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Aims This article explores the care British nurses provided to victims of typhus during the Second World War. Background Typhus is associated with poverty and overcrowding. During wars in the pre-antibiotic era, civilians were particularly susceptible to epidemics, which military governments feared would spread to their troops. Design This discussion paper draws on archival data from three typhus epidemics in the Second World War to examine the expert work of British nurses in caring for victims during these potential public health disasters. Data Sources The published sources for the paper include material from nursing and medical journals published between 1940-1947. Archival sources come from the National Archives in Kew, the Wellcome Library and the Army Medical Services Museum, between 1943-1945. Of particular interest is the correspondence with Dame Katharine Jones from nurses on active service overseas. Implications for Nursing Whilst epidemics of typhus are now rare, nurses in the present day may be required to care for the public in environments of extreme poverty and overcrowding, where life-threatening infectious diseases are prevalent. This article has demonstrated that it is possible for expert and compassionate nursing to alleviate suffering and prevent death, even when medical technologies are unavailable. Conclusion Expert and compassionate care, adequate nutrition and hydration and attention to hygiene needs are crucial when there are limited pharmacological treatments and medical technologies available to treat infectious diseases. The appreciation of this could have implications for nurses working in current global conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Letonica is the property of University of Latvia, Institute of Literature, Folklore & Art 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.)

Italy opened the doors of its universities to female students in 1875. The general view was that very few women were clever enough to obtain a degree, so they would not threaten social stability. Female professors would be even rarer -- a few exceptional "male" women. Access to the professions was impossible in the case of the legal profession, or limited in terms of medicine. In this context, where both Catholics and Positivists opposed women's careers, seeing them as incompatible with motherhood and marriage, five women managed to enter the academic world as unsalaried lecturers: Giuseppina Cattani (1887, Pathology), Paolina Schiff (1891/1893, German literature and language), Rina Monti (1899, Anatomy and Comparative Physiology), Teresa Labriola (1901, Philosophy of Law) and Maria Montessori (1904, Anthropology). With archival documents and other contemporary texts, this paper reconstructs who these women were and the many difficulties they faced in academic life. Four of them were emancipationists and did not marry. These choices debarred them from pursuing a full academic career. Only Monti, who had a family and took no active part in female propaganda, managed to become a full professor in 1911, the first woman in Italy to do so.

The article offers information on the additional evidence about the books of Baldassarre Castiglione, a Renaissance author in Italy. The author states that there are three more documents that appeared concerning Castiglione's acquisitions of books. These papers are to be found in Cassetta 6 of the Archivio Castiglioni, in the Archivio di Stato at Mantua. He adds that the documents consist of two letters together with a list of payments and expenditures, which a Mantuan merchant Benedetto Adelardo Da Porto addressed to Castiglione in 1523. Furthermore, the author says that the first of these papers is drafted on September 12, 1523 and the others are written around two months later.

Creating archival descriptions in a digital environment and communicating across the Internet is not the same as traditional paper-based communication. As in other cultural domains, in archival description the medium influences the structure and content of information. The SIASFI Project and the Online Guide to the State Archives of Florence are good examples of these transformations. The article presents the main features of the Online Guide and discusses the theoretical and methodological assumptions underlying its conceptual model which are rooted in the international descriptive standards, "ISAD(G)" and "ISAAR (CPF)," as well as in a complex view of what archival context is. (Contains 9 figures and 9 notes.)

