From Villa Diodati to Villa Gabrielli : a manuscript appendix to Fantasmagoriana

The role played by Fantasmagoriana in the genesis of Frankenstein and The Vampyre has largely prevented the full critical appreciation of this work in its original context of production, i.e. the French market of supernatural anthologies in the early nineteenth century, paving the way to the so-called frénétique vogue. By analysing a manuscript appendix to Fantasmagoriana, drafted between the mid-1820s and the mid-1830s and bound within a copy formerly belonging to the Roman family Gabrielli-Bonaparte, this article reinstates Fantasmagoriana within the environment of Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic culture and its renewed interest in the supernatural. Whereas English-speaking criticism has normally approached Fantasmagoriana through Tales of the Dead, i.e. Sarah Utterson’s Gothicizing and partial translation of 1813, an analysis of Fantasmagoriana from the point of view of its original readership will enable us to rethink the specificities of the French Gothic beyond Anglo-centric perspectives

Il sorriso del conte zio. Manzoni, Sade e l’omaggio alla Vergine

The essay examines the figure of Lucia from Manzoni’s I promessi sposi, in the light of the literary ‘type’ of the ‘persecuted maiden’, at the intersection between hagiography, libertine literature, sentimental novel, Gothic narrative, and Romantic literature. In particular, through a comparative analysis of the frontispieces of I promessi sposi and of the 1791 edition of Justine, it focuses on the similarities, suggesting their reciprocal specularity, in being both answers (only apparently antithetical) to the metaphysical problem of evil. From this angle, the essay analyses the influence, on both Manzoni and Sade, of the figure of Mary, in the years witnessing – as a reaction against the secularization promoted by the Enlightenment and the French revolution – to a renewed worship for the Holy Virgin, later culminating in the promulgation of the Immaculate Conception dogma (1854) and the apparitions at Lourdes (1858)

Equivalent Frame modelling of URM buildings: numerical validation and rules

Within the context of the seismic analysis of masonry buildings, the application of verification procedures based on nonlinear analyses is now widespread and requires reliable and computationally efficient modelling strategies. Among other possible techniques, the so-called \u201cEquivalent Frame Method\u201d (EFM) is one of the most used, especially in practice engineering. This simplified approach allows to describe the global in-plane behavior of the building and is based on the assumption that the nonlinear response of each wall is concentrated in specific masonry panels which are defined a priori (piers \u2013 vertical panels and spandrels \u2013masonry beams that connect piers), while the remaining portions of the wall are usually idealized as rigid nodes. Despite of the large use of these models, there are many aspects that should be considered in order to verify their actual reliability, especially with regard to their application to existing masonry buildings. These last, indeed, are characterized by many irregularities that represent very hard-to-model features, making the application of the EFM complicated and even questionable: presence of flexible diaphragms (vaults, timber floors), different quality of the connection between the orthogonal walls, complex geometries and irregular opening patterns that are the result of several modifications during the years. All these aspects lead to several modelling uncertainties, which are not adequately addressed by the seismic codes, even if most of them explicitly suggest the use of the EFM for the seismic analysis of masonry buildings. Regarding these aspects, the collaboration to research projects developed at national scale has allowed to directly experience the not negligible consequences of the adoption of different plausible modelling choices on the outcomes of the seismic design and assessment of masonry buildings. Within this context, the objective of the present research is to provide a validation of the Equivalent Frame approach with regard to some of the critical issues related to its application. In particular, the attention is focused on the first step to deal with when applying this modelling approach, that is the a priori identification of the structural elements geometry. This last is usually related to the opening pattern of the considered wall: although it is rather straightforward in presence of regular walls with openings perfectly aligned, it may result difficult and arbitrary in presence of irregular opening patterns. The criteria proposed in the literature to this aim are mainly empirical and have never been validated in a robust way, especially with regard to their application to walls with irregular opening layouts. Furthermore, since no standardized rules are provided by the codes, professional engineers can use different criteria for the identification of piers and spandrels, thus potentially obtaining different outcomes of the seismic assessment. Hence, the research here presented firstly provides a systematic comparison between the different criteria available in the literature when applied to walls with different types of irregularity in the opening layout, aiming to explore their potentialities and their limits. To this aim, nonlinear static analyses are performed on case-studies structures represented by two-story walls, making comparisons in terms of global and local response as well as damage pattern between EF models and more accurate Finite Element models, whose results are considered as the reference solution. The obtained results are useful to provide specific indications about the rules for the EF schematization to be used (or avoided) depending on the types of irregularity characterizing the wall; moreover, some possible refinements are discussed, and specific original rules are outlined. Furthermore, since the seismic design and assessment of real buildings require to perform the analyses on 3D models, where the modelling of the connections between the orthogonal walls comes into play, the deepening of this aspect is deemed necessary in the view of a robust validation of the EF model. Indeed, as highlighted also by some preliminary analyses, the modelling of the flange effect may significantly affect, depending on the adopted assumptions, the obtained structural response. Therefore, some preliminary insights about this issue have been addressed. The obtained results, even if still at initial phase, already allow to highlight some potentialities and limits of the strategies commonly used by current EF models for the modelling of URM piers with flanges, outlining possible improvements and representing the starting point for future researches

