A brief note on the Yemenite chahar taq mausoleums. The case of Baraqish

The chahartaq, a type of building frequently used as a mausoleum in Iran during the Islamic era, has an undeniable Iranian pre-Islamic origin, but its architectural form, together with its function as a mausoleum, crossed the Iranian border and was attested in Yemen too. The 17th-century chahar taq mausoleum at Baraqish seem to be a specific choice, probably of a Shi'i matrix

A small intruder. A Medieval marble winged lion from Ravello

An image of a 12th century marble winged lion was provocatively included among the slides accompanying a lecture by the author at a recent conference at the American Academy in Rome to illustrate Umberto Scerrato’s work on Islamic archaeology and art history in Italy. The lion, in fact, was never published by Scerrato, but it and a winged bull, both once featuring as ornaments on the “Moresque Fountain” in Ravello (originally from a medieval building most likely from Ravello itself), are the subject of this brief article. They are of undeniable Islamic taste

Kufic ornamental motifs in the wall paintings of six churches in Southern Italy

The churches we are concerned with here are in South eastern Italy where, more than in other parts of Southern Italy (with the exception of Calabria),the Byzantine presence and Byzantine influence were obviously strong. Islam arrived on the Apulian coast from the 11th to 13th century was often mediated by Byzantium: this is verifiable in techniques, iconographies and styles. One case in particular concerns the epigraphic characters of Islamic derivation which abound in many media and, specifically, in architectural decoration: in other words, stone, stucco, mosaic, painting and so on. But, if the Byzantine mediation is evident, it is very important to observe that the labour is always local. We will look at six churches. They do not constitute a «catalogue», but offer a good «sample» of pseudo-kufic of the 13th century. First of all, I wish to present the map of the six churches with frescoes. Four of them are in Apulia: Gravina (province of Bari), Massafra (province of Taranto), Squinzano (on the road between Lecce and Brindisi) and Otranto (both provinces of Lecce). The other two are in the present day Lucania (or Basilicata): Matera and the former town of Anglona, near Tursi (province of Matera). Furthermore, I wish to specify that three of them (those in Massafra, Gravina and Matera) are rock churches, small chapels hewn out of the rock, without doors

A perspective illusion or a view from the clouds? Detail of an Early 16th-Century miniature painting produced in Tabriz (Iran)

A Persian painting (910H/1505) from a manuscript of Nizami’s Khamsa preserved in the Keir Collection portrays the mi'raj of Muḥammad among many angels in a blue sky; the Ka'ba is depicted in the lower foreground while the desert surrounds almost the entire image. In the upper part of the sky ten half-bust angels look out from an oculus among the clouds. This image clearly recalls coeval European painting, and in particular the oculus painted by Andrea Mantegna on the vault of the Camera Picta or “Camera degli Sposi” in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua. Nevertheless, the unusual and contextual introduction of a parallel and inverse perspective enables the oculus of the Keir Collection miniature to take on an appearance and consequent meaning different from the Western ones

The iconographic transformation of the “tail of the dragon of the eclipse” into the “hunting cheetah”

Medieval Islamic iconography includes many depictions in which the tail of Sagittarius takes the form of the “dragon of the eclipse”. The current paper examines the gradual transformation of this imagery into that of a quadruped, eventually detached from the body of Sagittarius, and placed on the centaur’s back in the characteristic position of the seated “hunting cheetah”, as can also be seen in images of the chase assisted by this feline

Italy ix. Persian art collections

La prima collezione storica di manufatti islamici (anche iranici) risale al Rinascimento e all'opera di collezionista di Piero de' Medici. Questa collezione confluì in parte nelle collezioni dei Granduchi di Toscana e oggi è presso il Museo Nazionale del Bargello a Firenze. Altre collezioni storiche risalgono sino all'Ottocento e oggi sono presso musei italiani e/o europei. Altre collezioni sono costituite da reperti provenienti da scavi archeologici che, in base ad accordi con le autorità preposte, consentivano, sino alla fine degli anni Cinquanta del secolo scorso, di esportare manufatti dal luogo di ritrovamento. Si ricorda la Collezione del Museo d'Arte Orientale (Roma) che custodisce, fra gli altri, importanti marmi e altri materiali sia di decorazione architettonica sia di cultura materiale provenienti dagli scavi della Missione Archeologica Italiana a Ghazni (Afghanistan)

Estakhr Project - Third preliminary report of the joint Mission of the Iranian center for archaeological research, the Parsa-Pasargadae research foundation and the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

This report presents the preliminary results of the study of the pottery collected during the excavation campaign carried out in 2012 in the framework of the joint Iranian-Italian Archaeological Mission in Estakhr. The ceramic finds relate to a time span ranging from the 9th to the 12th century, corresponding to the occupation phases identified within the stratigraphy. Moreover, the use of archaeometry made it possible to identify both imported and locally manufactured wares

ENEA PAES: A Web Platform for Supporting Italian Municipalities in Sustainable Energy Action Plan

The Covenant of Mayors promotes the Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP), aiming to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in line with the European Union’s 2030 and 2050 targets. The Covenant signatories could take enormous advantage from a digital platform that allows SEAP drafting also to no technically skilled users, like majority of them are. The Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) has developed the PAES platform in order to provide digital support to public administrations (PA) adhering to the Covenant of Mayors. The platform exploits open data and it is fed by energetic data aggregated on a municipal level. The platform offers appropriate functionalities for baseline CO2 emissions inventory (BEI) filling out and a best practice (BP) simulation tool. The latter allows to contextualize each BP and to estimate its effects in terms of the main GHG emission. The BP showing the best estimation results can then be converted into concrete adaptation actions. So, this digital system facilitates local Italian municipalities in the strategic planning and monitoring of adaptation actions taken over time

The Pharmacological Chaperone N-butyldeoxynojirimycin Enhances Enzyme Replacement Therapy in Pompe Disease Fibroblasts

In spite of the progress in the treatment of lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs), in some of these disorders the available therapies show limited efficacy and a need exists to identify novel therapeutic strategies. We studied the combination of enzyme replacement and enzyme enhancement by pharmacological chaperones in Pompe disease (PD), a metabolic myopathy caused by the deficiency of the lysosomal acid α-glucosidase. We showed that coincubation of Pompe fibroblasts with recombinant human α-glucosidase and the chaperone N-butyldeoxynojirimycin (NB-DNJ) resulted in more efficient correction of enzyme activity. The chaperone improved α-glucosidase delivery to lysosomes, enhanced enzyme maturation, and increased enzyme stability. Improved enzyme correction was also found in vivo in a mouse model of PD treated with coadministration of single infusions of recombinant human α-glucosidase and oral NB-DNJ. The enhancing effect of chaperones on recombinant enzymes was also observed in fibroblasts from another lysosomal disease, Fabry disease, treated with recombinant α-galactosidase A and the specific chaperone 1-deoxygalactonojirimycin (DGJ). These results have important clinical implications, as they demonstrate synergy between pharmacological chaperones and enzyme replacement. A synergistic effect of these treatments may result particularly useful in patients responding poorly to therapy and in tissues in which sufficient enzyme levels are difficult to obtain