The measurement of geometric changes in Alpine glaciers is an essential aspect to assess their reaction to climate change effects. Archive aerial images may integrate valuable information to this purpose at times when other types of remotely sensed data are not available. The application of photogrammetric techniques such as Structure-from-Motion (SfM) and Multi-View-Stereo matching allows the extraction of dense point clouds to model the glacier environment. The comparison of multiple datasets requires to setup a stable reference system, a task that in archive photos is generally carried out by means of ground control points (GCPs). This paper would like to propose and assess some techniques to cope with the lack of ground control. Multitemporal SfM (MSfM) is presented and tested on a dataset including six different aerial blocks collected by means of analogue (PAN/RGB) and digital airborne cameras from 1967 to 2006. These images have been downloaded from the IGNF online repository and cover the area of the Val Veny (Brenva and Miage glaciers) in the Mount Blanc massif, at the border between Italy and France. Coupled with other solutions (i.e., extraction of GCPs from maps and DTMs and ICP co-registration of point clouds), MSfM has revealed as a suitable technique for coregistration of multiple photogrammetric blocks of aerial photos with minimum ground control. Some tests carried out in the case study area demonstrated that the integration of MSfM and ICP coregistration for refinement may significantly improve the comparison between multiple point clouds, which is a fundamental pre-requisite for the analysis of glacier changes over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a summary and overview of Italian records related to the Second World War held in Italian archives, with particular emphasis on the military records which may offer detailed insights, at every level, into Italian politics, strategy, and conduct of the war. Until recently these have been seldom used by non-Italian historians, and their wider use will help to fill a major gap in historical research, though limited access to many archives and the dispersal of records are still likely to hamper any large-scale research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of JLIS.it: Italian Journal of Library, Archives & Information Science is the property of Firenze University Press 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.)

