My thesis analyses the relationship between writing systems and ethnic cohesion in the processes of national identity construction in Bulgaria and Croatia. I investigate the role played by alphabetic questions in the course of some critical moments of socio-politic passage in both of the countries, corresponding to the inter-war and post-imperial period and to the most recent post-socialist one. With such aim, I consider several texts related to "alphabetic disputes" (in reference with the Cyrillic/Latin debate), coming from representatives of the intellectual and cultural field, integrated in some cases with official legal documents related to writing matters and inscribed in the respective signification space at a national and international ideological level. The aim is to highlight the fact that delicate questions in the field of writing systems with the respective choices on the matter reflect the positioning of the countries in different political and cultural contexts, representing the attempt to construct a national narrative in line with the historical moment and the dominant identitary ideology. In addition to this, I will prove that the national construction serves itself of the element of the alphabet in order to affirm in a highly symbolic way its identity in relation to a significant "Other", in what can be interpreted as a symptom of an assimilatory fear that has never been appeased, characteristic of the Balkan area.
SDR, since its theoretical definition by J. Mitola, has been really appealing for the military communications. The possibility to move forward from the legacy radio devices, where all the functionalities were directly embedded in the hardware, towards a new type of radio that allows reconfigurability and flexibility is seen as a Deus ex machina in the complex and crowded panorama of tactical communications. The possibility to execute different waveforms on the same platform can potentially prolong the lifecycle of an operational radio for several years. The possibility to port the same waveform to different hardware, on the other hand, has twofold implications: it allows the re-use of the same waveform, maximizing the return on investment for the developers and, in addition, it allows decoupling the radio manufacturer from the software developer, potentially creating a new market for the waveforms development and procurement. Similarly to what has been commonly experienced in the smartphone market, where Apps are developed independently by the vendor of the terminal, in the future, SDR waveforms might be developed by different subjects, even outside Industry (e.g. universities and research centers) and then ported on an existing SDR platform. The "SDR revolution" is anyway not feasible as long as common development rules for waveforms and common interfaces between the waveform and the underlying hardwarewill be clearly defined. The most relevant contribution in this sense was the definition of the Software Communication Architecture (SCA), published and maintained by the Joint Tactical Networking Centre (JTNC). The SCA defined a set of requirements and rules both for the development of waveforms and for the software definition of processing elements and functions within the host platforms, though leaving to implementers the possibility to choose between different hardware and software solution for the implementation of a SCA-compliant SDR solution. SCA, rapidly became a de facto standard in the military panorama, as it has been widely adopted for the major military SDR programmes also in Europe, mainly in its version 2.2.2. SCA 2.2.2 was designed to meet the stringent requirement of military communications, in terms of security,timing accuracy, real time behavior and it was not able to spread widely outside this context for several years, mainly because of the overhead it imposes to the applications. Today SCA, in its version 4.1, has been published in the US as an emerging standard and its evolution is also supported by the Wireless Innovation Forum. One of the goal of the SCA 4.1 is to define profiles that allows its implementation in devices with limited processing resources, meeting the needs of small form factor devices in the military context and projecting towards applications outside the military. Nevertheless, some other emerging standards are facing the military SDR market, as possible alternatives to SCA. From the point of view of a procurement agency (like MoDs are in the context of military communications),SDR offers significant benefits but, at the same time, it raises new issues and challenges. First, the transition to the software implementation of some functions of the radio platform, requires the development of new testing skills inside the Defence panorama. Each service (i.e. Armed Force) in the Italian Defence, developed during the years, its verification and validation (V&V) facilities, holding a proven experience in the testing methodologies for military radios. The transition to SDR requires that radio testing skills are enhanced with software verification and signal processing skills, as many of the function of new radios are not only performed in software but they also offer the possibility to perform inspection on their behavior. The military procurement strategy for SDR is today closely linked to SCA-based architectures. For these architectures new waveforms have been developed. The ability to test these waveforms,prior to their porting on the final hosting platforms, requires