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A celebrated orator, historian, philosopher, and statesman, Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Italian Renaissance. As contemporaries noted, his intellectual versatility--including an interest in architecture--linked him to Leon Battista Alberti, the renowned "universal man" of the Renaissance. Like Alberti, Manetti wrote in both Latin and Italian, and made new translations of canonical texts such as Aristotle, thus replacing the faulty medieval renderings that were the mainstay of Scholastic thought. A pious Christian, he translated the New Testament from Greek into Latin, thus challenging the centuries-old Vulgate; and he was the first scholar since Jerome to translate the Psalms from the original Hebrew. To forestall possible critics, he penned a treatise expounding his philological methods in translating scripture. Delivered over the course of nearly twenty years, his addresses to magistrates, commanders, princes, and popes furnish a vivid picture of Quattrocento politics and diplomacy. This authoritative biography, the first in any modern language, both describes chronologically the events of his extraordinary career, and analyzes his numerous and wide-ranging writings, which confirm Manetti's status as an exemplar of the spirit of the Italian Renaissance.--

This article is about my experience of life and work in Syria from 2008 to 2011. Writing this story gave me the opportunity to reflect on two different Syrias. The pre-revolution Syria which was characterized by tourism, international rehabilitation, economic liberalization and democratic openings and the post-spring 2011 Syria, a country where fear, hatred and repression became increasingly spread, triggering the serious humanitarian crisis that still shakes the country. ; L'articolo propone un'esperienza di vita e di lavoro in Siria dal 2008 al 2011. Un racconto che è anche l'occasione per riflettere su due diverse Sirie: quella prima della rivoluzione (la Siria del turismo, della riabilitazione internazionale, della liberalizzazione economica e delle aperture democratiche) e la Siria nata a partire dalla primavera del 2011, la Siria della paura, dell'odio e della repressione in cui si è preparato il conflitto armato e innescata la grave crisi umanitaria che ancora scuote il paese.

In this study, we are concerned with the "carteggio interno" of the Fondo Sforzesco, preserved in the State Archive of Milan. This huge documentary deposit can provide the historian both with an unprecedented amount of data and sources of outstanding heuristical potential and with some possible deception, like the lack of information or the complete silence about important events. Starting from a dossier of documents (parts of them enclosed in a digital appendix), we will analize the centrality of the letter. The flexible format of the letter is suitable to express personal feelings, emotions, and also a certain degree of informality and confidence. Writing to the prince, the correspondent is normally inclined to go beyond the rules and to use confidential terms or remember personal acquaintance, in a characteristic mixture between the political sphere and the private and personal dimension. As narrative texts, letters require a careful exegesis and interpretation. Finally, the huge dimensions and the narrative appeal of the "carteggio" may give the wrong impression of a pervasive and powerful State, where the relationship with the prince dominates the political life. ; Nell'ambito della "storia documentaria delle istituzioni" ci si propone di esaminare il carteggio interno del Fondo Sforzesco dell'ASMi e di metterne in luce la ricchezza, le potenzialità per la ricerca e anche qualche possibile insidia interpretativa. A partire da un dossier di documenti, che in parte sono forniti come corredo iconografico al testo, si analizza la centralità della lettera all'interno di questo corpus di carte. La forma epistolare è prima di tutto un medium di comunicazione interpersonale, poco formalizzata e libera nell'espressione: chi scrive al principe segue certe regole e stili, ma può anche utilizzare toni confidenziali e personali, in una commistione tra pubblico e privato particolarmente congeniale alle relazioni politiche dello stato principesco. Le lettere sono costruite come testi narrativi e vanno attentamente interpretate e contestualizzate. Le stesse dimensioni del carteggio, che costituisce una raccolta imponente, condizionano il lettore che è tentato di vedervi un'immagine della pervasività e della potenza dello stato ducale.