At the beginning of the triennium 2019-2022, as Editors of the Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease - Cardiology Area, we would like to share with all cardiologists and allied health professionals working in cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation the status of our Journal, which is the official Journal of the Italian Association of Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation (GICR-IACPR), and has contributed in these past years, thanks to effort and dedication of all Editors who have preceded us, to the advancement of our profession, and to an enrichment and dissemination of its scientific contents. The Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease will remain an important instrument of the Italian Association of Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation for discussing internal organization, diffusing the activity and research of Cardiac Rehabilitation in Italy and other Countries, and important guidelines and position papers. As you may have appreciated, the Journal is becoming every year more attractive for those willing to publish their work, due to the open access format, the free of charge publication, the rigorous peer review system, the link to the most important international databases and a professional editorial governance. This has also led to the improvement of the quality of the contributions and to an enlarging appreciation and recognition from the scientific world. Starting from these points we will make every effort to consolidate these results and to reach in the near future a greater impact in the scientific community. We therefore would like to recognize and give credit to all the authors that have submitted their manuscripts, to all reviewers that have provided a careful selection and guaranteed scientific level of published papers, to the Editorial Board members and Managing Editor that allowed us to maintain the quality of publications coupled with a fast paper editorial track. However, there is always room for improvement. Therefore, we will enlarge the Editorial board panel to other qualified member of our national and international scientific community, in an effort to increase even more the recognition of the Journal as an important contributor to the advancement of Cardiovascular Prevention/Rehabilitation. This will also help us to enrich the ground of potential contributors and to render more efficient and timely the evaluation process of papers. We will also stimulate the deepening of important papers by asking dedicated invited editorials and reviews on topics of particular interest and actuality. We thank all those colleagues who have accepted to be part of our Editorial board, and trust that their participation will be active and constructive. A list of all reviewers who dedicated time to review submitted papers in 2018 has been already published in the issue 1, Vol. 89 (2019) of the Journal. Particular thanks to the ICS Maugeri, who have guaranteed us an absolute independence in the editorial lines of the Cardiology Area of the Journal, as an expression of the consolidated relationship with our Italian Association of Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation, and confirmed their commitment to the diffusion of knowledge of cardiovascular rehabilitative medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to explore the role that accounting systems effectively played in managing the internal relationships among the various administrative bodies of the Comune (City State) of Siena in the 14th century. This period was characterized by an ever increasing need to monitor economic activities, a need perceived by the Comune with regard to all those who were entrusted with the management of public funds. In particular, in 1358 an office was created specifically to review the accounts of the camarlenghi (who were in charge of the management of public funds) nominated by the Comune of Siena. The office was originally staffed by three temporary Riveditori (auditors) and later by a permanent commission of Regolatori (regulators). On the basis of archival sources, so abundant on 14th century Siena, this paper analyses the changing relationships among the various administrative bodies of the Comune, in particular detail the Gabella generale and the Biccherna (which were the offices in charge of managing the main cash inflows and outflows pertaining to the administration of the Comune) and the activities of the Regolatori. By interpreting accounting systems as a set of rules (i.e., the formalised statements of procedures), roles (the network of social positions), and routines (the practices habitually in use), the present study shows that, since the Middle Ages, accounting has played a central role in the management of internal interdependencies and in the construction of organisational order. In the case of the Comune in the 14th century, accounting practices were capable of regulating, legitimising and balancing relations of power, dependency and autonomy among the different bodies of the same organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to see whether companies that have set up company museums and archives realise the communication potential of this tool and in what terms such potential may have been actualised. Design/methodology/approach – The paper opted for an in-depth study in order to get an insight into the perception of the communication potential of the museum and archives. All of the 52 companies associated with the association “Museimpresa” were contacted, the