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This essay examines portraits of old women that were produced for the households of the professional and elite classes in Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy, and the Veneto during the second half of the sixteenth century, when, as a result of religious and social reform, women's lives came under increasing scrutiny. By interpreting the portraits within the context of prescriptive texts on the stages of women's lives, this study argues that the portraits provide evidence for the pivotal role of old women within the moral and symbolic order of the family, as well as in the wider community beyond the home.

The paper intends to prove the incidence that scientific doctrines, mostly Pietro d'Abano's astrological and medical studies, had on Giotto's painting at the Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padova and his lost astrological cycle in the Sala della Ragione. It is emphasized how in no other painting of his, Giotto displayed as much intellectualism as in the Cappella degli Scrovegni. There we can note the importance of the physical representation of the sky and stars and figures' particular physiognomic characterization referable to Pietro d'Abano's theories presented in his astrological treatises and in his Compilation Phisionomiae. Even the ecceptional botanical realism displayed in the representation of plants can be probably referred to Pietro d'Abano's scientific teaching. An hypotetical reconstruction, according to Ptolomeus' theories and Pietro d'Abano's physiognomic, of Giotto's astrological cycle in the Sala della Ragione is also proposed.

We have described the 17th century dispute on the nature of the poison of the viper and its possible use as an antidote which arose between published in Britain at that time. We have also seen the reciprocal interest of Charas and members of the Royal Society in each other's work, and how Charas settled in England for a few years at the time of discrimination against the Huguenots in France. We prefer to leave any conclusions from this story to individual readers. However the dispute seems to be part of a transition from an animate view of the world to one where empirical methods do not appear to need to invoke 'spirits'. The story also seems to illustrate the limitation of experiments there can still be disagreement. If there is a the feeling that the subject is of interest, we can broaden it to cover scientific exchanges and connections between British and French Scholars in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry in the 17th and 18th centuries. At that time a number of pharmacists and scientists moved or corresponded between the two countries influencing one another. That was when modern chemistry gradually evolved out of traditional origins.

This article examines the many iconographic portrayals of the Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) made between the 16th and 19th century. These paintings, engravings, medals and busts, either previously unknown or with new suggestions as to authorship, document the changing fortunes of one of the protagonists of 16th century encyclopaedic culture.

The article is about the discovery, in Acquapendente, of a picture dated in its upper part 1609, and representing Girolamo Fabrizi from Acquapendente. He is dressed in characteristic anatomical clothes, with a particular headgear, different from the traditional one called "calotta", and he is wearing two chains, partially identifiable with the honorific one he was awarded by the S. Marco's Order in 1608. The author compares this picture with the other one, kept in Padua University, supposing that this one could be the same that Tomasino wrote was painted by Francesco de Portia; however, both of them have a great importance in handing down to posterity the image of the great doctor, and in reminding his scientific and cultural position.