L'archivio del comune di Imola non conserva le serie delle magistrature due-trecentesche che furono oggetto di uno scarto completo nel Cinquecento. Conserva però un fondo di "beni e diritti" cospicuo nel numero dei pezzi e, soprattutto, assai composito nei contenuti diplomatistici. La parte percentualmente più rilevante di tale miscellanea si addensa fra gli anni Cinquanta del Duecento e i primi due decenni del secolo successivo, gli anni in cui più accesi furono gli scontri di parte nella città. Le numerose liste che si sono conservate, fra le quali una di milites tenuti a dare un cavallo per l'anno compreso fra il primo settembre 1319 e il 31 agosto del 1320 per le esigenze militari del comune e che mostra caratteri diplomatistici assai peculiari, costituiscono fonti di grande interesse per restituire un'immagine socio-economica della milizia cittadina e del suo azzonamento urbano. ; The archive of the commune of Imola does not currently preserve the series produced by the 13th-14th centuries' urban magistratures: these documents were entirely discarded in the 16th century. Nevertheless, it does preserve a rich and composite stock of documents on "beni e diritti", most of them presenting a wide variety of diplomatistic characters. The most relevant part of this miscellany gathers between 1250 and 1320, when the factional conflicts within the city grew harsher and harsher. Within thes records, in particular several lists represent a source of main interest to the building of a broader socio-economic image of the urban milizia and its topographical order in the city. In particular, this essay will focus on a list of all the milites that were supposed to give to the commune a horse for war between the 1st September 1319 and the 31st August 1320: this register in fact not only enlightens a crucial moment of the military and political life of the commune (the organisation of the army), but also shows very peculiar diplomatistic characters.

Walls can be strategically or tactically used. In the first case, they symbolise social and political power as well as the intention to divide people, isolate communities, draw boundaries and borders and preclude all contact and communication. In the second one, through art, the barriers can communicate and express the voices of those that the social power would like to divide and make silent. So if, on the one hand, we assist to normalisation processes that try to incorporate the artificial barriers to the surrounding context so that, over time, we tend not to be aware of their presence, on the other hand, graffiti try to break the "grey" silence of walls, giving back to them that visibility that normalisation tries to hide. But how can graffiti break the silent isolation of walls, turning them into means of communication? How do they "pull down" barriers? Through the semiotic analysis of some of the most relevant examples of mural art at the East Side Gallery (BerlinWall) this paper aims at dealing with this matter, coming to define graffiti as "re–writing practices": mural writing, using walls as inscription surfaces, allows to "re–semantise" artificial barriers, that is to "re–write" their meanings and functions, acting on semantic oppositions such as "lack of communication" vs "dialogue", "isolation" vs "communication", "euphoria" vs "dysphoria", "life" vs "death", "continuity" vs "discontinuity", ecc.

Les Années di Annie Ernaux sono la tappa più ambiziosa nel suo progetto di «scrivere la vita». Il libro mette a punto un'«autobiografia impersonale», in cui all'io sono sostituite le tre figure del lei, del si, del noi. Il racconto segue così un disegno annalistico e introietta le categorie della sociologia di Bourdieu. Nata nel 1940, Ernaux ripercorre la vicenda della sua generazione, che ha conosciuto il benessere crescente del dopoguerra, la speranza sessantottina di cambiare il mondo, la marginalità rispetto alla storia subita come una forza incontrollabile. Al senso di fallimento politico corrisponde un materialismo disincantato, che rifiuta la fede proustiana nella redenzione dell'arte. Solo accettando integralmente la morte la scrittura, con le sue epifanie secolarizzate, può cercare di salvare qualcosa delle esistenze singolari e collettive. Les Années can be considered as the most ambitious part of Annie Ernaux's life-writing project. This book provides an 'impersonal autobiography', where the I is replaced by 'she', 'one' and 'we'; the story is therefore structured according to an annalist approach, based on the categories of Bourdieu's sociology. Born in 1940, Ernaux follows the story of her generation – from the post-war boom and the 1968-inspired hope to change the world, to a state of passive marginality towards history. The sense of political failure is combined with a disillusioned materialism, refusing Proust's faith in art as a form of redemption. It is only by fully accepting death that literature (with its secularized epiphanies) can try to partially redeem individual and collective experiences.

Starting from the most important results of Campopiano's work, the contribution highlights how the recipients of the cultural memory shaped by the friars of Mount Sion were a much wider circle than the "pilgrims" who went to the Holy Land. It then discusses three main issues. Firstly, it considers the different social and political profiles of the European pilgrims, the variety of expectations of the people who visited Mount Sion, supported with money these places, sustained the status of the Franciscan Custody with political and diplomatic activities carried out in the European chancelleries. Within this framework it is examined the multiplicity of factors that urge the friars of the 14th c. to build the geographical and cultural centrality of the Holy Land entirely re-sacralised in Franciscan terms, implementing it during the next three centuries. Finally, it is proposed the enlargement of the texts that must be examined and correlated with the fundamental sources analysed by the author. Above all, the texts produced by the Franciscans of the Custody should be investigated, in order to organize their economic and political life within the Muslim territories dominated first by the Mamluks and then by the Ottoman sultans. ; A partire dai più importanti risultati del lavoro di Campopiano, il contributo evidenzia come i destinatari della memoria culturale messa in forma dai frati del Sion siano una cerchia molto più ampia rispetto ai "pellegrini" che si recavano in Terra Santa. Esso discute quindi tre questioni principali. Innanzitutto, considera la variegata fisionomia sociale e politica dei pellegrini europei, le diverse aspettative di chi visitava il convento del Sion, di coloro che sostenevano col denaro i Luoghi Santi, di chi, dalle cancellerie d'Europa, si adoperava con attività politiche e diplomatiche per garantire lo status della Custodia. In questa prospettiva è analizzata la molteplicità di fattori che spingono i frati del XIV secolo a configurare la centralità geografica e culturale della Terra Santa ...

