Search

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) presented some of the most spectacular artworks of all times in frescos on the ceiling and behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. While Michelangelo's presentations depict events described in the Bible, there is broad consensus that Michelangelo was conveying his knowledge and theoretical ideas gleaned from his experiences with anatomic dissection. Michelangelo appears to have communicated several ideas about the brain in the images of the Days of Creation and the Last Judgment. Taking the Days of Creation and the Last Judgment together, Michelangelo appears to be symbolizing that God is in the brain, specifically the brainstem, and the brain performs mental functions. The five images on the ceiling of the chapel showing Days of Creation may be interpreted as reflecting the course of vertebrate brain evolution. There are further suggestions about brain function, including perceiving light and complex images and giving spirit to Adam. Furthermore, on the front wall of the Sistine Chapel behind the altar, within the work titled the Last Judgment, the central ellipse, in which Jesus is sitting, appears to represent a midcoronal cross section of a human brain, suggesting that it is the brain that renders judgments about good and evil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The east end of Winchester Cathedral was altered in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, with the Lady Chapel substantially refurbished. The Guardian Angels Chapel, on the north, was left largely untouched. To the south, the death of Bishop Thomas Langton provided the opportunity to rebuild the chapel there as a chantry within which he was buried. The vault above is peppered with his initials, heraldic devices and rebus. The Langton Chapel remained largely disused down subsequent centuries, a dusty corner in the furthermost reaches of a busy cathedral. In the mid-20th century, a remarkable man, Harry Altham, took an interest in Langton's chapel and, in light of this, the Dean and Chapter of Winchester agreed that the restoration of the chapel would form a fitting memorial to him. In the process of researching the details of that restoration, new information has come to light regarding the early introduction of all'antica work into the cathedral, suggesting that the Renaissance style was first introduced to England at Winchester, not in Westminster Abbey as is widely supposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines five poems of different African American poets from 1900 to 1999. Its main objective is to explore how each poet tackles African Americans' – and sometimes other minorities'- marginalization and persecution in the US, highlighting the eco-injustice practices conducted by the white authority. It also traces the established bond between African Americans and nature in the twentieth century through an ecocritical analysis of the selected poems. The article includes an examination of the reaction of African American schools developing from racial romanticism to resistance. To achieve this, the article identifies the differences between two basic terms that are usually used interchangeably: ecojustice and environmental justice. Then it identifies and illustrates four types of ecopoetry: nature poetry, environmental poetry, ecological poetry, reclamation ecopoetics/ecojustice poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The satires of Juvenal were immensely popular in Renaissance Italy, printed in various forms over 70 times in the period 1469‐1520, and five times in 1501 alone. The satires contain a wealth of references to instruments, instrumentalists, and playing practices that are frequently used in double entendres connoting lewd acts and infidelity, most potently in the sixth satire. The five Renaissance commentaries printed alongside the satires in 1501 editions suggest how much contemporary scholars wished to say, or indeed not say, about these saucy musical passages. This article will examine the ways in which contemporary commentators unpack and explain musical aspects of the sixth satire, their surprisingly detailed and determined efforts adding up to a distinctive strand of music‐historical study that is in evidence across numerous books of commentated classical verse from our 1501 corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-fifteenth century, Venice inherited Cardinal Bessarione's collection of ancient manuscripts, an exceptional legacy that contributed to the renewal of mathematical studies. This essay outlines the spread of mathematics in Venice in the early Renaissance, when scholars actively discussed Euclid and universal proportions. Based on this cultural context, the author briefly analyzes the role of polyhedra and an example of the application of proportions to architecture: the church of San Francesco della Vigna in Venice. This church is an interesting and rare case of 'declared' application of proportions to architecture, since we have specific indications in Francesco Zorzi's memorandum written in 1535. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Florence counts as one of the cradles of European Renaissance art and architecture where linear perspective first emerged. These developments led to the pivotal role perception played in Florence's architectural and urban design conceptions, as seen in the works of Brunelleschi (1377–1446), Michelozzo (1396–1472), and Alberti (1404–1472), among others. Alberti's De re aedificatoria presented an analogy of the city as a house and vice versa, negating hard distinctions between architectural and urban design, while Alberti's oeuvre, particularly De pictura, underscores the primacy of the eye. This suggests the exploration of mathematical relationships between architectural façades and urban space configurations within the Florentine context. Through this approach, the paper explores the cases of Palazzo Pitti, Strozzi, and Rucellai, and advances ongoing debates regarding Palazzo Rucellai's envisioned finished appearance by using a 3D Digital Twin (DT) of the palace and its immediate urban context to test alternative façade hypotheses. Ultimately, the results unveil the multidimensional character of Renaissance architectural façade design and their urban role as signifiers of the cultural, intellectual, economic, and political valour of their inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aristotle and utopia may seem an odd combination. Anthologies of utopian texts do not contain passages from Aristotle's writings. He also typically does not feature in histories of utopia. Nonetheless, a close reading of the Politics reveals that Aristotle had an extensive and rather distinctive interest in the enterprise of imagining utopias or ideal cities. The peculiarity of his exploration of utopia lies in its multifaceted approach. He combines critical assessments of some of his predecessors' ideal cities with the creation of several of his own. This article explores the hypothesis that Aristotle's lengthy and varied analysis of ideal cities plays a crucial, though not obvious, role in the history of utopia. The relevance of his speculation lies in identifying (i) distinct ways of conceptualizing the activity of imagining a utopia and (ii) themes and concerns fundamental to designing it. However, the importance of Aristotle's place in the history of utopia is not primarily due to his direct impact on later utopists – his major influence is limited to a handful of Renaissance authors. Instead, his significance lies predominantly in the fact that he was one of the very first thinkers to recognize and articulate key elements of the utopian endeavour. This study examines the points of contact between Aristotle's utopias and representative modern/contemporary utopias and dystopias. It aims not to institute strict parallelisms between these works and the Politics but to show how they share some of the 'essential ingredients' of utopian literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by multiple factors collectively related to what is often termed the Psychedelic Renaissance, people increasingly consume psychedelics for recreational, medicinal, psychotherapeutic, and even spiritual or religious reasons. In the broader psychedelic ecosystem, ayahuasca (a psychoactive "tea" made from plants indigenous to the Amazon jungle) is becoming one of the more popular psychoactive substances. Ayahuasca churches, retreat centers, and informal "circles" are forming in multiple countries around the world; however, many people who want to drink ayahuasca travel to or near the Amazon, where they seek what they deem an authentic shamanic ayahuasca experience. The lure of authenticity draws people to the Amazon, where they encounter a rather diverse ayahuasca ecosystem. The limited historical and archaeological data suggest that this diversity predates colonialism; however, various factors including the tourists themselves are now agents of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses familial cultures and exchanges of pleasure among 11 eighteenth-century gentry families. The research is based on a substantial collection of family correspondence and identifies emotion words within these letters to understand familial conversations about pleasure and the various purposes that pleasure was put to. Here pleasure is problematised and studied as an emotion. There are three main arguments. Firstly, the letters reveal a previously hidden world of family pleasure, connected to but in some ways remote from the public and sensory pleasures of the urban renaissance that most previous studies have focused on. The letters reveal an emotional economy of pleasure, where feelings materialised as currencies underlying the building and breaking of family relationships. Secondly, pleasure was not a singular or solitary feeling, but rather operated in affective clusters with other emotions such as anxiety and surprise. Finally, pleasure and displeasure were vital in keeping good order among the gentry and between the gentry and their subordinates, within inheritance systems and family dynamics where inequality and an unequal distribution of resources were part of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

