Anatomical iconography in the thirties in Padova: Mario Alfonsi and cardboard, ink and watercolour

The image in Anatomy has a pivotal role, due to the need of the student to learn on images the anatomical structures. This need is unchanged from the past to nowadays. In the last century Mario Alfonsi, a fine illustrator, was the official designer at the Anatomical Institute of Padova, working closely with Professor Tullio Terni. Terni was removed from teaching because of the racial laws and was rejected by the Jewish community and expelled from the Academy of the Lincei. The removal of Terni is the principal reason why the school of anatomical drawing was not founded in Padova. Mario Alfonsi is author of about 300 illustrative plates of Anatomy and the major part of his collection is kept in the archives of the institute of Human Anatomy of Padova. The tables are large (100 x 200 cm), illustrating the systems and organs of the human body, and were used as a teaching tool for lessons to students of Medicine till 1970. They are made of cardboard supported by a rod wood which allowed their exposure in the Falloppio Classroom. The drawings are made with ink and coloured with watercolour or tempera and date back to the thirties. They are signed and report the date expressed in the fascist calendar. They are in good condition, classified and stored in special cabinets. Alfonsi in his career also made drawings for texts of Anatomy and Surgery. In fact, he worked also with surgeons, illustrating step by step innovative surgical procedures

SHARK (System for coronagraphy with High order Adaptive optics from R to K band): A proposal for the LBT 2nd generation instrumentation

This article presents a proposal aimed at investigating the technical feasibility and the scientific capabilities of high contrast cameras to be implemented at LBT. Such an instrument will fully exploit the unique LBT capabilities in Adaptive Optics (AO) as demonstrated by the First Light Adaptive Optics (FLAO) system, which is obtaining excellent results in terms of performance and reliability. The aim of this proposal is to show the scientific interest of such a project, together with a conceptual opto-mechanical study which shows its technical feasibility, taking advantage of the already existing AO systems, which are delivering the highest Strehl experienced in nowadays existing telescopes. Two channels are foreseen for SHARK, a near infrared channel (2.5-0.9 um) and a visible one (0.9 - 0.6 um), both providing imaging and coronagraphic modes. The visible channel is equipped with a very fast and low noise detector running at 1.0 kfps and an IFU spectroscopic port to provide low and medium resolution spectra of 1.5 x 1.5 arcsec fields. The search of extra solar giant planets is the main science case and the driver for the technical choices of SHARK, but leaving room for several other interesting scientific topics, which will be briefly depicted here