted to the state of the language used in the corpus. This paper describes a semi-supervised process for building Armenian corpora from scanned documents. This method is based on a chain of applications pre-trained by Calfa and GREgORI and enabling the complete processing of texts, from their automated input to their linguistic analysis and data display. We provide an assessment of this methodology and benefits of model specialisation, based on digitised copies of a 17th-century manuscript of the Four Gospels (Walters MS W541 = BAL W541, Amida Gospels, ff. 113v-117r: Lk 1:1‑78).

The present paper is concerned with the most ancient layer of Armenian loanwords (armenisms) in the Kartvelian languages. Due to the relatively conservative historical phonology of Kartvelian, compared to Armenian, it appears that more archaic forms have occasionally been preserved. These forms can be identified on the basis of the comparative method. Here, six of the previously proposed armenisms and one new proposal, a word for ‘crane’, are discussed. It is proposed that this stratum of loans probably dates to the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC and prior to the breakup of Proto-Georgian-Zan.

This paper aims to show the preliminary results of the first excavation campaign at Dvin/Dabīl (Armenia), conducted by the Italian-Armenian research group in Autumn 2021. The excavations involved two areas in distinct sectors of the city. While the Armenian team re-opened the investigation in the so-called Market, the Italian group opened a new digging area in the south portion of the citadel, the South Tower area. Preliminary documentation of the material contexts and laboratory analysis of ceramic samples were included in this mission. Chemical analysis of pottery aims to define the origin of the raw materials used and, hopefully, provide some information about the places of production.

In this paper aspects of the sibilant system in the variety spoken in the Germanic language island Sauris/Zahre in north-eastern Italy are presented. I investigate whether an intermediate, postalveolar “shibilant” (from Protogermanic */s/) in preconsonantal position is preserved from Middle High German as observed in other German minority languages in northern Italy. In Sauris/Zahre, in preconsonantal position a postalveolar realization is sometimes mentioned in literature, while in Modern Standard German and most related varieties in this position historical, postalveolar */s/ is retracted to palatoalveolar /ʃ/.

The Dominican friar Domenico Cavalca, active during the first half of the 14th century, was one of the most prolific translators of religious texts from Latin to Italian of his time. One of his last works, the Atti degli Apostoli, has recently been published in a scientific edition by Attilio Cicchella. This work finally allows scholars to have access to the text and its manuscript tradition. The present paper focuses on the way the Dominican Friar approached his source-text, the Acta Apostolorum. I reflect briefly on the prologue of the Atti degli Apostoli as published by Cicchella; I present the thorough analysis of ca. 50 loci critici, in which Cavalca’s Atti diverge significantly from the Latin text of the Vulgata; I reflect on Cavalca’s translation practices and on the public to whom the volgarizzamento was addressed.

This paper focuses on the most ancient French translation of Dante’s Inferno known to this day (Torino, BNU, L.III.17). More specifically, this article studies the first six cantos. The translation is analysed with consideration to three aspects. Firstly, it is compared to the contemporaneous translations to Middle French, between the 15th and 16th centuries, with a focus on methods, conceptualisation of translation, and translators’ goals. Secondly, the Enfer is studied as a translation of Dante’s work by describing the translator’s strategies towards their source. Several linguistic elements are thus discussed, which manifest a will to remain true to the original work, nuanced by some translating mechanisms that show the opposite behaviour. Thirdly, the translation is studied as a literary object per se, through an analysis of stylistic elements that the translator kept or introduced. These three aspects allow a global judgment of the text and highlight its qualities, which will need to be extended to the whole Enfer.

The influence of loubok (Russian popular print) on Dostoevsky’s works is a topic deserving more attention than has been given up to now. It makes us understand how Dostoevsky got inspiration from popular iconography. The present article could be a further contribution to this research topic; its aim being to investigate the recurrence in Dostoevsky’s poetics of a particular typology of popular print, showing how a wife beats her husband after he came back home drunk. This loubok spread widely through Russia (the peasant family version) and Germany (the cobbler version). In particular the German version, which had a wide readership thanks to the German printer G. Renner and was named “Der Blaue Montag” was undoubtedly known to Dostoevsky, since it was widespread in the very period he travelled through Germany. In this paper I will try to show how the Russian novelist caught not only the general setting but also some details from this version to describe Marmeladov’s home in the scene (I, 2) when he comes back home and faces a violent welcome from his wife Katerina Ivanovna.

The call for a “New Mythology” represents one of most controversial traits of German Romanticism. In the early works of F. Schlegel and F.W.J. Schelling, as in the so called Älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus, mythology stands for the Utopia of a universal reorganization of knowledge, capable of founding, after the Legitimationskrise of the modern era, a new horizon of shared ideas and values. Starting from an investigation of the mythological form as legitimation instrument and utopian catalyzer, this paper aims to shed light on the historical genesis of the “new Mythology” and its outcomes.

This paper examines Heidegger’s Beiträge zur Philosophie with the aim of shedding light on its messianic-eschatological approach. Firstly, I take into account the formal structure of history through a reference to Aristotle’s grasp of κίνησις and its principles. I then try to connect this structure to the complex epochal movement of Universal History, as it emerges from Heidegger’s works in the ‘30s. Lastly, I deal with the concept of the last-God’s realm in order to stress the messianic dimension of Heidegger’s projects for the new humankind known as the Futurians.

In the interwar period, the Soviet Union experienced an unprecedented attention towards children’s literature. The October revolution was a driving force for all the arts and particularly for the editorial production aimed at forging the ‘new man’, embodied in the present moment by the younger generation. The CPSU increased its investment in all forms of publications – books, magazines, posters – and proposed them for mass production with the scope of educational engineering. Through an analysis of the literary and visual contents of the 1920’s issues of the magazine Murzilka, this paper aims at defining the characteristics of the new man as they appeared on the pages of one of the most popular magazines for children in Soviet Russia.

During the 1970s, the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) initiated a redefinition process of its political culture, deeply inspired by libertarian and anti-statist themes having its fulcrum in the idea of “self-management”. The paper aims not only to examine the ways in which the ideal of self-management is translated concretely into two fundamental areas of the political debate of the time, but also to understand the role played by the idea of self-management in the PSI’s evolution in a neoliberal sense.

In the contemporary literary universe, where the ‘commercial pole’ of literary field prevails over the ‘autonomous’ one, according to the dichotomy introduced by Pierre Bourdieu and furtherly developed by Pascale Casanova, the phenomena of so-called ‘world fiction’, has been becoming increasingly widespread. Considering that many readers read the works of fiction in order to experience the Other and the Alterity, the writers originating from or somehow related to peripheral cultures are expected to represent their cultures. The value of authenticity is attributed to their representations, even if the author’s autonomy is significantly limited by the rules of the chosen genre (‘world fiction’), and of the literary field they are trying to penetrate. Starting from these premises and focusing on the extraordinary success of two American writers of Balkan origin, Tea Obreht and Sara Nović, in this paper I will try to provide some answers to the following questions: what is the expected image of the Balkan in the USA literary field? Is the discourse of balcanism still present? And why do these images, although fictional, have an importance for the real world?