De Laudibus Sanctae Crucis (DLSC) by Hrabanus Maurus is a seminal work in the medieval Christian literature that explores the Cross as the central structure of the universe through a unique amalgamation of poetry, prose, and visual art. The work employs a multi-layered narrative that enriches the reader's understanding, encouraging a meditative interaction with the text that emphasizes the contemplative over the recitative. This paper analyzes Hrabanus's intricate use of verbal and visual elements to guide his readers into a profound meditation on the universal significance of the Cross. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers Kristian Levring's 2000 film The King is Alive from a radically open historicist methodology, analysing the film as a product of multiple interleaved archives. An adaptation of King Lear , the film's relevant archive includes documents from the English Renaissance like the early modern recipe books and seventeenth-century medical treatises that this article uncovers. Yet because The King is Alive was filmed in an abandoned German mining colony in the Namib desert, the archive must also include accounts of the colonialist 'Scramble for Africa' more than two centuries after King Lear was written. The methodological deftness of history-as-adaptation allows us to see the film's anxieties about food that rest at the nexus of these two archives. Shakespeare's play worries about liminal foods—species-specific foods, foods that fail to nourish, and foods that become poison—but the film updates these concerns to implicate Western imperialism and global capitalism. Surrounded (and, in one instance, killed) by potentially botulistic cans of carrots that remain after the German occupation, the characters in the film must grapple with the toxic leftovers of colonialism, including Shakespeare's playtext. The film thus asks its audience to consider further archives related to the imperialist roots of the invention of canning, the discovery of vitamins, and the export of Shakespeare as a 'civilizing' figure. Finally, the film gestures to the foodway challenges exacerbated by both capitalism and climate change, becoming a palimpsest of archives from across multiple temporalities: a Shakespearean past, a colonialist present, and a warming future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many cities and countries have embraced transit-oriented development as an international growth management approach, shifting trips from car-oriented to transit. But in this race to become more sustainable, who is being left out? Using mobility justice as a theoretical framework, this paper presents a qualitative comparison between Malmö, Sweden, and Kitchener, Canada, two mid-sized cities where new rail-based infrastructure was completed in 2019. Using over 40 interviews with local residents, business owners and staff, planners, and private sector developers in each city, we found that transportation improvements have created unequal transport mobilities. In both cities, new transportation infrastructure did not improve travel times or access to transit for existing users; in Kitchener, local changes to make way for the new LRT had negative effects on the neighborhood, and bus transit times increased, while in Malmö bus services remained the same as the new train was barely used. This detachment of transportation needs from infrastructure is necessary for local and state politicians to promote new infrastructure as a branding approach. We call this transit boosterism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Arab Journal for Scientific Publishing is the property of Research & Development of Human Recourses Center (REMAH) 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.)