The essay examines the text by Gianfranco Baruchello, "How to Imagine, a narrative on art, agriculture and creativity", written with Henry Martin and published in 1983. The book is a narrative of Gianfranco Baruchello's extensive project Agricola Cornelia S.p.A (1973-1981) where personal anecdotes, artistic and philosophical speculations are intertwined in the attempt to run a farm as an artistic operation. In his book, the artist addresses several themes related to his work such as: the relationship with Marcel Duchamp, politics, ethics, art and life. How to Imagine is here examined as a diary that responds to a need for self-knowledge. Within the text there are numerous elements that can be traced back to a personal analysis and a willingness to pause in order to reconsider his own experience and his way of making art.

Risorgimento relationships. Patriotism, family and friendship in Margherita Trotti Bentivoglio's private writings (1832-1856). Letters and journals of noblewoman Margherita Trotti Bentivoglio (1811-1867) are the core of the work. Grown up within an aristocratic family in early Restoration Milan, with an Austrian mother and an Italian father, she decided to leave her relatives and a monotonous life to follow her elder sister Costanza, who lived between Paris, Berlin and Bruxelles among the members of the exiled community. After the marriage with one of the exiles, Giacinto Provana di Collegno, her interest towards politics and Italian struggle for independence raised and became central in her existence. Focusing on the personal writings, the work aims at following her life, travels and many encounters, in order to draw a picture of her formative path heading from naive liberalism to mature believe in moderate thought.

This paper deals with the topic of text simplification discussing two models of writing that make texts easier to read and understand. First, it briefly discusses plain language, which has been debated in Italy since the beginning of the 1990s as a tool to improve government communication. However, even though several initiatives tried to promote it, it is still little used, and it has not defeated bureaucratese. Second, this paper presents "Easy-to-Read", a model of linguistic adaptation designed to write texts that are easy to read and understand for people with intellectual disabilities. Its features of conciseness and simplicity also make it suitable for other categories with reading difficulties due to psychological and neuropsychiatric conditions, social factors, and/or poor knowledge of a language. Plain language and Easy-to-Read share several traits, although Easy-to-Read is a more specific application designed for readers with special needs. Easy-to-Read is a relatively new concept: several guidelines have already been created for some languages, along with the European ones, designed during the Pathways project by the European association Inclusion Europe. Yet, the existing guidelines often lack extensive linguistic indications and can prove insufficient to write proper easy-to-read texts. After presenting Easy-to-Read, the paper will discuss some methodological issues, such as some problems regarding the existing guidelines for the Italian version of Easy-toRead; the complexity of the needs of its recipient; and the absence of proofs, as Easy-toRead currently lacks a more scientific approach and further studies are still needed. Finally, the paper briefly discusses the need to spread both plain language and Easy-toRead in order to foster the participation in social life of people with reading difficulties or intellectual disabilities and promote their right to information.

A major factor in Müller's work originating in her traumatic experiences in Ceauşescu's Romania is the aversion she shows to all forms of authoritarian and totalitarian rule. Despite the undeniable importance of the political dimension, it would be one-sided to concentrate only on this part of Müller's writing. In fact, the reader is enriched by the precise observation and the unflinching honesty in the portrayals of the surroundings and the self, conveyed by the author's consummate artistry. The defining feature of her work is rather the way she develops an original and powerful style out of writing on the basis of her biographical experiences. The reader thus finds himself confronted with 'autofiction', or rather, 'surfiction' (R. Federman), i.e. with the fictionalization and the transfiguration of lived experience through writing, which both allows and facilitates access to a certain truth. Moreover, Müller focuses her attention on the kind of experience that reveals life itself as a fiction. While acknowledging that truth reached through creative imagination is 'truer' than truth constructed mimetically in reference to facts (representation), Müller stresses that a truly fictional discourse can only be self-reflexive. Genuine fiction constructs itself through self-destruction, constant suspicion of its fictiousness.