members of which are the main companies in Italy that have set up their own museum and archives. Each company has been interviewed through a detailed and structured questionnaire carried out involving either the business owner or the marketing, communication or external relations manager or the curator of the museum/archives. Findings – A company museum-archives is used mainly to spread awareness of the heart, identity, values and history of the company. The investigation has moreover provided how its communication strengths impact on the image and the reputation of the company and on the sense of belonging between the enterprise and its community. Research limitations/implications – This study is a first step of a path aimed at measuring on a large scale the real communication potential of company museums and archives. Practical implications – What would seem to be important for management with a real desire to make best use of the potential of a company museum-archives is to facilitate its interactivity, its ability to build and maintain relationships, its connection with the corporate culture and to convey a real enthusiasm for vision and future-oriented memory. Originality/value – This paper provides a contribution to the awareness of communication potential of the company museum and archives, a recognition that remains largely still to be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digitization project Giving a new voice to sources. Communicate humanistic research for all aims to make available to the scientific community the audio archive of the Bruno Kessler Foundation's Library, which preserves the recordings of the conference activities of the two humanistic research centers of the Foundation. The project represents, at least in Italy, one of the first attempts to realize a virtual space devoted to audio archival sources researchable freely online to avoid the deterioration of a cultural heritage of extremely scientific relevance, leading to its conservation and availability. The deterioration of the analogue media of the archival collection makes the digitization a matter of survival which allows a diffusion otherwise unthinkable. The accessibility to the audio archival sources allows for enlarging the number of scholars and students that can benefit from the collection for the research. It also allows general users to approach the cultural contents of the humanities. The paper aims to describe the goals, the phases of realization of the project, the methodological problems due to the critical issues of the material supports, the descriptive analysis of the contents, and the opening of the database. The first part of the essay describes the history of the audio archive of the library. This archive covers an extensive period from 1974 to the new Millennium and is composed of the reels and compact audio cassette. The second part analyses the phases of work of the project, from the preliminary analysis of the support to the conversion and the digital reworking. The last part is dedicated to the method adopted in the compilation of metadata of the files and to the description of the structure of the database, as well as his research functions and the descriptive scheme of each audio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1982, in the course of transferring the archive of the De Paoli family of Porciorasco to the Museo Contadino di Cassego (eastern Ligurian Apennines), a manuscript herbal dated about 1598 was discovered. The document is analysed here in all its aspect: the materials (paper, inks and pigments), the plants represented, the iconographical models, and the archival context. The result is a hypothesis about the circulation of knowledge about natural history in the area where it was found and used between the late sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. As for the iconographical sources, models were found in both manuscripts and printed books from the medico-botanical tradition, including Hortus sanitatis and Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a critical survey about the origins of ethnographic collections of Tierra del Fuego in Italian museums, as well as the historical records these institutions. The historical records of ethnographical museums are paramount archives to unveil the history of the objects, specially its acquisition and the historical context of the Italian institutions at that time. At the same time, ethnographical collections may be considered as documentary archives offering essential information about the social and material productive contexts of every item of the collections. Finally, a second aim of this paper is to offer relevant data about ethnographical Fuegian collections in Italy to Spanish speakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the repercussions of the explosion of paper documents generated by new developments in diplomatic practice in Italian city-states between 1450 and 1500. With the proliferation of resident ambassadors whose daily duties centered around writing and receiving letters and other documents, a flood of written material was produced. The management and archiving of all this material triggered the formation of new institutions, of new methods of working, and of new personnel. Though the results of the efforts at archiving were often fitful and incomplete, the governments of the Italian peninsula henceforth sought to collect, control and preserve diplomatic documents so that they could be referenced in the future. [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]