Human Desire, Deadly Love:The Vita Nova in Gide, Delay, Lacan

The relationship between Dante and psychoanalysis is altogether (to anticipate one of the themes of this essay) a sort of unconsummated love. Both Dante’s and Freud’s works start from the image of a catabasis, safeguarded and sanctioned by Virgil. As Lacan noticed in his seminar Les quatre concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse (1964): ‘n’oublions pas que Freud, quand il commença de remuer ce monde, articula ce vers, qui paraissait lourd d’inquiétantes appréhensions quand il l’a prononcé, et dont il est bien remarquable que la menace soit, après soixante ans d’expériences, complètement oubliée — Flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta movebo. Il est remarquable que ce qui s’annonçait comme une ouverture infernale ait été dans la suite aussi remarquablement aseptisé.’ The absence of Dante from Freud’s reflection is remarkable — not only because psychoanalysis is, as Lacan constantly remarked in the seminar L’éthique de la psychanalyse (1959–60), an intrinsically devilish operation, through which the human psyche is returned to the ‘prince of this world’, Diabolus (I will return to this passage at the end of this essay). In 1990, on the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of Beatrice Portinari, the Italian Dante scholar Guglielmo Gorni bemoaned the fact that ‘tra il Dante della Vita Nuova — così sollecito di sogni, del resto sottoposti all’altrui giudizio; collezionista di memorie d’infanzia; spesso in flagrante situazione di ‘annullamento retroattivo’ (Ungeschehenmachen) e, sempre in gergo tecnico, di ‘abreazione’ in situazioni di smacco —, insomma tra un Dante così apertamente confesso jam a pueris e il perfetto umanista Sigmund Freud è da deplorare un incontro mancato

Victor Frankenstein’s Evil Genius: Plutarch, Brutus’s Vision, and the Absent Revolution

This essay examines the influence of Plutarch’s Life of Brutus on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, arguing that the relationship between Brutus and his «evil genius» provides Shelley with a model for characterizing the pair of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. By considering the broader context of Plutarch’s reception from the sixteenth through the early nineteenth centuries, and particularly the construction of Brutus as a ghost-seer, a clinical obsessive, or a revolutionary icon, the essay examines the Brutus/Victor parallel as actual and/or symbolic parricides, shedding new light on Shelley’s failed representation of the French Revolution in her novel

Dismembered Bodies, Dismembered Texts: Supernatural Anthologies and the Re-animation of the Dead in Post-revolutionary France (1802-1822)

The import of British Gothic novels in post-revolutionary France, from 1797 onwards, triggered French publisher to capitalize on the vogue of supernatural narratives. One of the results was the publication of a number of anthologies, hastily composed by cutting and pasting Old Regime collections, whose first example was the anonymous Le Livre des prodiges (1802). This essay reinstates the supernatural anthologies of 1802-1822 as a powerful link between the British Gothic and later French fantastic literature (particularly Alexandre Dumas), at the same time analysing how the very operation of cutting and pasting pre-revolutionary texts resonates with distinctly post-revolutionary anxieties

The pituitary TGFb1 system as a novel target for the treatment of resistant prolactinomas

Prolactinomas are the most frequently observed pituitary adenomas and most of themrespond well to conventional treatment with dopamine agonists (DAs). However, a subsetof prolactinomas fails to respond to such therapies and is considered as DA-resistantprolactinomas (DARPs). New therapeutic approaches are necessary for these tumors.Transforming growth factor b1 (TGFb1) is a known inhibitor of lactotroph cell proliferationand prolactin secretion, and it partly mediates dopamine inhibitory action. TGFb1 is secretedto the extracellular matrix as an inactive latent complex, and its bioavailability is tightlyregulated by different components of the TGFb1 system including latent binding proteins,local activators (thrombospondin-1, matrix metalloproteases, integrins, among others), andTGFb receptors. Pituitary TGFb1 activity and the expression of different components of theTGFb1 system are regulated by dopamine and estradiol. Prolactinomas (animal models andhumans) present reduced TGFb1 activity as well as reduced expression of several componentsof the TGFb1 system. Therefore, restoration of TGFb1 inhibitory activity represents a noveltherapeutic approach to bypass dopamine action in DARPs. The aim of this review is tosummarize the large literature supporting TGFb1 important role as a local modulator ofpituitary lactotroph function and to provide recent evidence of the restoration of TGFb1activity as an effective treatment in experimental prolactinomasFil: Recouvreux, Maria Victoria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental; Argentina. Cedars Sinai Medical Center; Estados UnidosFil: Camilletti, María Andrea. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Rifkin, Daniel B.. University of New York; Estados UnidosFil: Diaz, Graciela Susana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental; Argentin

