Throwing Stones at Friars: The Church of San Francesco in Piacenza

<p>In 1278, the Franciscan Order of Piacenza acquired a large piece of land in the center of the city. The land had been confiscated by the commune when the property's former owner had been exiled several years earlier. However, that land was occupied by at least eleven other private and commercial tenants, including the jurisdictions of five different parishes. The friars immediately set to work demolishing the houses, and sealing off the site with a high enclosure wall. They then began construction on a large church and convent. The impact on the economy of the parish churches in loss of charitable revenue was immediate. One month into their project, a representative of the Bishop and Chapter of the Cathedral arrived at the site and denounced the friars in the name of the harm it was inflicting on the surrounding parishes. The friars ignored the warning and the result was their excommunication. Four years later Pope Martin IV sent three delegates to investigate the Franciscans' actions. The inquest that followed was recorded in a detailed manuscript that is preserved in Parma's Archivio di Stato. The document records the testimony of eighteen witnesses, including parish priests, neighboring lay people and workers on the building. Their testimony and the accompanying documentary material allows us to reconstruct the alteration to the economic and urban fabric of the parish community caused by the Franciscans.</p>Dissertatio

Telemorphosis: Theory in the Era of Climate Change, Vol. 1

The writers in the volume ask, implicitly, how the 21st century horizons that exceed any political, economic, or conceptual models alters or redefines a series of key topoi. These range through figures of sexual difference, bioethics, care, species invasion, war, post-carbon thought, ecotechnics, time, and so on. As such, the volume is also a dossier on what metamorphoses await the legacies of -humanistic- thought in adapting to, or rethinking, the other materialities that impinge of contemporary -life as we know it.- With essays by Robert Markley, J. Hillis Miller, Bernard Stiegler, Justin Read, Timothy Clark, Claire Colebrook, Jason Groves, Joanna Zylinska, Catherine Malabou, Mike Hill, Martin McQuillan, Eduardo Cadava and Tom Cohen

Heritage Futures

Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds. Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation, profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aims to understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across a number of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and the possibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternative approaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include the cryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management, seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, space messaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritage management, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage site management. 'I suspect this book will prove to be a revolutionary addition to the field of heritage studies, flipping the gaze from the past to the future. Heritage Futures reveals the deep uncertainties and precarities that shape both everyday and political life today: accumulation and waste, care and hope, the natural and the toxic. It represents a uniquely impressive intellectual and empirical roadmap for both anticipating and questioning future trajectories, and the strange, unfamiliar places heritage will take us.’ - Tim Winter, University of Western Australi

An examination of the work of William White, F.S.A., architect (1825-1900).

William White (1825-1900) has been described by Mark Girouard as 'One of the most interesting and least known of Victorian Gothic revivalists', most probably because, in spite of his many innovative designs, he did not enter the competitions for major public buildings that brought fame and fortune to his contemporaries, such as George Edmund Street. Nor did White produce any books to promote his architectural theories. However, this thesis has established the existence of a corpus of his writings, encompassing various topics as well as architecture, published in contemporary journals. White attached great importance to the subject of colour, both structural and applied, and this is examined in relation to both his secular and ecclesiastical projects. White's standing as a church architect---an obituary mentions more than 250 ecclesiastical schemes---may have militated against his subsequent reputation, for he, himself, believed that there was less opportunity for innovation in the design of churches. This thesis demonstrates that White's designs for parsonage houses and schools reveal him as being in the vanguard of the development of the Queen Anne style. As a restorer of both ecclesiastical and secular buildings, White can be seen as sensitive to earlier work but cognisant of the demands of modern life. His argument that the continued function of a building is necessary for its preservation is used today by English Heritage. Although, like most of his contemporaries, White was sceptical of iron as a building material, he was innovative in his use of concrete and of double-glazing. White's demands for local materials that could be well handled by local builders anticipated the ideas of Philip Webb and the Arts and Crafts movement. This thesis establishes a corpus of White's work from Aberdeen to Cornwall, and in South Africa and Madagascar, which demonstrates his contribution to nineteenth-century architecture

