El camino hacia el oeste: los viajes de Domenico Laffi y otros peregrinos italianos a Santiago de Compostela

This article discusses some of the voyages of Italian pilgrims who came to Compostela before the midseventeenth century. Among them deserves attention Cosme III de Médici and especially Domenico Laffi made the pilgrimage three times and wrote an Itinerary that besides having a high literary quality, is an essential document to know the seventeenth-century SpainEl presente artículo analiza algunos de los viajes de los peregrinos italianos que se acercaron a Compostela antes de mediados del siglo XVII. Entre ellos merece atención Cosme III de Médici y sobre todo Domenico Laffi, que hizo la peregrinación tres veces y que escribió un Itinerario que además de tener una gran calidad literaria, es un documento indispensable para conocer la España del siglo XVI

The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England

History of Scienc

The ceremonies of Charles II's court

PhDThis thesis examines the question of how the restored monarchy used the ceremonies of court in the period 1660-1685. It is concerned with those rituals which took place regularly within the royal palaces, that is to say the ceremonies of the Chapel Royal, of healing, of reception and audience, dining and entertaining, and the rituals which took place within the privy apartments, including the royal lever and coucher. The ways in which these rituals operated over the course of the reign are considered - with close reference to their physical setting - as is their significance as expressions of royal power. The contention of the thesis is that the ceremonies of the Restoration court are a neglected subject deserving of serious study, and that by examining them real insight can be gained into the changing nature of monarchy, the personality of Charles II and the politics of his reign. The thesis argues, contrary to traditional accounts of his reign, that Charles II took the formal exchanges of court life very seriously, that their performance was intimately connected to the politics of the period and that they were crucial to the way in which he projected his own majesty

Un’idea di Messico: sondaggi tra Sette e Ottocento

The essay investigates some images of Mexico present in the Italian literature of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. America’s colonization is recalled by Parini and by other eighteenth century poets and intellectuals as a cruel exploitation of men and resources. In the operatic and narrative tradition the South American location gives rise to romantic plots as well as to a critical analysis of pre-Columbian religions (as in Casti’s and Poggi’s poems). But more common is the celebration of generous yet unhappy Aztec monarchs deposed by Spanish conquistadores, from Montezuma to Guatimozino. The latter is remembered by Carducci in the poem Miramar (1878) together with Maximilian of Habsburg-Lorraine, the emperor of Mexico executed by Juárez’s Republican army

The association of proBNPage with manifestations of age-related cardiovascular, physical, and psychological impairment in community-dwelling older adults

NT-proB-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) serum concentration can be transformed by simple formulas into proBNPage, a surrogate of biological age strongly associated with chronological age, all-cause mortality, and disease count. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess whether proBNPage is also associated with other manifestations of the aging process in comparison with other variables. The study included 1117 noninstitutionalized older adults (73.1 +/- 5.6 years, 537 men). Baseline measurements of serum NT-proBNP, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, hemoglobin, lymphocytes, and creatinine, which have previously been shown to be highly associated with both age and all-cause mortality, were performed. These variables were compared between subjects with and without manifestations of cardiovascular impairment (myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, peripheral artery disease (PAD), arterial revascularizations (AR)), physical impairment (long step test duration (LSTD), walking problems, falls, deficit in one or more activities of daily living), and psychological impairment (poor self-rating of health (PSRH), anxiety/depression, Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score < 24). ProBNPage (years) was independently associated (OR, 95% CI) with MI (1.08, 1.07-1.10), stroke (1.02, 1.00-1.05), PAD (1.04, 1.01-1.06), AR (1.06, 1.04-1.08), LSTD (1.03, 1.02-1.04), walking problems (1.02, 1.01-1.03), and PSRH (1.02, 1.01-1.02). For 5 of these 7 associations, the relationship was stronger than that of chronological age. In addition, proBNPage was univariately associated with MMSE score < 24, anxiety/depression, and falls. None of the other variables provided comparable performances. Thus, in addition to the known associations with mortality and disease count, proBNPage is also associated with cardiovascular manifestations as well as noncardiovascular manifestations of the aging process

Riflessioni sullo spirito editoriale di Aldo Manuzio

Il contributo tende a mostrare come lo spirito antiquariale che caratterizza molte edizioni di testi antichi già nel Quattrocento e per tutto il Cinquecento non appartiene alla mentalità di Aldo, interessato soprattutto alla messa in circolazione di testi fruibili e affidabili. La stessa filologia deve confinarsi, per Aldo, nella fase preparatoria delle stampe, ma i testi, una volta licenziati, devono ostentare una irrevocabile e quasi sacramentale definitività.The paper aims to prove that no kind of antiquarian impulse accounts for Aldus's project as a publisher. Philology itself, although regarded by him as a useful tool, must not be displayed in his books: once printed, Aldus’s editions are supposed to provide each text in its only possible form

The Saami shamanic drum in Rome

What is the history of the drum, which once arrived from the Saami area in northernmost Europe to the collections of an Italian museum, L. Pigorini museum? At the moment, it is the only Saami drum the existence of which is certain in Italy. Saami drums were probably popular objects of export in the 17th and 18th centuries. Missionaries and explorers brought dozens of drums from various parts of Lappmark to be sold and shipped to the private collections of noblemen and other interested people all over Continental Europe. Some of these drums later on found their way to the museums, many became lost or are still somewhere, to be traced by future investigations of local museums and private collections. There clearly has been a special interest towards the most northern corner of the European continent in the Mediterranean countries, particularly in Italy. The correspondence and other descriptions bear evidence about shamanism as the most illuminating and appealing manifestation of the ancient culture and religion of the exotic people living behind the circumpolar zone at the edge of the universe

Female migrants, partner choice and socio-economic destiny : Finnish women in Stockholm in the 17th and 18th century

Peer reviewe

Experimental Philosophy and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Italy

According to Amos Funkenstein, Stephen Gaukroger and Andrew Cunningham, seventeenth-century natural philosophy was fused with theology, driven by theology, and pursued primarily to shed light on God. Experimental natural philosophy might seem to provide a case in point. According to its English advocates, like Robert Boyle and Thomas Sprat, experimental philosophy embodies the Christian virtues of humility, innocence, and piety, it helps establish God’s existence, attributes, and providence, and it provides a basis for evangelism. This chapter shows that, unlike their English counterparts, experimental philosophers in seventeenth-century Italy kept natural philosophy sharply distinct from theological and religious matters. This indicates that seventeenth-century experimental philosophy was not, as such, theologically driven or oriented. It also suggests that there was no intrinsic relation between experimental philosophy and religion. Whether experimental philosophy was presented as an ally of religion or as distinct from it was, to a significant extent, a matter of cultural politics. It depended on which rhetorical and argumentative strategies were believed to be most likely to ensure freedom of research and institutional support for the work of experimental philosophers in a specific sociopolitical context