O princípio da insignificância no crime de furto: Aspectos principais e sua problemática

This article was born under the problems and consequences generated in property crimes when we are in the presence of seized things of little or very little value. Likewise, it is intended to offer the reader a review of all doctrinal and jurisprudential currents in a broad way, in order to be able to generate questions in order to train judicial operators and aspire to a more just and harmonious judicial system with the criminal principles that they rule in our courts. With regard to this, an attempt will be made to analyze those situations in which, in similar cases of the crime of theft, the resolution of the conflict requires a detailed analysis of the particular circumstance and reveals the situation generated with respect to the principle of insignificance and the need to apply penalties. The axis of this publication does not revolve around the advisability of applying one way or another to arrive at solutions to similar cases, but rather provides it with a series of resources and knowledge that make it take a stand and generate sufficient arguments, so that later, to be able to rethink the purpose of the application of short sentences, as well as the need to carry out a paradigm shift in our penal system.Este artículo nace en virtud de las problemáticas y consecuencias generadas en los delitos contra la propiedad cuando nos encontramos en presencia de cosas apoderadas de escaso o ínfimo valor. Asimismo, se pretende ofrecer al lector un repaso por todas las corrientes doctrinarias y jurisprudenciales de manera amplia, a los efectos de poder generar interrogantes en pos de capacitar a los operadores judiciales y aspirar a un sistema judicial más justo y armónico con los principios penales que rigen en nuestros tribunales. Respecto a ello, se intentarán analizar aquellas situaciones en la que, ante casos análogos propios del delito del hurto, la resolución del conflicto requiera un análisis pormenorizado de la circunstancia en particular y deje al descubierto la coyuntura generada con respecto al principio de insignificancia y la necesidad de aplicación de las penas. El eje de esta publicación no gira en torno a la conveniencia de aplicar una u otra manera de arribar a soluciones ante casos similares, sino que se provea de una serie de recursos y conocimientos que hagan tomar postura y generar argumentos suficientes, para así luego ello, poder repensar la finalidad de la aplicación de penas de corta duración, así como también la necesidad de realizar un cambio de paradigma en nuestro sistema penal.Cet article est né en vertu des problèmes et des conséquences engendrés par les délits contre les biens lorsque l’on se trouve en présence d’objets saisis de valeur faible ou négligeable. De même, il vise à offrir au lecteur une revue complète de tous les courants doctrinaux et jurisprudentiels, afin de pouvoir générer des questions afin de former les opérateurs judiciaires et aspirer à un système judiciaire plus juste et harmonieux avec les principes pénaux qui gouverner dans nos tribunaux. À cet égard, on tentera d’analyser les situations dans lesquelles, face à des cas analogues de crime de vol, la résolution du conflit nécessite une analyse détaillée de la circonstance particulière et révèle la situation générée au regard du principe d’insignifiance et de la besoin d’appliquer des sanctions. L’axe de cette publication ne tourne pas autour de la commodité d’appliquer d’une manière ou d’une autre pour parvenir à des solutions à des cas similaires, mais plutôt qu’elle fournit une série de ressources et de connaissances qui permettent de prendre position et de générer suffisamment d’arguments, pour le faire plus tard. , pour pouvoir repenser la finalité de l’application des peines de courte durée, ainsi que la nécessité de procéder à un changement de paradigme dans notre système pénal.Este artigo nasce em virtude das problemáticas e consequências geradas nos crimes contra a propriedade quando estamos na presença de coisas apoderadas de pouco ou insignificante valor. Do mesmo modo, pretende oferecer ao leitor uma revisão por todas as correntes doutrinais e jurisprudenciais de forma ampla, a fim de poder gerar perguntas em procura de formar os operadores judiciários e aspirar a um sistema judicial mais justo e harmonioso com os princípios penais que regem em nossos tribunais. A este respeito, será tentado analisar as situações em que, perante casos semelhantes ao crime de furto, a resolução do conflito exige uma análise detalhada da circunstância particular e deixe ao des­coberto a situação gerada em relação ao princípio da insignificância e à necessidade de aplicar penas. O eixo desta publicação não gira em torno da conveniência de aplicar uma ou outra forma para chegar a soluções para casos semelhantes, mas antes fornece uma série de recursos e con­hecimentos que levarão à tomada de posição e à geração de argumentos suficientes, de modo a poder então repensar o propósito de aplicar penas de curta duração, assim como a necessidade de fazer uma mudança de paradigma no nosso sistema penal