the verification of the compliance of the software modules to the rules of the underlying software architecture (SCA-based). This means that the verification strategy shall comprise the ability to verify that the SCA implementation of a software component is properly performed, assuring future compatibility of the component with the other elements of the waveform and of the platform. After the aforementioned V&V steps, carried out usually during the development of the SDR system or of one of its component (platform, waveform), the complete system is usually delivered to the test facility to undergo a number of tests analogous to that performed on the legacy systems: they span from testing the behavior of the radio over the air, to environmental and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing, to interoperability testing with existing communication systems, where applicable. These activities are usually performed through "live fire exercise", how they are called in military jargon: the system is deployed into an environment that tries to recreate as much as possible the operational scenario and tested under realistic conditions, by the operators that will employ it in real operations soon afterwards. In response to these needs, the Italian MoD has identified the development of a governmental capability for SDR V&V as a strategic pillar and has consequently funded the establishment of a dedicated laboratory (called LANCERS), based on a cooperation between CSSN ITE, a research and experimentation center of the Italian Navy located in Livorno and CNIT (Consorzio Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni) where experimentation and research on tools and technicques for SDR V&V are performed. The laboratory has developed with the time also some collaboration with industries involved in the SDR market. This work summarizes the outcomes of the activities carried out in the LANCERS laboratory, regarding methodologies, tools and experimentation oriented to V&V of military SDR. After providing a brief overview of the major programmes and stakeholders of the military SDR panorama in chapter 1, an analysis of the domains of application of the T&E strategies for SDR will be identified in Chapter2. Chapter 3 will provide an in depth description of the tools and procedures developed at LANCERS lab for military SDR test and evaluation. Different tools, addressing the needs of different phases of SDR development, will be presented, together with the design process that brought to their creation and some results of real applications of these tools. Chapter 4 will present a field testing campaign performed as a necessary complement to the lab test activities listed in chapter 3. Chapter 5 will draw the conclusions and present future work plans for further improving the tools and procedures presented. For some testing activities the presentation of the results will be limited, due to the fact that the disclosure of information related to some particular SDR product is at the moment of writing this thesis yet subject to restrictions. Provided results will be anyway sufficient to provide the reader with a good understanding of the functionalities and applicability of the presented tools and procedures.
The pol'al thought of Mosca underwent an evolution which led it from the anti-parliamentary & anti-democratic polemics of his first writings to an overtly liberal position in his more mature yrs. In effect, the 2 themes which make up the key of his system and upon which his fame rests, `pol'al class' & `pol'al formula' (which we are more apt to designate as `elites' & `ideology') are treated in his earlier works in a clearly anti-democratic sense. Experience & more extensive study of the parliamentary system later produced a more favorable attitude & the concept of `judicial defense' which is at the heart of the defense of individual liberties. It is thus that Mosca adheres to the liberal tradition & to an original interpretation of democracy. Tr by J. A. Broussard from IPSA.
The systems for hospitality and social inclusion of migrants in Italy offer a privileged point of view for debating about language education policies. The challenge of literacy education and second language learning for young people and adults who are illiterate or scarcely literate and uneducated or scarcely educated requires thinking accurately about the impact one's actions have in the pre-A1 level classes. The specific needs of asylum seekers and refugees may lead teachers to adopt means and attitudes of community-building, which could be useful even in a broader educational environment, and may be a chance to re-evaluate the political potential of literacy. We propose a path for literacy education where the aims are driven by the students' needs of self-determination and involvement in our society: it is necessary to acquire oral competence in Italian as a second language, to develop the semiotic system of writing, to acquire phonological awareness, to master the use of pencil and paper, to understand what is written all around you. The proposal, rooted in acquisitional linguistics research, is intended to create a safe community environment, fruitful for interaction and learning. The development of this model is possible when the teacher and the students work and play together, and the class becomes a societal structure in which everybody takes part. Literacy classes can therefore become a training ground for democratic participation in society.