Taking advantage of key recent advances in long-run economic and financial data, we analyze the statistical properties of global long-maturity real interest rates over the past seven centuries. In contrast to existing consensus, we find that real interest rates are in fact trend stationary and exhibit a persistent downward trend since the Renaissance. We investigate structural breaks in real interest rates over time and find that overall the Black Death and the 1557 "Trinity default" appear as consistent inflection points. We further show that demographic and productivity factors do not represent convincing drivers of real interest rates over long spans. (JEL E43, F30, N20) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most recognized decorations of the pick-up technique is the millefiori glass, which has been commonly attributed to Venetian production. However, Portugal is the country where the largest known assemblage of this type of glass artefact has been studied and published. In this work, two important archeological contexts were selected: (1) Santa Clara-a-Velha monastery (SCV) and (2) São João de Tarouca monastery (SJT). The fragments selection was made based on the diversity of decorative motifs, colors, and original forms that has been associated with Portuguese production. The compositional characterization was conducted by performing micro-particle-induced X-ray emission (µ-PIXE) mapping, which facilitated the visualization of the distribution of different oxides across the different glass layers and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to obtain the major, minor, and trace elements composition, including rare earth elements (REEs) to determine which kind of raw materials were used. Additionally, µ-Raman spectroscopy was employed to investigate the opacifiers, while UV–Visible spectroscopy was used to study which chromophores are presented in the glass samples. All the analyzed glass layers can be considered to be of a soda–lime–silica type, and four different geological patterns (from GP1 to GP4) were detected and reported. This result can indicate that these objects were made by using silica sources taken from four different geological settings. Interestingly, the GP3 represents about 41% of the analyzed glass fragments and is compatible with the pattern detected in some production wastes found in two different archeological contexts located in Lisbon, which reinforces the veracity of the theory that this GP can be attributed to a Portuguese production. On the other hand, GP1 was probably attributed Granada provenance.