Heritage Futures: Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices

Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds. Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation, profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aims to understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across a number of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and the possibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternative approaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include the cryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management, seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, space messaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritage management, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage site management

Interactions and New Directions in Near Eastern Archaeology. Volume 3. Proceedings of the 5^th “Broadening Horizons” Conference (Udine 5-8 June 2017)

Interactions and New Directions in Near Eastern Archaeology is the third volume of the Proceedings of the 5th Broadening Horizons International Conference that was held at the University of Udine from 5th to 8th June 2017. Broadening Horizons aims to be an international platform for postgraduate students and early-career researchers in the wide Near Eastern archaeology field. The main topic of the conference Civilizations in Contact served to emphasize the importance of cross-cultural interactions in the Near East over time. In particular, the present volume is devoted to the papers from Session 7, “Civilizations in contact: current research and new approaches in Mediterranean and Near Eastern Archaeology”, and Session 6, “Marine connections: the Gulf and the interactions between the Arabian Peninsula, Mesopotamia, the Iranian world and beyond”. The volume contains 24 peer-reviewed papers divided into two parts, introduced by the two key-lectures which were given by Elena Rova and Maurizio Cattani. These proceedings give a vivid picture of the exchanges and interactions that occurred during the presentation and debate of specialist papers in Udine at the conference. The diversity in terms of geographical environments, historical periods, and topics in Near Eastern archaeology stands out among the contributions published here. This collection of papers by a new generation of young scholars offers fresh and novel approaches to complex archaeological topics

Armourers and their workshops The tools and techniques of late medieval armour production

This thesis is an interdisciplinary study of medieval armour, with the goal of determining the precise techniques used by medieval armourers in the practice of their craft. The corpus for this research is from the collection of the Royal Armouries, as well as a selection of objects from other museums, with a focus on German and Italian armour between 1400 and 1500. The thesis makes use of a new methodology by which the armour itself is used as a primary source, in essence a text, using the interpretation of tool marks left on its surfaces. Although metallurgical studies have been undertaken on armour, the marks have not been systematically studied in the past and provide a means by which the techniques of the medieval armourer may be identified. The thesis also makes use of inventories, artwork, and experimental hammerwork to more accurately understand the workshop environment. Inventories show the variety of tools required in the workshop, as well as what would have been available to an armourer. Artwork showing armourers engaged in their craft is used to interpret some patterns of tool marks as well as identification of certain tools and techniques. The experimental work undertaken was used to recreate particular types of marks and patterns, demonstrating the relation between tools, processes, and the shapes of armour. The research demonstrates that it is possible, using this method, to reconstruct the ways that armourers worked, something that has been largely conjectural previously. This approach to armour studies has not been attempted before and has allowed for several specific questions to be answered. These include finding differences in working techniques of armourers from different regions, the ability to determine if certain unmarked objects were made by the same armourer, changing methods of construction, and whether a piece is a fake or authentic

Heritage Futures

Preservation of natural and cultural heritage is often said to be something that is done for the future, or on behalf of future generations, but the precise relationship of such practices to the future is rarely reflected upon. Heritage Futures draws on research undertaken over four years by an interdisciplinary, international team of 16 researchers and more than 25 partner organisations to explore the role of heritage and heritage-like practices in building future worlds. Engaging broad themes such as diversity, transformation, profusion and uncertainty, Heritage Futures aims to understand how a range of conservation and preservation practices across a number of countries assemble and resource different kinds of futures, and the possibilities that emerge from such collaborative research for alternative approaches to heritage in the Anthropocene. Case studies include the cryopreservation of endangered DNA in frozen zoos, nuclear waste management, seed biobanking, landscape rewilding, social history collecting, space messaging, endangered language documentation, built and natural heritage management, domestic keeping and discarding practices, and world heritage site management. 'I suspect this book will prove to be a revolutionary addition to the field of heritage studies, flipping the gaze from the past to the future. Heritage Futures reveals the deep uncertainties and precarities that shape both everyday and political life today: accumulation and waste, care and hope, the natural and the toxic. It represents a uniquely impressive intellectual and empirical roadmap for both anticipating and questioning future trajectories, and the strange, unfamiliar places heritage will take us.’ - Tim Winter, University of Western Australi