Copyright of Ataturk Arastirma Merkezi Dergisi is the property of Ataturk Arastirma Merkezi Dergisi 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.)

Some areas of Northern Italy, especially Ferrara during the nineteenth century, represent privileged observatories regard to malaria, a disease that affected the poor, but did not spare the rich and powerful people. The so called Delta of the River Po, as well as the Maremma and other lowland areas in Italy, was particularly noted for its marshland environment (mosquito breeding grounds). Spared from Malaria because of the better hygienic conditions of the city that restricted the proliferation of anopheles, Ferrara represented an important study centre due to the presence of renowned physicians and scientists who exchanged knowledge and findings in the medical academies. Among these, Antonio Campana was very attentive to the latest scientific findings, and wrote about antimalarial remedies in his famous Ferrarese Pharmacopoeia. This paper analyses the main remedies listed in the various editions of Campana Pharmacopoeia since 1798 and particularly that of 1841, in the reports from the Accademia Medico Chirurgica di Ferrara and of Argenta physicians of the mid nineteenth century and in the Reports (1871 and 1876) from Alessandro Bennati, director of Arcispedale Santa Anna and concerned with hospital practice. Other printed documents referring to the town of Argenta are discussed.

Economists have paid an increasing attention to the estimation of efficiency in the public sector. Archives constitute an exception notwithstanding their cultural and historical relevance. This paper is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to fill this lacuna. The analysis of the performance of archives raises theoretical issues because their outputs have characteristics of a pure public good (preservation) and of a private service (utilisation). Moreover, the trade-off between the long and short-run goals of, respectively, preservation and utilisation is central in most public policies concerning heritage. We address this issue by studying the efficiency of public historical archives (PHAs) in Italy, over the period 2011–2012. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and implement one-stage and two-stage approaches to investigate PHAs' performance in the management of their different and potentially conflicting functions. Our analysis shows that PHAs perform better in the preservation function, considering the objectives and constraints they face. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the private book collection owned by Adalberto Pazzini and kept in the Library of the Sezione di Storia della Medicina. Gathered from the 1930s to the 1970s, the collection allows a reconstruction of the 'state of the art' of medical history in this period in Italy. Books were sent and dedicated to Pazzini by colleagues, mostly active in Italy and in the Spanish-speaking countries; many of them deal with the history of medicine, but some also with medicine itself.

The first part of the paper deals with the Italian tradition of medical history in the 1930s, when Adalberto Pazzini became the most successful medical historian in Italy. Its second part deals with the founding and renovation (1938 and 1954 respectively) of the Istituto di Storia della Medicina at Rome University, with a description of the innovative--and largely utopian--planning of the Library and of the Museum and didactic collections by Pazzini.

The archival fund by Giuseppe Montalenti, the distinguished Italian genetist and biologist, comprehends correspondence--both personal and scientific--, papers on his activity as a collaborator to the Enciclopedia Treccani, documentation on Montalenti's engagement in the politics of science in Italy and abroad in the 1950s-60s, a collection of offprints and books. A large part of the archive refers to the activities of the IUSB (International Union of Biological Sciences).