In 1548, the Portuguese merchant Galeotto Perera was captured along with his shipmates in the waters off China’s southeastern coast. In his account of his time as a prisoner in Fuquieo (in contemporary Fujian province), Perera details his trial before the city’s magistrates in a Chinese court of law, writing of his amazement when he and his fellow Portuguese merchants were acquitted of the charges brought against them by two of the city’s most prominent men. Perera’s prison account reached an Elizabethan readership via Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations (1589), a sprawling compendium of European travel writing translated into English. In this essay, I maintain that the outcome of Shylock’s trial in Shakespeare’s comedy entails a reversal of Perera’s legal fortunes in China. In light of Perera’s assertion that the Chinese legal process “cannot be falsified, as it happeneth sometimes with vs,” I argue that The Merchant of Venice asks why these European failures of justice, mercy, and truth sometimes happen in Europe’s courts and in negotiations with non-Christian peoples. I aim to demonstrate that the comedy’s treatment of economic and religious exchange with strangers is inflected by Perera’s account of his encounters with the Chinese during his time in Fuquieo—as well as by other travel writings collected by Hakluyt that describe legal, financial, and inheritance quandaries that European traders faced during their travels to places like China, Java, and modern-day Myanmar.

The article examines how modern Western psychology has distanced itself from metaphysical and spiritual dimensions, focusing instead on a purely empirical approach. It argues that this shift, influenced by secularization since the European Renaissance, has led psychology to lose its connection to the concept of the soul and spirituality.

John Cassavetes is rightfully regarded as one of the giants of American independent cinema by film theorists and audiences alike, but they do not often discuss how strongly the director was connected to classical Hollywood melodrama. Cassavetes’s oeuvre is special because the director embraces the defining elements of modern art cinema, while also not abstaining from certain basic components of the traditional melodrama genre, such as a rhetorical style and the explicit portrayal of emotions. Cassavetes is capable of creating modern art films by utilizing all the significant components of the melodrama genre. How can one create a modernist art film that is simultaneously pathos-filled and overflowing with emotion? How can one produce a modern art film that discards the clichés of melodrama genre, by either ignoring or challenging classical principles in its formal structure, while still embracing the melodramatic value system? This essay explores the characteristics of Cassavetesian film form and seeks to understand how the director managed to create the paradox that can be termed as modern melodrama.

Abstract Around 1526, Emperor Charles V decided to build a new Renaissance palace in addition to the Nasrid palaces in the Alhambra of Granada, a monumental site currently included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage List. In that period, a large floor plan, which is preserved today at the Library of the Royal Palace of Madrid, was drawn to represent the building and its surroundings. Although this anonymous drawing has attracted considerable historiographic interest, a study of the graphical aspects analysed here, namely, paper assemblage, drawing technique, representation system, metrology, graphical scale, dimensioning, and labelling, is lacking. To accomplish this analysis, the original document was carefully examined and digitalised with high definition. This process allowed a comprehensive graphic analysis, utilising other drawings from the same period as a comparative reference and studying for the first time the major characteristics of one of the most relevant architectural drawings of the 16th century.

The article is devoted to studying the circumstances that served as the basis for the quotation of the original composition installed during the restoration of the Vincigliata Castle near Florence (1860s) in the sculpture A Well with a Gargoyle in the Livadia Palace. A comparative analysis of the copy and the original leads to the problem of hyperquotation in the work on the project of the imperial residence in the Crimea (1909–1914). For the first time, the article publishes the photographs of the historical courtyard of the Vincigliata sculptures from the State Historical Museum funds (Moscow) and the view of the Livadia well from the architect N.P. Krasnov’s author album from the funds of the Research Library under Russian Academy of Arts (Saint‐Petersburg).

