Il Museo Diocesano di Palermo

La storia e le collezioni del Museo Diocesano di Palermo analiticamente presentate con frequenti rimandi ai precedenti allestimenti ed ai contesti di provenienza delle opere esposte. La rassegna dei manufatti segue l'attuale percorso museologico di cui l'autrice è anche curatrice scientific

Il canonico Mondello e il Tesoro della Madonna di Trapani

Si analizza la figura del Canonico Mondello e il suo testo sul Tesoro della Madonna di Trapani, proponendo una selezione che privilegia principalmente le opere di produzione siciliana donate dai più illustri personaggi della nobiltà europea.It analyzes Canonico Mondello’s figure and his text about the Treasure of Trapani’s Madonna, proposing a selection that puts first the Sicilian works donated by the most eminent personalities of the european aristocracy

Apparati effimeri e arti decorative: carri di trionfo in corallo

L’articolo illustra le profonde connessioni tra gli apparati effimeri con carri trionfali realizzati in occasione dei Festini di Santa Rosalia tra la fine del XVII e l’inizio del XVIII secolo a Palermo, disegnati dai famosi Architetti del Senato Paolo e Giacomo Amato, e la parallela produzione di superbi carri di trionfo in corallo. Vengono analizzate opere custodite non soltanto in musei e in collezioni private siciliane, ma anche nel resto d’Italia e all’estero, tutte opere di maestranze trapanesi. Viene inoltre segnalato e studiato un inedito trionfo di corallo di collezione privata di Palermo, raffigurante, sopra l’usuale carro, l’incontro tra la Madonna e Gesù Risorto

San Francesco di Paola nelle arti decorative in Sicilia

Partendo dall’antica devozione nei confronti di San Francesco di Paola in Sicilia si analizzano le più significative opere d’arte decorativa dedicate al Santo Fondatore dell’Ordine dei Minimi. Dai busti o gruppi in terracotta, come quello della fine del XVI secolo attribuito a Vincenzo Gagini della chiesa palermitana a lui dedicata, alle sculture lignee, alle più rare e preziose opere di oreficeria o ornate con corallo.Starting from the ancient devotion to St. Francis of Paola in Sicily we analyze the most significant works of decorative art dedicated to the Holy Founder of the Order of Minims. From the busts or groups in terracotta, such as that of the late sixteenth century attributed to Vincenzo Gagini of the church dedicated to him in Palermo, to the wooden sculptures, the rarest and most precious works of goldsmith or decorated with coral

Il Tesoro della Cattedrale di Palermo

Saggi storico critici sulle collezioni di suppellettili e paramenti sacri esposti nel nuovo allestimento del Tesoro della Cattedrale di Palermo. Rassegna di manufatti di alto interesse storico artistico che copre un arco cronologico che va dal XII al XX secol

The museum setup in the Benedictine dormitory of Monreale: the artworks of Santa Maria del Bosco and the textile artefacts of the Cathedral, Sicily, Italy

The recent decision to convert the Benedictine Dormitory in Monreale into an exhibition site offers the opportunity to enjoy the whole monumental complex where the wonderful cloister is the core attraction. It is on this site that the Norman Cathedral stands, brightly decorated with golden mosaics. The new exhibition has gathered together the artworks from the ruined abbey of Santa Maria del Bosco in Calatamauro and added them to the artefacts already exhibited at the Diocesan Museum. They include marble gravestones from the 16th-17th century church and those dating to the 18th century; one stone is in polychrome marble of the family of the canons, Candes and Donato; another was used for the burial of the monks from the period of the Olivetan refoundation, characterized by the Order’s coat of arms and attributed to Girolamo Musca. There are also majolica tiles from the chapels in cornu evangelij (left side of the altar) adorned with large vegetal-shaped decorations, provided by Palermitan manufacturers in the mid-eighteenth century. They are found next to the remnants of the majolica tiles still in situ, executed in 1762 by the potters from Burgio, in Sicily. Rosario Rosso (also Russo) and Giuseppe Virgadamo. Also commissioned after the refoundation of the holy temple are the four artworks by the painter Ippolito Ferrante, three of which, Sacrificio di Isacco, Melchisedec and Giale e Sisar, are on exhibition in the prestigious museum. Alongside these artworks are noteworthy textile artefacts made between the second half of the 16th and second half of the 18th centuries some of which are linked to the munificent figures of archbishops such as Ludovico II Torres and Francesco Testa

Miniaturized biosensors and microdevices based on peptide for food industry and healthcare

