Il patriziato veneziano tra eredità repubblicana e modelli monarchici

This essay aims to investigate whether in Venice there ever truly existed a prince comparable to other royal sovereigns, or whether we should speak of a republican “prince” proper, namely a representative figure devoid of actual power or authority. As early as the fifteenth century, the Venetian patriciate began to diminish the power of the Venetian dux (which had replaced the Byzantine Empire’s magister militum), in order to underscore the sovereignty of the Grand Council, in which all male patricians took part. This progressive limitation of his powers led to considering the doge as primus inter pares for internal interests of the ruling class, but failed to take into account that such a process would weaken the regality of the doge in the face of sovereigns from emerging states in Europe. The downgrading of the Venetian doge’s precedence in European courts became emblematic of the diminishing political centrality of the Most Serene Republic in comparison to absolute states

Biblioteche effimere. Biblioteche circolanti a Venezia (xix - xx secolo)

Il libro si occupa del fenomeno di biblioteche ‘a consumo’, nate grazie a private iniziative per affrontare il desiderio di lettura di ceti meno abbienti a Venezia nel XIX-XX secolo. I luoghi concessi “pro tempore” per allestire la biblioteca, la qualità dei libri, la mancanza dei finanziamenti e addetti al lavoro, oltre che l’uso frequente e quindi il rapido deterioramento dei libri, e il cambiamento avvenuto nei gusti della lettura, rendevano queste biblioteche obsolete dopo qualche decennio di vita. I saggi inclusi ritraggono il profilo di queste biblioteche popolari, talvolta sparite senza lasciare traccia, per offrire uno sguardo diverso alla cultura e alla lettura a Venezia nel XIX e XX secolo

La biblioteca del collezionista. Una palestra del ‘gusto’ artistico?

Il saggio, partendo dal caso veneziano, esplora l’idea che la biblioteca del collezionista d’arte è stata uno dei luoghi di formazione del gusto artistico, una sorta di laboratorio del ‘gusto’. È proprio il percorso dell’acquisizione di un sapere che aiuta a formare il ‘gusto’ inteso come i meccanismi intellettivi e quelli attinenti ai sensi che esistono dietro una scelta. La biblioteca era il luogo naturale, la “palestra”, dove il collezionista d’arte si esercitava e formulava il suo giudizio. Questa elaborazione si faceva attraverso la consultazione di un tipo specifico di libri: gli emblemi e i geroglifici, ma anche gli exempla, generi che fungevano da “banche dati” di immagini e testi per “allenarsi” nel gusto artistico. Gli inventari e i cataloghi delle biblioteche veneziane evidenziano due fenomeni: l’inclusione di libri a stampa generici di emblemi (ma anche dei codici, comunque più rari) in quasi tutte le biblioteche veneziane e l’esistenza di volumi più specifici e più rari o costosi in quelle di collezionisti veneziani che talvolta si “consorziano”, dividendo i compiti nell’acquisto di titoli, per poter studiarli e discuterli insieme

From closed testaments to books: Virtual X-ray Reading as an alternate digitization technology for fragile documents

In recent years, research and technology made considerable progress in increasing the speed and the safety of the entire digtization process of ancient collections. Despite this, imaging ancient, fragile or un-opened documents remains a formidable challenge. We employ an alternate digitization technique for hand-written documents, exploiting x-ray tomography: Virtual X-ray Reading. Thanks to the high penetration of x-rays, we can acquire 3-dimensional (3D) tomographic images of a multi-page document without opening it. The x-ray contrast necessary for the readability is produced by the chemical composition and the consequent strong x-ray absorption of the iron gall inks - largely used for European handwritten documents. We present the development of this technology, from the chemical investigations of the inks to the tomography of an unopened Venetian testament and of an 18th century, 200-page, handwritten book

Le Soprintendenze bibliografiche dello Stato

The intervention sums up the story of the bibliographic Superintendences, ministerial offices funded in 1919 and transferred to the Regions in 1972, and talks about their positioning within the history of the cultural policies from the Italian unification onwards. Sources used have been legislative and regulatory acts, essays on the subject from different periods and written testimonies of sector's operators. The immediate reason for this has been the need to study the development of state and regional policies on this matter when reform interventions deeply modify the balance of the last forty years. The survey has outlined also the persistence of never-solved problems in the planning of public interventions: for example, different functions have been managed by eclectic structures and at the same time the performance of the single functions has been fragmented based on their own institutions

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research: Finding the common ground of multi-faceted concepts

Inter- and transdisciplinarity are increasingly relevant concepts and practices within academia. While various definitions exist, a clear distinction between inter- and transdisciplinarity remains difficult. Although there is a wide consensus about the need to define and apply these approaches, there is no agreement over definitions. Building on data collected during the first year of the COST Action TD1408 “Interdisciplinarity in research programming and funding cycles” (INTREPID), this paper describes both tensions and common ground about the characteristics and building blocks of interand trans-disciplinarity. Drawing on empirical data from participatory workshops involving INTREPID network members coming from 27 different countries, the paper shows that diverse definitions of inter and trans-disciplinarity coexist within scientific literature and in the mind of researchers and practitioners. The understanding about the involvement of actors outside of academia also differs widely across scientific communities irrespective of disciplinary training or the research subjects. The focus should be on the knowledge that is required to deal with a specific problem, rather than discussing “if” and “how” to integrate actors outside the academia, and collaboration should start with joint problem framing. This diversity is, however, not an absolute obstacle to practice, since the latter is made possible through building blocks such as knowledge domains, problem- and solution- oriented approaches, common goals, as well as target knowledge. In order to move towards more effective inter- and transdisciplinary research, we identify the need for trained interdisciplinarity facilitators and ‘accompanying research’ (derived from the Danish term ‘følgeforskning’). These two roles can be essential to inter- and transdisciplinarity practices including the promotion of reflexivity