This paper examines the role of women in Nazi Germany and ways the policy and propaganda implemented and enacted both plans an policies to transform women into the mothers of the nation. The paper will focus on the ways propaganda posters were used in order to engage public opinion, using the power of visual arts into manipulating public opinion that the body of a woman should be devoted to the Reich, (re-)producing the pure-blooded German and support the creation of a new empire. The posters supported and acted as a direct reminder of the policies set by Nazi regime, and their ideology on family planning, racial purity and gender roles. The propaganda machine that produced them borrowed symbols from religious works of the Renaissance connecting the “ideal mother” to images of Holy Mary, in a twisted connection between religion and social engineering. The presentation will discuss about the ways Nazi Germany elaborated the role of women, the (ab)use of their body and the ideal depiction of it according to the regime, the distortion of iconic renaissance paintings along with the ways that religion and public policy have been weaved in order to manipulate and re-educate an entire nation will be parts of the presentation in order to highlight this interesting part of history.

Around 1526, Emperor Charles V decided to build a new Renaissance palace in addition to the Nasrid palaces in the Alhambra of Granada, a monumental site currently included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage List. In that period, a large floor plan, which is preserved today at the Library of the Royal Palace of Madrid, was drawn to represent the building and its surroundings. Although this anonymous drawing has attracted considerable historiographic interest, a study of the graphical aspects analysed here, namely, paper assemblage, drawing technique, representation system, metrology, graphical scale, dimensioning, and labelling, is lacking. To accomplish this analysis, the original document was carefully examined and digitalised with high definition. This process allowed a comprehensive graphic analysis, utilising other drawings from the same period as a comparative reference and studying for the first time the major characteristics of one of the most relevant architectural drawings of the 16th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The direct anodic conversion of alkali carbonates in aqueous media provides access to peroxodicarbonate, which is a safe to use and green oxidizer. Although first reports date back around 150 years, its low concentrations and limited thermal stability have consigned this reagent to oblivion. Boron-doped diamond anodes, novel electrolyser concepts for heat dissipation, and the mixed cation trick allow record breaking peroxodicarbonate concentrations >900 mM. The electrochemical generation of peroxodicarbonate was already demonstrated on a pilot scale. The inherent safety is ensured by the limited stability of the peroxodicarbonate solution, which decomposes under ambient conditions to oxygen and facilitates subsequent downstream processing. This peroxide has, in particular at higher concentrations, an unusual reactivity and seems to be an ideal reagent when peroxo-equivalents in combination with alkaline base are required. The conversions with peroxodicarbonate include the Dakin reaction, epoxidation, oxidation of amines (aliphatic and aromatic) and sulfur compounds, deborolative hydroxylation reactions, and many more. Since the base equivalents also represent the makeup chemical for pulping plants, peroxodicarbonate is an ideal reagent for the selective degradation of lignin to vanillin. Moreover, peroxodicarbonate can be used as a halogen-free bleaching agent. The emerging electrogeneration and use of this green platform oxidizer are surveyed for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Agora (0211-6642) is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones 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 present article traces the evolution and development of the French chanson, focusing on the Parisian chanson and the changes underwent by the genre under the influence of the group La Pléiade. One of the most important contributions France has made to the music of the Renaissance, the chanson embodies the endeavors that guided French artists of the Renaissance to prove that the French language possessed all the necessary qualities for becoming a poetic language. Relinquishing the sobriety of the Franco-Flemish school, Renaissance composers turned to a simpler, more melodious expression in their works, striving to place the text at the forefront. The 1520's witnessed the emergence of a new type of chanson, generally known as the Parisian chanson, with its lyrical and narrative versions, exemplified by the works of such composers as Claudin de Sermisy or Clément Janequin. From the complex polyphonic works, composers turned to more transparent textures, characterized by homorhythm and homophony. The chanson was also influenced by the ideals proposed by the Pléiade group, which placed poetry at the forefront, the music following the metric and rhythmic patterns of the declamation - a practice that became known as musique mesurêe and was represented by the works of Claude Le Jeune. Finally, the end of the 16th century brought about the gradual replacement of the genre with the air du cour, which would gain popularity in the 17th century. Nonetheless, the particularities of the musique mesurêe would have a great influence on declamation and the importance of the accents in song -concepts that lies at the core of French vocal music of the following centuries. The analysis proposed by the authors presents pieces that are representative for the evolution of the genre, striving to reveal the particularities of each period in the development of the chanson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we will compare selected examples of writers' digital libraries, from the Renaissance to contemporary times, to study the different rhetorical strategies that preside over their digital discourse. Second, we will analyze how the rhetoric of digital discourse on digital libraries can influence the "author's posture" (Meizoz 2007), both at the institutional and individual level. We will discuss three different cases: the first is that of virtual, even "mental", "memory" (Ferrer 2001) libraries of authors of the past, reconstructed by specialists from the books these writers read or owned, as in the case of the MONLOE project-dedicated to Michel de Montaigne. The second is that of virtual libraries of "amphibious" authors, working in both media (print and digital), following the example of the forerunner François Bon. The third is that of "collective" librariesplatforms, such as Wattpad and Panodyssey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the support of the Ukrainian PEN scholarship program, and implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation and the New Democracy Fund (Denmark) as part of the Rapid Response Fund. On the basis of real-life stories and the classics of world philosophy and literature, the author examines the different meanings and connotations that accompany the use of the words hope, disappointment, desire, expect, win, believe, and act in Ukraine today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ESTOA: Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca is the property of ESTOA Revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Cuenca 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 eHumanista is the property of Professor Antonio Cortijo-Ocana 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.)