The objective of this thesis is to analyse the transformation process of the indigenous oral literature in teaching materials within the scope of the bilingual intercultural education (BIE) in Perù. More specifically, the attention is focused on the experience of "Programa de Formación de Maestros Bilingües de la Amazonía Peruana" (FORMABIAP) that deals with the training of the bilingual teachers and the creation of curricula, methodologies and didactic materials, taking into consideration the cultural linguistic heritage of the students and the social reality in which they live. In the examined texts, which belong to the shawi and kukama cultures, it is evident that the persistence of a different measure in the orality as conscious stylistic choice is evident, and it aims at deconstructing schemes and structures that are typical of the western writing. The active participation of the indigenous students as writers, translators and in some cases as illustrators, removes the mediation of the western interpretative filter and facilitates the affirmation of "other" kinds of logic. The appropriation of the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by the new autochthonous generations favours the expression of the performative character of the Amazonian culture and witnesses the reality of systems of thought different from the western one. The analysis of the current legislation and the different projects carried forward by the national policies, NGOs and religious missions, has allowed to outline a normative historical panorama in which the concept of interculturalism has assumed different meanings based on the political interests and its promoters. In recent times, despite being an instrument for cultural homologation and assimilation since the beginning, the school has undertaken an important role for the indigenous populations within the process of knowledge decolonization and the power relationships overrunning the national reality.
This work traces the work of Gaspare Ambrosini (1886-1985) along three different ones Italian political systems of the twentieth century: liberal, fascist and republican. In each of these three epochs, Ambrosini played a leading role not only from the point of view of intellectual reflection and of the academic profession, but above all in that of militant political commitment. His is the first innovative reflection on the birth of the system of mass parties after the introduction of suffrage universal (male) immediately after the great war; his is the elaboration of the one-party system fascist; his is the creation of the first systematization of imperial and racist theories after the conquest of Ethiopia; his is the reflection on a new form of state that had to be given to fascism once he became an empire; his is the invention of the formula of the state of the regions that, after the collapse of the fascist regime, was grafted on the Sicilian story even before the birth of the republic, with the writing of the autonomous Statute; his is the drafting of chapter V of the new Italian Constitution; his is the request to introduce the Sicilian Statute directly, like the Lateran Pacts, within the Constitution; his was the defense before the regional laws, through the presidency of the high court of Sicily, and then of the national ones with the presidency of the Constitutional Court; his was the attempt, thank you to the election as president of the Foreign Commission of the Chamber, on behalf of his party, that is, the Christian Democracy, before maintaining the empire and then succeeding in obtaining the mandate on the Somalia. The Sicilian autonomy here is read as a product, the invention of the fascist imperial theories, capable of resisting the end of the twenty years, and able to be converted from Ambrosini to extraordinary instrument of struggle and political hegemony of Christian Democracy.
In rapporto all'antico regime genovese, il tema della censura libraria, anzi il «ruolo dell'autorità civile nel controllo della produzione e della circolazione degli scritti» (M. Infelise) non è mai stato sistematicamente affrontato, e il dato è notevole alla luce del peso politico, non solo economico, di questa repubblica, nel quadro dell'Europa moderna. La storia della cultura ligure non vanta i primati di quella veneziana – basti il raffronto tra i rispettivi apparati censori e mercati librari – ma l'ingombrante topos della Genova «incolta, abitata da uomini troppo impegnati a far quattrini» (G. Assereto) appartiene ormai al passato. Un patriziato sufficientemente colto, aggiornato e intellettualmente vivace, ma non così libero di scrivere: la massima parte della sua produzione politica e storiografica è rimasta confinata nel perimetro dell'oligarchia ed è ancora manoscritta. Anche un altro piano della questione, quello che specificamente concerne il controllo della produzione e della circolazione a stampa, denota interessanti peculiarità. Il completo riordino di questa materia cominciò solo nel 1628, in seguito alla congiura di Vachero, uno dei più gravi episodi di lesa maestà dell'antico regime genovese, connotato da una nutrita