Gout is one of the oldest known diseases. The term derives from the Latin "gutta", which means "a drop" This word expresses and describes, as no other term can, a method of interpreting the pathologies that have been with us for more than 2000 yrs. The theory of humoral disturbance goes back to the time of Hippocrates. This paper is a historical review of gout, with particular attention given to the interpretation of the origins of clinical, articular and renal involvement allowing us paradigmatically to sum up all the stages in the evolution of the etiopathogenetic and nosographic concepts of medicine through the ages.

MUBIL is an international research project aiming at establishing a novel learning framework based on Virtual Environments technologies in order to disseminate the content of libraries archives, especially ancient manuscripts. The project, lead by the Gunnerus Library of Trondheim, Norway, and participated by the NTNU (Norway) and Scuola Sant'Anna (Italy), has the secondary objective of testing the extent to which distinctive features of Virtual Environment, such as immersion and interaction, impact on the involvement of the public, especially youngster, and therefore on the efficacy of the transmission of content, such as old books, traditionally challenging to disseminate to such a public. The framework includes three different levels of development, described in this paper, and is expected to establish a methodology for the evaluation of the achieved results in the last stages of the project, ending in October 2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper illustrates the archival work on the repository of historical documentation kept in the Hospital (documents from the end of the XIX century to 1978, the year of the Basaglia reform of psychiatric asylums). The paper also deals with the history of the Hospital, 1870 to our days, highlighting the 1913 opening of the 'Nuovo Manicomio Provinciale', and its subsequent evolution and administration, first by the Provincia di Roma then by USL and ASL.

This paper proposes on the one hand to outline Italian initiatives regarding open archives, with a qualitative rather than quantitative analysis, focusing in particular on data providers and on organisation and initiatives that lead to integration that encourage the development of IRs. On the other hand, it proposes to analyse the 20 years of Italian input to SIGLE in order to verify if and to what extent the Italian producers participating in SIGLE have contributed to the fostering of new ways of sharing and diffusing information sources produced within their organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a survey of the academic staff of the Faculties of Economics and Law of the University of Brescia, Italy. The survey sought to determine knowledge and use of Open-Access archives and to verify the conditions stated by the correspondents for their participation in an institutional Open-Access initiative. The response rate to the questionnaire was 57.9% (62 authors). Results show that 44% of the respondents (25 of 57) knew about the existence of Open-Access initiatives and archives. Of those aware of the existence of Open-Access archives, only 4% (1 in 25) affirmed they had already used them to deposit papers, while 33% (16 of 48), among those who declared they use materials freely available on the Web, affirmed they had used an Open-Access disciplinary archive. Sixty-one percent (41 of 62) of the respondents answered they were prepared to archive personally their own scientific or educational material in an institutional repository, once the conditions that they request have been fulfilled. The study illustrates the crucial role that authors play in the process of diffusion of Open-Access initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of JLIS.it: Italian Journal of Library, Archives & Information Science is the property of Firenze University Press 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 Parasitology Institute of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" keeps documents from the Societa per gli Studi della Malaria, from the Istituto Superiore di Malariologia Ettore Marchiafava and from the Ente Regionale per la Lotta Antianofelica in Sardegna (Erlaas). The papers arrived in the private Archive of Guido Casini, malariologist and secretary of the Istituto Marchiafava, who involved himself in many activities performed by those Bureaux and who recently gave the documentary sources as a donation to the Parasitology Institute. The intervention of reorganization and inventory of the Guido Casini Fund is in its final phase; it will allow to reconstruct the institutional events of these Bureaux and to point out their important sanitary, scientific and political contribution in Italy and abroad.