Recently, there is a rise in studies that recognize the importance of targeting ubiquitin and related molecular machinery in various therapeutic contexts. Here we briefly discuss the history of ubiquitin, its biological roles in protein degradation and beyond, as well as the current state of ubiquitin‐targeting therapeutics across diseases. We conclude that targeting ubiquitin machinery is approaching a renaissance, and tapping its full potential will require embracing a wholistic perspective of ubiquitin's multifaceted roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By a scheme of a musical canon, we mean the time and pitch displacement of each entering voice. When the time displacements are unequal, achieving consonant sonorities is especially challenging. Using a first-species theoretical model, we quantify the flexibility of schemes that Renaissance composers used or could have used. We craft an algorithm to compute this flexibility value precisely (finding in the process that it is an algebraic integer). We find that Palestrina consistently selected some of the most flexible schemes, more so than his predecessors, but that he by no means exhausted all feasible schemes. To add support to the model, we present two new compositions within the limits of the style utilizing unexplored canonic schemes. In the Online Supplement, we provide MIDI realizations of the musical examples and Sage code used in the numerical computations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operating from dual locations in London and Athens, the output of Night Kitchen, the experimental architectural research lab of Ifigeneia Liangi and Daniel Dream, often takes the form of anarchitectural story books, illustrated with congested, postmodern interiors full of colourful objects and artefacts. But these are not random juxtapositions of stuff – they are elaborate, multilayered tableaux, their cross‐currents haunted with associations that stretch far and wide across film, sport, literature, memorabilia, art practice and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the challenges of literary-historical periodization in early modern studies, particularly the ambiguous boundary between the medieval and the early modern periods. Topics include the continuity and change between these eras, the cultural shift from medieval allegory to Renaissance classicism, and the influence of medievalism studies on reinterpreting early sixteenth-century literature.