produzione libellistica, per la prima volta diffusa anche a stampa e oltre i confini del Genovesato. Inoltre un riordino che si articolò in almeno cinque provvedimenti: l'istituzione degli Inquisitori di Stato (1628), sul modello veneziano; il decreto del 1634 sulle scritture politiche e sulle historiae; la fine del monopolio sulla stampa (1635); l'istituzione della Giunta di Giurisdizione (o Giunta Ecclesiastica, 1638); i nuovi Ordini per occasione delle stampe (1648). ; The regulation of writing and printing (or, as M. Infelise writes, the 'role of civil authority in controlling the production and circulation of writings') in Genoa in the modern age still needs to be studied systematically, which is remarkable in the light of the political and economic standing of the Republic in modern Europe. While the Republic could never boast the cultural eminence of Venice (a self-evident fact, when the respective censorship systems and book markets are compared) the commonplace that Genoa was simply 'uncultivated, inhabited by men too busy making money' (G. Assereto) merely represents an old prejudice. The Genoese aristocracy was, in fact, adequately cultivated, intellectually active and up to date, but not so free to write. Most of its production on political and historical subjects, indeed, only circulated among the oligarchy and in manuscript form. How are we to account for this fact? How did the regulations on written production contribute to this outcome? Just as unclear is the system of regulations presiding over the production and circulation of print specifically. A comprehensive re-organisation of the legislation was only begun in 1628, following the conspiracy headed by Vachero. This treason at- tempt, one of the gravest in the time of the old Genoese regime, was attended by a vast production of pamphlets, which for the first time circulated in print and also reached beyond the domains of the Republic. The new legislation plan involved five chief measures: 1. the institution of State Inquisitors (1628), based on the Venetian model. 2. The 1634 decree on political writings and historical chronicles. 3. The end of the monopoly on print (1635). 4. The institution of the Giunta di Giurisdizione (also known as the Ecclesiastical Council, 1638). 5. The issuing of the Ordini per occasione delle stampe (Norms on the production of print – 1648).
The article deals with Jenny Griziotti Kretschmann, born in Wishni-Wolostchok (Russia) on 22 June 1884 in a middleclass family of German origin & died on 4 December 1980 in Pavia (Italy). In October 1905 she moved from Moscow to Lausanne in order to enroll at the Faculty of Social Sciences where she attended Vilfredo Pareto's courses in Economics. Here she met Benvenuto Griziotti, also in Lausanne for a postgraduate specializing course; in Pavia he would become one of the major Italian scholars in Finance. In 1908 she followed him to Rome where she enrolled at the Faculty of Law, & attended courses held by Antonio De Viti De Marco, Rodolfo Benini & Maffeo Pantaloni, who was carrying out innovative analysis on system dynamics factors. Under Pantaleoni's supervision, she got her full degree in December 1912. From 1930 until her retirement in 1954 she taught as a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Pavia (1930-1933), was assigned the course of Financial Law & Finance at the University of Parma (1935-1940) & of History of Economic Doctrines at the University of Pavia (1940-1954); since 1948 she was also assigned the course of Finance & Economic Policy. She never had the possibility to hold any academic chair; those who knew her acknowledged that her political creed & her status as an academic's wife did not favor her career at all. Some prevailing paths of interest can be discerned in her numerous articles, essays & monographs on issues in Economy & Economic Theory. Initially (1915-1929) she carried out pioneer systematic analysis of the peculiar features of Russian economy. Another area of interest of hers was the analysis of long-term price movements. A third research area she addressed included issues in economic & financial policies, & a fourth area of interest was the history of economic thought, in which regard her handbook is of primary importance; it is based on an interdisciplinary approach, as systems can be fully understood only if analyzed in the context of the social & ideological milieus in which they constitute & evolve in time. Part of her fecund activity is reflected in textbooks on economic policy & finance (1950-1954) & her commitment, also to the diffusion of economic thought, is testified by her transla-tions into Italian of works by Wagemann (1932), Wicks ell, von Mises & Hayek (1935) & the fifth Italian edition of Economics by P. Samuelson (1964). Partly inventoried biographical material & the collection of her writings are available in the Griziotti Family Archive in Pavia (Italy). The most significant recognition of her status has only recently been awarded by those few -- not Italian -- authors who came in contact with her scientific work. References. Adapted from the source document.