This paper offers a brief overview of Cicero's influence on President John Adams' political thought and personality. Adams' letters and diary show different references to Cicero, a clear evidence of a process of deep assimilation and personal elaboration of the model. Cicero's influence can be seen also in Adams' writing style, especially in his political speeches and letters, which are modelled on Cicero's Familiares. As a young lawyer, Adams deeply appreciates Cicero's orations, because of the perfect use of the rhetorical techniques. As a political thinker, Adams considers the Roman res publica as an exemplum to be reproduced in the USA and he also supports the idea of natural law, a notion which descends from Cicero, through the modern philosophers' mediation. From Cicero's political works, Adams extracts the ideas of decor and honor, sort of key-words in his political and moral behaviour. Cicero and Adams shares also common life experiences: Adams too is a homo novus, the first in his family to attend college and to get involved in the political life of his Country. Like Cicero, he retires from political life and he confines himself in a literary otium: during the last years of his life, Adams studies philosophy and his last letters show his disappointment towards his political experience. While Adams considers Cicero's orations as a model in his youth, in his old age he prefers the philosophical works, especially the Cato, an excellent life companion.

This interview with Clara Gallini explores the most significant traits of her life and studies. Starting with her exchanges with Ernesto de Martino and her first fieldworks in Sardinia, Clara Gallini takes us through some key moments in the history of Italian anthropology between the 1950s and 1970s, discussing issues of dense epistemological, political and ethical significance with respect to fieldwork and ethnographic writing. The scholar looks back at the years spent studying rituals in the Argia region, the Novenari and the relationship between the economic and the symbolic (Dono e malocchio [Gift and Jinx]), trying to investigate and describe a world – that of rural Sardinia – in transition. A phase culminating with the publication of Intervista a Maria (Interview with Maria) and the decision to move to the University of Naples. Clara Gallini's accounts also reveal how these new perspectives were connected to a need to rethink Marxist language and theories, also in light of an increasing interest in historical perspectives and methodologies – leading to her studies on Lourdes and on magnetism. From a perspective that combines the biographic with the scholarly dimension, the interview concludes by commenting on Clara Gallini's most recent works – such as her studies on racism and crosses – that continue to pay particular attention to the issue of the effectiveness of symbols. ; L'intervista a Clara Gallini attraversa alcuni momenti salienti della sua biografia e produzione scientifica. A partire dal rapporto con Ernesto de Martino e dalle prime ricerche in Sardegna, il suo racconto descrive alcuni passaggi rilevanti della storia dell'antropologia italiana tra gli anni Cinquanta e Settanta affrontando le dense questioni epistemologiche, politiche ed etiche della ricerca sul campo e della scrittura etnografica. Viene ripercorso il periodo segnato dagli studi sui riti dell'Argia, sui Novenari e sulla relazione tra l'economico e il simbolico (Dono e malocchio), per dar conto di un mondo (quello agro-pastorale sardo) in transizione; una stagione "meridionalista" che si concluderà con il libro Intervista a Maria e con la partenza per Napoli. Le narrazioni di Clara Gallini mostrano poi come questo spostamento è stato accompagnato da una rielaborazione del linguaggio e delle teorie marxiste, anche alla luce di un maggiore interesse verso le prospettive e le metodologie storiche, culminato con le ricerche su Lourdes e sul magnetismo. Infine, sempre intrecciando le dimensioni esistenziali e scientifiche, l'intervista tratteggia gli sviluppi più recenti del suo pensiero che, come dimostrano i lavori sul razzismo e sulle croci, continua a porre attenzione particolare ai temi dell'efficacia simbolica.

— Table of contents — VOLUME I Early period edited by Piero Antonio Carnemolla VOLUME II The Romanistic foundation. Writings on History and Roman law edited by Patrizia Giunti VOLUME III Principles against totalitarianism and constitutional refoundation edited by Ugo De Siervo VOLUME IV The city and the human person. Social, political and administrative texts edited by Pier Luigi Ballini, Giulio Conticelli VOLUME V The construction of peace. International politics texts edited by Bruna Bagnato VOLUME VI The believer and the Church. Texts on religious and ecclesiastical life edited by Bruna Bocchini, Augusto D'Angelo VOLUME VII Indexes of the National Edition of Giorgio La Pira's Works