The article delves into a new interpretation of George Herbert's renowned shape poem, "Easter-wings." Topics include the influence of the Hellenistic tradition on Renaissance shape poetry and its encrypted reading techniques, the discovery of a previously unnoticed combined version of the poem in its manuscript sources, and the implications of these findings for textual criticism and the history of the book.

'Jur nijedna na svit vila', by Hanibal Lucić (c.1485–1553), is one of the best known and most loved poems of the Croatian Renaissance, but translating it into a different context poses problems of reception. The article uses travesty and parody to address the issues of poetic vocabulary and gender regime, and finds similarities between such techniques and translation. Each of these can prompt a critical interpretation of the poem. But the resulting critical gaze does not necessarily lead to an adequate reading, and the article goes on to discuss aspects that are obscured in translation, from echoes of oral literature to the grammar of traditional love-charms, suggesting that the point of the poem is to convey an emotional effect, that of enchantment or wonder, that is not accessible through critique. But does such magic, which demands exact repetition, work in translation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Prohistoria is the property of Prohistoria Ediciones 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 Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of University of Cumhuriyet, Faculty of Sciences & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of SIRIUS - Zeitschrift fur Strategische Analysen is the property of De Gruyter 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 National Gallery in London recently held two exhibitions, one on Frans Hals and the other on Francesco di Stefano, also known as Pesellino. The Pesellino exhibition showcased eight works, including two recently restored paintings. Pesellino's career was often overshadowed by his association with his grandfather, but the exhibition aimed to shed light on his talent as a draughtsman and his connections to the Medici family. The article focuses on two specific pieces, highlighting Pesellino's skill and attention to detail, as well as exploring their possible meanings and contexts. It concludes by discussing Pesellino's career and influence on later Florentine artists. [Extracted from the article]

In 2020 Renaissance Studies [34 (2020): 243–59] published an essay entitled "Lorenzo de' Medici and Inheritance Law in Florence," discussing the use of legislation by Lorenzo de' Medici to advantage Carlo Borromei in inheritance from his uncle, to the disadvantage of his cousin, Beatrice, who was married to a Pazzi. The legislation removed legal uncertainty in Florentine inheritance law. Another consilium for the Pazzi has emerged, arising in the aftermath of the legislation, taking an entirely different path to try to deny Carlo Borromei full access to the estate, on the grounds he was not a Florentine citizen and so unable to enjoy the benefits of Florence's new statute. The author of the consilium was a Sienese. His arguments shift the grounds of discussion, while not entirely escaping the whiff of sour grapes by the Pazzi at having lost in the first round. Citizenship emerges as a performative matter, described in terms of things like residence and tax paying. But it was also a matter at the discretion of other citizens. The renewed legal assault on the Borromei offers insight into the many meanings and dimensions of citizenship, as well as the resolve, soon to become fatal, of the Pazzi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of CEDRUS is the property of Mediterranean Civilisations Research Institute 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.)