The paper makes some references to the documentary funds for malaria history retained in state and private archives. The most important are seven: the State archives of Cagliari, Sassari, Nuoro, the Provincial administration archive of Sassari, the ERLAAS (Ente regionale per la lotta antianofelica in Sardegna) archive. The private archives are deposited in town libraries of Iglesias and Olzai. The documentation available allows to carry out a lot of research on various courses; a) activity of land reclamation on marshy zones between XIX and XXth century; b) issues of the anti-malarial legislation in the early twentieth century for peculiar social classes such as railwaymen and miners. They were the first to assay the quinine for preventive treatment; c) the anti-anopheles struggle during the Fasciste regime (it was carried out with oil and Paris green and with the predator fish of the genus Gambusia as well) d) organization of anti-anopheles campaign of ERLASS after World War II.

This article offers an overview on the roman Archivio Storico Capitolino papers reconstructing the history of malaria in the city of Rome and in the countryside from 1870 to the 2nd post-war period. The researches must be based on the critical evaluation of the Deliberations of the Consiglio Comunale of Rome, reflecting the social history of life in the city. The chronological continuity of this archivistic series allows to follow the history of Malaria in Rome since the Unity of Italy. The papers of the VIII Bureau of Hygiene and Sanity offer interesting points of views for the period 1883-1940, useful for deeply investigating the attitude of Roman Administration towards the fight against malaria. The roman Library of the Archivio Capitolino keeps an important bibliography, collected by the Campidoglio since the past century.

The changes of legal condition that the hospitals have had in these last years, have caused great problems also in the Archives' administration produced by those. In particular, there is a lamentation for lack of exact rules which regulate the preservation and the order of clinical fulders, although during these last years SIASO (Italian Society for Sanitary Hospital Archives) is working very much. Photographic supports or other things in place of paper documentation and the archives' administration of hospital institutions on behalf of a third party (records management) do not seem suitable and convenient solutions to safeguard documents that must not be considered from a bureaucratic point of view, but above all from a historical and cultural one.

This paper presents an overview of the activities of the "Unità di Ricerca presso Terzi" (URT) "Indexing and classification systems" of the National Research Council (CNR), which deals with research in organization and document management systems, indexing, classification, knowledge, and content management. Particular attention will be focused on the project of the Electronic Health Record Technological Infrastructure (InFSE), in which the URT works on the definition of ontological models, and vocabularies supporting EHR with the aim to build an updated Italian version of a unified medical reporting language. Although current Italian legislation makes mandatory the use of internationally recognized classification systems to help interoperability and exchange of information, the current structure of those systems does not allow their full use in the Italian context. For all these reasons, it is necessary to make some adaptations in the International Classification of Disease 9th Revision terminology, used for diagnosis encoding, and in the Logical Observation Names and Codes, used for encoding laboratory observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay I explore the history of Bernard Berenson's enormous collection of photographs of art, housed at Villa I Tatti, in Settignano, near Florence (Italy), his former home, now under the auspices of Harvard University. Berenson worked with a number of professional and commercial photographers to capture the unique features of art from various regions (Venice, Florence, Rome) to document not only his specialty of Italian Renaissance art but also archaeological discoveries and art from other periods and places. Berenson's methodology with photographs of works of art from a connoisseur's point of view still serves scholarly and pedagogical interests for art historians around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the traditions of archaeological investigation in Naples and South Italy during the Renaissance and early modern period, when monuments were rediscovered and ancient art was used to promote the cultural and political aspirations of the nobility. Numerous cabinets were also formed by antiquaries and scientists concerned with the interrelationship of the historic, natural and artistic heritage of Magna Graecia. The activities of Hamilton and d'Hancarville are considered in the context of earlier vase collectors such as the Duca di Noia and F. M. Mastrilli, whose approach to figured pottery focused on questions of provenance, authenticity and 'proto-semiotic' readings of iconography. Correspondence in the Gori archives in Florence documents the presence of a lively and cosmopolitan circle of scholars and amateurs in Naples, and early illustrated catalogues depict the contents of local antiquities galleries that, once dispersed, enlarged the collections of Northern European travellers and connoisseurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a preliminary inquiry into the theatrical activity of Sephardic Jews in Italy from 1492 to the 18th century. Through archival investigation conducted on catalogues of manuscripts and published books from Italian libraries, as well as on documents produced by Sephardic communities, the study focuses on three case studies: the communities in Venice, Naples, and Tuscany. Concerning the Venetian community, literary witnesses to the dramatic activity in the Ghetto are collected and analyzed, including Ester by Salomon Usque and Leon Modena. Concerning the Neapolitan community, the reasons for the absence of Sephardic cultural traces are clarified. The only extant Judeo-Spanish plays produced in Italy come from Pisa and Livorno, testifying to the prolific activity of Iberian Jews in Tuscany. Finally, a list of Hebrew dramatic works written by Italian authors of Sephardic origin is provided in order to reflect on the very categories of 'Sephardic' and 'Italian.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the book "Conservare il Novecento: i manifesti. Convegno, Ferrara, Salone internazionale dell'arte del restauro e della conservazione dei beni culturali e ambientali, 26 marzo 2010," edited by G. Zagra.