The rational construction of the house. The writings and projects of Giuseppe Pagano Description, themes and research objectives The research aims at analysing the architecture of Giuseppe Pagano, which focuses on the theme of dwelling, through the reading of 3 of his house projects. On the one hand, these projects represent "minor" works not thoroughly known by Pagano's contemporary critics; on the other they emphasise a particular methodological approach, which serves the author to explore a theme closely linked to his theoretical thought. The house project is a key to Pagano's research, given its ties to the socio-cultural and political conditions in which the architect was working, so that it becomes a mirror of one of his specific and theoretical path, always in a state of becoming. Pagano understands architecture as a "servant of the human being", subject to a "utilitarian slavery" since it is a clear, essential and "modest" answer to specific human needs, free from aprioristic aesthetic and formal choices. It is a rational architecture in sensu stricto; it constitutes a perfect synthesis between cause and effect and between function and form. The house needs to accommodate these principles because it is closely intertwined with human needs and intimately linked to a specific place, climatic conditions and technical and economical possibilities. Besides, differently from his public and common masterpieces such as the Palazzo Gualino, the Istituto di Fisica and the Università Commerciale Bocconi, the house projects are representative of a precise project will, which is expressed in a more authentic way, partially freed from political influences and dogmatic preoccupations and, therefore, far from the attempt to research a specific expressive language. I believe that the house project better represents that "ingenuity", freshness and "sincerity" that Pagano identifies with the minor architecture, thereby revealing a more authentic expression of his understanding of a project. Therefore, the thesis, by tracing the theoretical research of Pagano through the analysis of some of his designed and built works, attempts to identify a specific methodological approach to Pagano's project, which, developed through time, achieves a certain clarity in the 1930s. In fact, this methodological approach becomes more evident in his last projects, mainly regarding the house and the urban space. These reflect the attempt to respond to the new social needs and, at the same time, they also are an expression of a freer idea of built architecture, closely linked with the place and with the human being who dwells it. The three chosen projects (Villa Colli, La Casa a struttura d'acciaio and Villa Caraccio) make Pagano facing different places, different customers and different economic and technical conditions, which, given the author's biography, correspond to important historical and political conditions. This is the reason why the projects become apparently distant works, both linguistically and conceptually, to the point that one can define them as "eclectic". However, I argue that this eclecticism is actually an added value to the architectural work of Pagano, steaming from the use of a method which, having as a basis the postulate of a rational architecture as essence and logic of building, finds specific variations depending on the multiple variables to be addressed by the project. This is the methodological heritage that Pagano learns from the tradition, especially that of the rural residential architecture, defined by Pagano as a "dictionary of the building logic of man", as an "a-stylistic background". For Pagano this traditional architecture is a clear expression of the relationships between a theme and its development, an architectural "fact" that is resolved with purely technical and utilitarian aims and with a spontaneous development far from any aprioristic theoretical principle. Architecture, therefore, cannot be an invention for Pagano and the personal contribution of each architect has to consider his/her close relationship with the specific historical context, place and new building methods. These are basic principles in the methodological approach that drives a great deal of his research and that also permits his thought to be modern. I argue that both ongoing and new collaborations with younger protagonists of the culture and architecture of the period are significant for the development of his methodology. These encounters represent the will to spread his own understanding of the "new architecture" as well as a way of self-renewal by confronting the self with new themes and realities and by learning from his collaborators. Thesis' outline The thesis is divided in two principal parts, each articulated in four chapters attempting to offer a new reading of the theory and work of Pagano by emphasising the central themes of the research. The first chapter is an introduction to the thesis and to the theme of the rational house, as understood and developed in its typological and technical aspects by Pagano and by other protagonists of the Italian rationalism of the 1930s. Here the attention is on two different aspects defining, according to Pagano, the house project: on the one hand, the typological renewal, aimed at defining a "standard form" as a clear and essential answer to certain needs and variables of the project leading to different formal expressions. On the other, it focuses on the building, understood as a technique to "produce" architecture, where new technologies and new materials are not merely tools but also essential elements of the architectural work. In this way the villa becomes different from the theme of the common house or from that of the minimalist house, by using rules in the choice of material and in the techniques that are every time different depending on the theme under exploration and on the contingency of place. It is also visible the rigorous rationalism that distinguishes the author's appropriation of certain themes of rural architecture. The pages of "Casabella" and the events of the contemporary Triennali form the preliminary material for the writing of this chapter given that they are primary sources to individuate projects and writings produced by Pagano and contemporary architects on this theme. These writings and projects, when compared, reconstruct the evolution of the idea of the rational house and, specifically, of the personal research of Pagano. The second part regards the reading of three of Pagano's projects of houses as a built verification of his theories. This section constitutes the central part of the thesis since it is aimed at detecting a specific methodological approach showing a theoretical and ideological evolution expressed in the vast edited literature. The three projects that have been chosen explore the theme of the house, looking at various research themes that the author proposes and that find continuity in the affirmation of a specific rationalism, focussed on concepts such as essentiality, utility, functionality and building honesty. These concepts guide the thought and the activities of Pagano, also reflecting a social and cultural period. The projects span from the theme of the villa moderna, Villa Colli, which, inspired by the architecture of North Europe, anticipates a specific rationalism of Pagano based on rigour, simplicity and essentiality, to the theme of the common house, Casa a struttura d'acciaio, la casa del domani, which ponders on the definition of new living spaces and, moreover, on new concepts of standardisation, economical efficiency and new materials responding to the changing needs of the modern society. Finally, the third project returns to the theme of the, Villa Caraccio, revisiting it with new perspectives. These perspectives find in the solution of the open plant, in the openness to nature and landscape and in the revisiting of materials and local building systems that idea of the freed house, which express clearly a new theoretical thought. Methodology It needs to be noted that due to the lack of an official Archive of Pagano's work, the analysis of his work has been difficult and this explains the necessity to read the articles and the drawings published in the pages of «Casabella» and «Domus». As for the projects of Villa Colli and Casa a struttura d'acciaio, parts of the original drawings have been consulted. These drawings are not published and are kept in private archives of the collaborators of Pagano. The consultation of these documents has permitted the analysis of the cited works, which have been subject to a more complete reading following the different proposed solutions, which have permitted to understand the project path. The projects are analysed thought the method of comparison and critical reading which, specifically, means graphical elaborations and analytical schemes, mostly reconstructed on the basis of original projects but, where possible, also on a photographic investigation. The focus is on the project theme which, beginning with a specific living (dwelling) typology, finds variations because of the historico-political context in which Pagano is embedded and which partially shapes his research and theoretical thought, then translated in the built work. The analysis of the work follows, beginning, where possible, from a reconstruction of the evolution of the project as elaborated on the basis of the original documents and ending on an analysis of the constructive principles and composition. This second phase employs a methodology proposed by Pagano in his article Piante di ville, which, as expected, focuses on the plant as essential tool to identify the "true practical and poetic qualities of the construction"(Pagano, «Costruzioni-Casabella», 1940, p. 2). The reading of the project is integrated with the constructive analyses related to the technical aspects of the house which, in the case of Casa a struttura d'acciaio, play an important role in the project, while in Villa Colli and in Villa Caraccio are principally linked to the choice of materials for the construction of the different architectural elements. These are nonetheless key factors in the composition of the work. Future work could extend this reading to other house projects to deepen the research that could be completed with the consultation of Archival materials, which are missing at present. Finally, in the appendix I present a critical selection of the Pagano's writings, which recall the themes discussed and embodied by the three projects. The texts have been selected among the articles published in Casabella and in other journals, completing the reading of the project work which cannot be detached from his theoretical thought. Moving from theory to project, we follow a path that brings us to define and deepen the central theme of the thesis: rational building as the principal feature of the architectural research of Pagano, which is paraphrased in multiple ways in his designed and built works.