One of the most interesting problems in the recent renaissance of the studies in kernel regression might be whether kernel interpolation can generalize well, since it may help us understand the 'benign overfitting phenomenon' reported in the literature on deep networks. In this paper, under mild conditions, we show that, for any ε > 0 ⁠ , the generalization error of kernel interpolation is lower bounded by Ω (n − ε) ⁠. In other words, the kernel interpolation generalizes poorly for a large class of kernels. As a direct corollary, we can show that overfitted wide neural networks defined on the sphere generalize poorly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces Hobbes's account of 'exemplarity' from his early writings to Leviathan. It argues that, by tracking Hobbes's changing views on exemplarity, we get a better grasp on how he construed the effective conditions of an enduring peace in 1651. While these conditions are compatible with the formal structure of sovereignty, they remain distinct from it. I start by inserting Hobbes's early engagement with historiography in the context of the 'crisis of exemplarity' of the late Renaissance. Whereas prior engagement with antiquity had relied on a notion of exemplarity as historical particulars embodying general norms to be imitated in a contemporary setting, a dissatisfaction with this model, characteristic of a revived interest in Tacitus, appears in the sixteenth century. Initially adhering to this 'Tacitean' scheme of political theory, Hobbes ended up abandoning exemplarity as the foundational model of politics in Elements of Law and De cive. However, Leviathan reintroduced the scheme of exemplarity as a strategy of effective government. This strategy is based on a retrieval of the sovereign's appearance as a moral exemplum to be imitated by the subjects. Lastly, I suggest that this change stems from the altered conditions of government at the end of the 1640s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At a European level, Tropaeolum minus is the first species of this genus that arrived in our continent, around 1570, immediately used as an ornamental, vegetable and pharmaceutical plant. According to Italian sources, instead, T. minus arrived in Italy only in 1642: the species of this genus which was known in Italy at the time was T. majus, imported in 1596. However, in the Italian Renaissance herbaria, there are four specimens dated to the last decades of 1500, clearly recognisable as T. minus, which would confirm its import around 1570. Thanks to the analysis of these herbarium specimens and documental sources of the second half of the XVI century (Ulisse Aldrovandi's manuscripts and watercolour plates, the lists of species cultivated in that period in the principal Italian botanical gardens, the manuscript code I cinque libri di piante by Pietro Antonio Michiel), it is possible to demonstrate that the arrival of T. minus in Italy has to be redated at the second half of the XVI century. Furthermore, this work allowed the specimens of Tropaeolum preserved in the Erbario Aldrovandi to be identified correctly, which were formerly attributed to T. majus following the Italian scientific literature available so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eating has always played a central role in people’s lives, serving as an important symbol of togetherness and community- building for thousands of years. In many cultures and religious traditions, communal eating or commensality holds significant importance and is often surrounded by ritual symbolism. These rituals and customs serve various purposes, ranging from expressions of togetherness to honouring gods or declaring peaceful intentions. Theatre performance, like eating, is a communal event. Throughout different historical periods, these two forms of communal existence often intertwined more closely than we experience today: from the ceremonies of the Bacchanalia and Dionysia in ancient Greek and Roman culture, to Elizabethan theatrical traditions, Renaissance and Baroque banquets, and modern experimental culinary and olfactory theatre. As theatre is an art form rooted in ritual and religion, theatrical performance operates with the same tools and mechanisms as ceremonies. The article illustrates the mentioned aspects through the impact mechanism of the performance Celebration – based on the movie Festen by Thomas Vinterberg –, presented at the Hungarian State Theatre of Cluj in 2011, under the direction of Robert Woodruff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of an archipelago of residential blocks across London's West End has created an urban renaissance of sorts, but it is a rebirth that has targeted the expanded ranks of the global super-rich, yielding a visibly luxurious, often vacant residential remaking, rather than the aspirations for a diverse, vibrant and open urbanism envisaged some years ago for the city. New luxury apartment blocks offer high levels of privacy, security and the seamless integration of bodies and vehicles into underground or enclosed entry points. These 'ultraland' blocks are less places of conviviality and encounter, offering instead a kind of dark space urbanism that facilitates a partial social engagement with local environs by barely present owners. Combining an analysis of the planning applications for these developments with extensive street observation in London's West End we discuss the social and spatial integration of these developments. We argue that a key effect is one of social 'reduction'—the sense of null spaces that absorb bodies, furnishings and cars in ways that are the antithesis of earlier ambitions for socially vital and democratic urban spaces. We discuss the significance of these changes for contemporary life in the city more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the sources of the play "The Sea Voyage" by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger and focuses on the influence of Ludovico Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso." While scholars have identified various sources for the play, the contribution of "Orlando Furioso" has been underestimated. The main source of "The Sea Voyage" is William Warner's "Pan's Syrinx," which provides the framework for the tragicomedy. However, the similarities between the play and Ariosto's poem, such as the arrival of characters on an island after a storm and the theme of revenge, suggest a deeper influence. The article argues that the episode of the female commonwealth in the play is more likely based on Canto XX of "Orlando Furioso," with elements from other sources integrated as well. [Extracted from the article]