In the 1610s the Weimar Residenzschloss was partially rebuilt following a fire. The only surviving visual source for this reconstruction, an anonymous ground plan, has been attributed to Giovanni Bonalino, a master-builder from the Grisons. This article shows that the plan was in fact by Costantino de' Servi, a Florentine polymath. The Italianate style of the ground plan has been noted in previous literature; here, some of de' Servi's sources of inspiration will be identified: The Palazzo Marino in Milan, but also Litomyšl Castle in Bohemia, Richmond Palace in England and the local Saxon architectural tradition. Comparing archival sources held in Weimar and Florence thus allows this article to place the reconstruction of the Weimar Residenzschloss within its transnational, European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to contemporary historiography, the military offices of Renaissance Florence were backward and disorganized, unaware of the current Italian innovations, and suspicious of their own soldiers. This literature, however, seems to be based more on the Machiavellian prejudice against mercenary companies, than on thorough and systematic archival research. The aim of this article, hence, is an examination of the whole documentary production of the two military institutions of the Florentine Republic, the Dieci di Balìa and the Otto di Pratica, in order to try to re-evaluate the management of war, the relationships between rulers and captains, and the processes of enlistment, equipment, and inspection. The accounts, the resolutions, the daily registrations of treasurers, secretaries, and commissioners, then, illustrate the practices and the organization of both of these magistracies during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The results of this study demonstrate that, long before the admission of Niccolò Machiavelli to its chancery, the Republic had the men, the knowledge, and the money for operating warfare efficiently and effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter provides a list and a brief description of files and documents where the name of Piero Sraffa is mentioned and are currently kept at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato and at the Archivio Storico Diplomatico. For each file or document we provide indication of the reference number where it is conserved and a transcription of one or two of the relevant documents out of more than 500 which have been located. The purpose of the chapter is to illustrate the results of archival research of the last decade, including more recent findings, and furnish a groundwork for further research, which may throw further light on documents already known to us, and lead to the discovery of new documents or information, so as to provide a better basis for the reconstruction of the biography of Piero Sraffa and of people whose lives entwined with his - Antonio Gramsci certainly ranking high among them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large collection assembled by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503-1575) in his residence in Venice, a city that Charles V had the political imperative to keep within the Holy League, included an impressive range of objects: books and manuscripts, but also antiquities and paintings. By placing Hurtado de Mendoza in the context of specific Venetian trends of book-collecting and antiquarianism-with particular regards to the Greek library of Bessarion and its other public competitors of the time-this article argues that, rather than thinking of the archive as a collection of passive objects amassed and wielded by a sovereign agent for rivalry or anticlericalism, it makes more sense, both materially and historically, to think of the library as a networked assemblage of objects that are themselves mutable and "in motion" at all levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter provides a list and a brief description of files and documents where the name of Piero Sraffa is mentioned and are currently kept at the Archivio Centrale dello Stato and at the Archivio Storico Diplomatico. For each file or document we provide indication of the reference number where it is conserved and a transcription of one or two of the relevant documents out of more than 500 which have been located. The purpose of the chapter is to illustrate the results of archival research of the last decade, including more recent findings, and furnish a groundwork for further research, which may throw further light on documents already known to us, and lead to the discovery of new documents or information, so as to provide a better basis for the reconstruction of the biography of Piero Sraffa and of people whose lives entwined with his-Antonio Gramsci certainly ranking high among them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses a concept that is part of the nature of archives, and represents a necessary process for the constitution of any fonds. In the Italian archival field, this concept is called sedimentazione, which literally translates as sedimentation. In the international context, the use of this term is uncommon, as sedimentation is not originally an archival term. However, the term is widely used in Italian archival literature and language. This article provides clarifications on the meaning of archival sedimentation and its use in the Italian context. The connotations of spontaneity and/or intentionality of the sedimentation process are analyzed, and a definition of archival sedimentation is proposed. Archives' attributes, such as natural, spontaneous and organic, are put in relation to the sedimentation process, and considerations about their ambiguous meaning are made. Finally, reflections are presented on the present-day connotations that archival sedimentation holds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Early modern diplomatic negotiation was conducted primarily through face-to-face encounters dominated by the oral medium, generally known as audiences. Yet ambassadors were very keen to take written records of the words spoken by themselves and their counterparts. This article considers the role of oral exchange in diplomatic audiences and the reasons why participants were so interested in recording and filing reports of those exchanges. This article begins with an analysis of diplomatic dispatches, the genre that has attracted most scholarship so far, but then goes on to trace the recording of audiences on the part of hosting sovereigns and their chanceries and secretaries. The article compares three examples: the transcripts of ambassadors’ speeches by fifteenth-century Florentine chancellors, the diaries of papal masters of ceremonies in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and, the most detailed example of audience records, the Esposizioni archive of thousands of ambassadorial speeches, replies and subsequent conversation, assembled by secretaries of the Venetian republic from the mid-sixteenth century onwards. These examples enable us to perceive oral culture in unexpected settings. Moreover, the Venetian case constitutes a typical example of archival transformation: an increase in quantity accompanied by a substantial and conscious improvement in preservation methods and retrieval tools. In order to explain this transformation, this article traces the uses that were intended and made of the records at the time, not just to report on current, but to inform future negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many centuries, unwed mothers in southern Italy were forced to surrender their infants because of a number of social, religious, economic, and political pressures. This study focuses on the policies and practices that were in place in southern Italy regarding illegitimate infants in the late nineteenth century. A detailed analysis of the policies and practices present in the town of Forio d'Ischia during the 20-year period 1880-1899 is also presented. During these two decades, there were 37 illegitimate live births representing 0.70 % of the 5249 live births recorded in this town. Although small in number, these illegitimate births, referred to as spuri in Italian, from the Latin spurius, meaning bastard, were managed by standard predetermined procedures. These included anonymity for the parents, the transfer of such infants to an official town receiver of foundlings, and their transport to Naples' orphanage, the Real Casa Santa dell'Annunziata. This orphanage maintained fairly detailed records about the children who were delivered to it. After a few days at the orphanage, infants were often entrusted to the care of external wet nurses, preferably outside of Naples. This was done in the belief that infant survival was better assured in more rural environments. The case of an illegitimate infant, Antonino Spinalbese, is presented in detail. Born on 14 February 1882 in the town of Forio d'Ischia, he was brought to the orphanage 4 days later. Following a two-day stay at the orphanage, he was entrusted to an external wet nurse, Michele Mondella, and her husband, Ciro Fiscale di Felice, a mariner in the town of Torre del Greco. The available evidence indicates that Antonino Spinalbese became a mariner like his stepfather. As a crew member of the passenger ship, Vulcano, he made three trips from Naples to New York City in 1922 and 1923. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]