Molecular recognition events are some of the most significant features of biological and chemical systems. The biomolecular recognition is the ability of a biomolecule to interact selectively with another molecule even in the presence of structurally similar antagonist molecules. Molecular recognition is fundamental for biosensing technique. A biosensor, according to IUPAC recommendations 1999, is an independently integrated receptor transducer device, which is capable of providing selective quantitative or semi-quantitative analytical information using a biological recognition element. A biosensor consists of three main elements, a bioreceptor, a transducer, and a signal processing system.The bioreceptor or biological recognition element is the most important and significant feature of a biosensor. The bioreceptor is the heart of the recognition system of a sensor towards the target analyte. Essentially it is crucial for a bioreceptor to be selective and sensitive towards the specific target in order to prevent the interference by other substance from sample matrix. Peptides have been used as components in biological analysis and fabrication of novel biosensors for a number of reasons, including mature synthesis protocols, highly selectivity for enzymes substrates and low production costs. Bio-conjugation strategies can provide an efficient way to convert interaction information between peptides and analytes into a measurable signal, which can be used for fabrication of novel peptide-based biosensors. Furthermore, peptides based biosensors are presented with a description of their properties, features and advantages. The use of peptides as capture agents and the possibility to exploit their reversibility in biological applications, despite proteins and antibodies, is still very limited and has not been addressed yet. This aspect has been investigated in this first chapter. In Chapter 2 microfluidic synthesis of novel polymeric microparticles endowed with specific peptide due to its superior specificity for target binding in complex media, is reported. In more details, a peptide sequence is efficiently encapsulated into the polymeric network and protein binding occurred with high affinity (KD 0.1-0.4 µM). Fluidic dynamics simulation is performed to optimize the production conditions for monodisperse and stable functionalized microgels. The results demonstrate the easy and fast realization, in a single step, of functionalized monodisperse microgels using droplet-microfluidic technique, and how the inclusion of the peptide within polymeric network improves both the affinity and the specificity of protein capture. In Chapter 3 the development of a peptide-based biosensor for autofluorescence aflatoxin M1 detection in a sensitive, specific and unsophisticated manner, is reported. To this aim an integrated approach has been developed to select specific peptide motif to capture aflatoxin M1. The integrated approach provides a combination of computation modeling with combinatorial peptide synthesis to screen the sequence with the highest affinity. Peptides sequences selected by the proposed approach have been easily co-polymerized in PEGDA microparticles opening the route towards a direct detection of aflatoxins in small volume both in liquid and solid environments. Such approach can be applied also to other small molecules to develop materials able to sequestrate the target analytes allowing their direct detection directly in the materials. Finally in Chapter 4 a microdevice for endometriosis diagnosis is developed. In this work, three different peptides (CRP-1, VEGF-114 and ΦG6) are used as capture agents to detect serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a), and C-reactive protein (CRP): three serum markers of endometriosis in menstrual blood. The selected peptides have been covalently immobilized on a microfluidic PDMS device, previously derivatized with 10% of PAA (Poly(acrylic acid)) solution. The so built device has been used to capture and recognize endometriosis markers both in buffer and biologic fluids matrices such as human serum with a good specificity and sensitivity. So the aim of the studies in this work, is to set up miniaturized microdevices that can be used in healthcare and food industry, using peptides as capture agents in order to have sensitive but not invasive and not expansive biosensors

Mirabilia Coralii. Capolavori barocchi in corallo tra maestranze ebraiche e trapanesi

La pregevole lavorazione del corallo trapanese ricostruita attraverso la puntuale analisi delle fonti documentarie, manoscritte e bibliografiche. L’organizzazione della maestranza e il ruolo che la committenza,sia laica che ecclesiastica, ha esercitato nella realizzazione di capolavori oggi presenti in rinomate collezioni pubbliche e private e nei principali musei nazionali ed internazionali. Una rassegna di importanti manufatti, un tempo mirabili opere da Wunderkammer, criticamente commentata, che bene evidenzia l’aulica produzione siciliana ricercata da Sovrani, Viceré ed alti prelati. Un’originale ed inedita trattazione che per la prima volta rende noti nomi e biografie di gran parte degli artisti specializzati, tra XVI e XIX secolo, nella trasformazione del prezioso materiale marin

L’Osservatorio per le Arti Decorative in Italia, una risorsa scientifica tra digitale e analogico/The Observatory for the Decorative Arts in Italy, a scientific resource between digital and analogue

Il saggio prende in esame l’Osservatorio per le Arti Decorative in Italia, strumento scientifico del Dipartimento Culture e Società dell’Università degli Studi di Palermo, che ha come obiettivo principale la conoscenza, lo studio, la divulgazione e la salvaguardia del patrimonio storico-artistico delle Arti Decorative, e la sua attività di comunicazione, tra realtà analogica e digitale. L’attività scientifica dell’Osservatorio viene messa in relazione con il contesto degli studi storico-artistici inerenti il settore specifico delle Arti Decorative in Italia a partire dalla fine del XIX secolo, dimostrando come l’Osservatorio stesso costituisca un aggregatore di risorse scientifiche coerente con un percorso di studi che ha portato le Arti Decorative ad uscire dall’alveo ristretto che la definizione di “Arti Minori” gli ha imposto a lungo, per accreditarsi come branca di studi di livello pari alle discipline tradizionali.The essay examines the Osservatorio per le Arti Decorative in Italia, a scientific instrument of the Department of Culture and Society of the University of Palermo, which has as its main objective the knowledge, study, dissemination and preservation of the historical-artistic heritage of the Decorative Arts, and its communication activity, between analogical and digital reality. The scientific activity of the Osservatorio is related to the context of the historical-artistic studies inherent to the specific sector of Decorative Arts in Italy since the end of the 19th century, showing how it constitutes an aggregator of scientific resources consistent with a path of studies that has led the Decorative Arts to leave the narrow field that the definition of "Minor Arts" has imposed on it for a long time, to be accredited as a branch of studies of the same level as traditional disciplines