The Materiality of Absence:Organizing and the case of the incomplete cathedral

This study explores the role of absences in making organizing possible. By engaging with Lefebvre’s spatial triad as the interconnections between conceived (planned), perceived (experienced through practice) and lived (felt and imagined) spaces, we challenge the so-called metaphysics of presence in organization studies. We draw on the insights offered by the project of construction of Siena Cathedral during the period 1259– 1357 and we examine how it provided a space for the actors involved to explore their different (civic, architectural and religious) intentions. We show that, as the contested conceived spaces of the cathedral were connected to architectural practices, religious powers and civic symbols, they revealed the impossibility for these intentions to be fully represented. It was this impossibility that provoked an ongoing search for solutions and guaranteed a combination of dynamism and persistence of both the material architecture of the cathedral and the project of construction. The case of Siena Cathedral therefore highlights the role of absence in producing organizing effects not because absence eventually takes form but because of the impossibility to fully represent it

\uabScriptorum seu verius pictorum\ubb. La scrittura dei corali

Il saggio prende in considerazione le due serie di corali (datate, rispettivamente, alla fine del XIII e al principio del XIV) riferibili al convento dei Predicatori di S. Domenico. Valorizzando le descrizioni archeologiche dei codici, viene proposta un'inedita ipotesi circa la tecnica di esecuzione della scrittura di quei libri monumentali

Scrivere "all'antica"

Il saggio ripercorre, in modo sintetico, ma densamente contestualizzato, il profilarsi della riforma grafica sollecitata presso il circolo degli umanisti fiorentini, indicando nell'interazione tra Niccol\uf2 Niccoli e Poggio Bracciolini, uniti dal comune discepolato presso Coluccio Salutati, il qualificante momento fondativo