“Breaking down the Ivory Tower”: Economic Culture in the Italian Academies under Fascism

This chapter examines the role of the economists in Italian academies during the period when Mussolini's totalitarian regime attempted to transform them into propaganda bodies for the ideology and politics of fascism. The participation of economists in the academies of science, literature and the arts in the main Italian cities was an established fact since the 19th century. By welcoming eminent scientists from all disciplines, the academies created an elite within the elite of scholars and, in the case of Italy, they represented an instrument to strengthen the professional identity of the economists. Fascism intervened in this reality along two parallel lines: on the one hand, it tried to overcome the particularism typical of the Italian reality, creating in 1929 a national cultural institute, the Reale Accademia d’Italia, and, on the other hand, it worked to mobilise the most eminent intellectuals in support of the new regime’s aims by somehow prising them from their relatively sheltered sanctums—“ivory towers” detached from the construction of a new national culture. Decisive steps were taken in 1934 when members of academies were required to swear an oath of allegiance, and in 1938, when the purge following the racial laws struck many Jew academy members, among whom 27 affiliates of the prestigious Academy of Lincei

“Breaking Down the Ivory Tower”: Economic Culture in the Italian Academies Under Fascism

This contribution aims to outline the role of economists in high cultural institutions who operated in autonomous spaces during the time that the dictatorship was working to construct the totalitarian state and its mechanisms of compliance. The objective is to understand whether, in the protective shadows of the academic ivory towers and in the closed world of exclusive intellectual forums, economists maintained an attitude of Nicodemite ambiguity, identifying issues of consensus and propaganda or whether, on the other hand, they were critical of the fascist regime, even if only implicitly. The role of economists in the high culture institutions of the fascist era has largely been overlooked by even the most assiduous historians, and this work will therefore help fill the lacuna. The analysis focuses mainly on the foremost economists, those who were members of the Academy of the Lincei, but also consider those with roles in local academies

Spatially Explicit Models to Investigate Geographic Patterns in the Distribution of Forensic STRs: Application to the North-Eastern Mediterranean.

Human forensic STRs used for individual identification have been reported to have little power for inter-population analyses. Several methods have been developed which incorporate information on the spatial distribution of individuals to arrive at a description of the arrangement of diversity. We genotyped at 16 forensic STRs a large population sample obtained from many locations in Italy, Greece and Turkey, i.e. three countries crucial to the understanding of discontinuities at the European/Asian junction and the genetic legacy of ancient migrations, but seldom represented together in previous studies. Using spatial PCA on the full dataset, we detected patterns of population affinities in the area. Additionally, we devised objective criteria to reduce the overall complexity into reduced datasets. Independent spatially explicit methods applied to these latter datasets converged in showing that the extraction of information on long- to medium-range geographical trends and structuring from the overall diversity is possible. All analyses returned the picture of a background clinal variation, with regional discontinuities captured by each of the reduced datasets. Several aspects of our results are confirmed on external STR datasets and replicate those of genome-wide SNP typings. High levels of gene flow were inferred within the main continental areas by coalescent simulations. These results are promising from a microevolutionary perspective, in view of the fast pace at which forensic data are being accumulated for many locales. It is foreseeable that this will allow the exploitation of an invaluable genotypic resource, assembled for other (forensic) purposes, to clarify important aspects in the formation of local gene pools

The Y chromosome as the most popular marker in genetic genealogy benefits interdisciplinary research

The Y chromosome is currently by far the most popular marker in genetic genealogy that combines genetic data and family history. This popularity is based on its haploid character and its close association with the patrilineage and paternal inherited surname. Other markers have not been found (yet) to overrule this status due to the low sensitivity and precision of autosomal DNA for genetic genealogical applications, given the vagaries of recombination, and the lower capacities of mitochondrial DNA combined with an in general much lower interest in maternal lineages. The current knowledge about the Y chromosome and the availability of markers with divergent mutation rates make it possible to answer questions on relatedness levels which differ in time depth; from the individual and familial level to the surnames, clan and population level. The use of the Y chromosome in genetic genealogy has led to applications in several well-established research disciplines; namely in, e.g., family history, demography, anthropology, forensic sciences, population genetics and sex chromosome evolution. The information obtained from analysing this chromosome is not only interesting for academic scientists but also for the huge and lively community of amateur genealogists and citizen-scientists, fascinated in analysing their own genealogy or surname. This popularity, however, has also some drawbacks, mainly for privacy reasons related to the DNA donor, his close family and far-related namesakes. In this review paper we argue why Y-chromosomal analysis and its genetic genealogical applications will still perform an important role in future interdisciplinary research