Japanese Teachers at the Royal School of Commerce (1873-1923)

Only five years after the Royal Superior School of Commerce (the present Ca' Foscari University) was founded in 1868, the School introduced, for the first time in Italy, Japanese language courses taught by native speakers. The classes started in 1873 and continued until 1888, and were again part of the curriculum from 1909 to 1923. In those years a little number of very active Japanese teachers (interprets, linguists, sculptors and painters) contributed to shaping the education in Japanese of Italian students, who in turn went on to direct Japanese instruction in Italy. Their guiding spirit was Guglielmo Berchet, a tireless promoter of Italo-Japanese relations

Francesco Ferrara, il primo degli economisti cafoscarini

The paper presents the important personality of the great Italian economist Francesco Ferrara who has been the first Director of the new School of Commerce founded in Venice in 1868. The paper is divided in two parts: the first part presents the main features of Francesco Ferrara as an economist, showing how he was clearly a supporter of a free-market oriented vision of the economic analysis and of the economic policy, not liking at all a vision of the economic analysis separated from the political implications, but definitely favouring a political economy vision. He was a sharp opponent of socialism, although admiring the logical power of Marx's thought, but not Marxian ideas. But he was also an opponent of intermediate visions leading to mediations in the field of economic policy. His rather radical positions led him to resign from the role of minister of Finance. In the second part the paper shows how Ferrara accepted the proposal of Luigi Luzzatti to be appointed as director of new School of Commerce of Ca' Foscari in summer 1868; the paper shows how the relations between Ferrara and Luzzatti were characterized by polemical moments, both because of the lines followed by Ferrara in appointing the professors of the new school and because of the openness shown by Luzzatti, and not liked at all by Ferrara, towards policies showing a favorable attitude towards social interventions. Eventually the disagreements were solved. Finally, the paper shows how Ferrara succeeded in appointing at Ca' Foscari some of the most important Italian economists of his time, such as Maffeo Pantaleoni

I primi anni della Scuola Superiore di Commercio attraverso il primo Resoconto della gestione

The retrieval of the first financial report allows the analysis of the income and expenses of the Advanced School for Commerce from 1868 to 1872. This analysis shows the relevance of two groups of accounting headings: the contributions of the founding bodies and the government to the revenues; the salaries of the Director and of the faculty to the expenses. The numerical data corroborate the information available in other descriptive sources, allowing to discuss the crucial contribution of specific items to the good initial functioning of the School. The chapter also presents a comparison of the weightings of the main groups of accounting headings in the first report and in the last one

Association study and mutation analysis of adiponectin shows association of variants in **APM1** with complex obesity in women

Gino Luzzatto is somehow the father of Economic History in Italy and was one of the most charismatic figures teaching at Ca’ Foscari, both for his political activity and for the commitment he showed in supporting the university’s growth and its success at the international level. For this reason, many studies were dedicated to him after his death and continue to be so. This essay provides both a brief overview of the years that led up to his appointment to the first chair in Economic History and an analysis of his concept of the discipline permeated with elements of law and sociology. It highlights the role Mediaeval History had in his work, as it did in the work of many other great international historians of the time, such as Bloch and Pirenne, who were linked to the journal Annales. The theoretical dimension of Gino Luzzatto’s approach was never separated from his conviction of the unity of human history and the purely practical nature of disciplinary specialisation