In 1412, with the advent of Trastamara dynasty on the throne of Aragon, the Kingdom of Sicily, while maintaining a formal institutional independence, was finally incorporated in the possessions of the Crown. The island then became a focal instrument of foreign policy of Alfonso the Magnanimous and, consequently, the natural economic and military base for the conquest of Naples. Just like what was occurring in the Italian peninsula, it became necessary to develop new instruments of government to respond to all those social, political and economic factors that had affected the island. Primarily, it was provided to a more precise definition of the relationship with the Iberian motherland, that, within a few years, took the form of a system of government at a distance. From an institutional point of view, the political leader of the island was outlined on the figure of the viceroy: they were chosen by the king and were equipped with a delegated power. The documentary solution, a true summary of this relation, was found instead in the creation of a chancery instrument that was named lictera exequtoria. This kind of letter allowed the sovereign to intervene personally, but through the mediation of the institutional apparatus of the island, on the distribution of the royal favor towards his subjects of the Kingdom. The complexity of the Italian territorial states of the 15th century, highlighted by the presence of many authorities in competition with each other, pushed the rulers to come to an agreement between the parties involved. The outcome, in the case of Sicily, was the direct involvement of the local ruling classes, both those from the old feudal aristocracy and those emerging from the towns, in the government of the island, as well as in the distribution of the economic and political resources in favor of all those who showed their support for the policies of the Magnanimous. It was a natural consequence, therefore, a greater attention to the institutional apparatus of the State that, at this stage, must be considered as a real focus of that political mediation that was necessary to the rulers for the consensus-building, within the composite societies of the late Middle-Ages, around their policies. On the one hand, since the arrival of Fernando of Antequera on the throne of the Crown of Aragon, but with major emphasis during the long reign of his successor, it was clear the role that the financial administration would have for the government of the island. It was not simply a strengthening of the control practices on the accounts of pecuniary offices of the Kingdom, brought about the growing economic needs of the monarchy, but a complex process driven by the kings of Aragon. The aim was indeed to lay the financial structures of the island under a closer political control, focusing on the figure of the sovereign the last terminal of the distribution of resources among its supporters and Sicilian subjects. The establishment of the new office of the Conservator regii patrimonii, taken directly from the Castilian reality, arose from the need to introduce in the island a financial body that was closely linked to the sovereign by fidelity ties and that was equipped with a wide range of skills to control the receipt and the distribution of the royal income. All the financial grants which concerned the public property had in fact to obtain the approval of the Conservator who initiated the regular bureaucratic process and that, in the meantime and thanks to all information collected, was also able to prepare budgets that gave to the king a useful tool for a more rational and precise location of the resources. On the other hand, instead, the intervention of the king went to the administration tout court of the island, that, compared to the financial one, was not marked by any obvious reformer intervention, if not from some occasional readjustments that changed the internal balance anyway. The Secretariat was in fact placed in the same level of the scribanie of the Protonotaro and of the Magistri Racionales – the Royal Chancery, without jurisdiction over the document drafting, had become the supreme record body of the Kingdom – becoming the tool by which the rulers were able to unhinge the natural administrative practice. They could in fact speed the execution of the orders and of the warrants because of the unofficial and wide intervention capacity of the Secretaries who could imperatively intervene in any area of the administration as a consequence of a direct order of the King or of his islander deputies. The overlapping of different chancery traditions within the Sicilian institutional apparatus caused the development of innovative governance tools that took shape of writing practice, record standards and filing systems of the documents, according to the new demands of the rulers. About the lictera exequtoria, whose we concisely said before, it's here enough to say that it became a basic instrument by means of which the King, despite the mediation of the Viceroy, was able to give execution to the privilegia and to the lictere patentes written by its secretaries. So he actually intervened on the promotion and cooptation of Sicilian officers at every level of the administration they were. The control action carried out on the officer body is also inferable from the innovative record systems that were prepared in Sicily in the first half of the fifteenth century. They allowed in fact the sovereign to be able to carry out a perpetual monitoring of the activity of the islander officers, as one can clearly deduce, for example, by the libri quictacionum and the libri castrorum of the Conservatoria's office. Within the latter, in fact, the most innovative record systems were developed. They, apparently related only to the financial matters, were instead characterized by a series of 'political functions' that allowed the Aragonese sovereign to increase his control over the Sicilian kingdom. The coeval processes of centralization of the administration of Sicily and of concentration of the archives at the Hosterium of Palermo are a further sign of the bureaucratic rationalization which characterized the action of the kings of Aragon. Since the compromise of Caspe (1412), in fact, they were involved in a series of interventions on the Sicilian institutions that aimed to find out appropriate instruments to govern the new needs of government, because of all the economic, political and social changes that were involving all the Italian territorial states of the fifteenth century.