Suchergebnisse

Historical studies on Angl o-Italian diplomatic relations between the end of WWII and the early Fifties have often stressed two contradictory el ements: the alleged good will to overcome the heavy legacy left by Italian fascism and the war, and th e political and psychologica l qualms that emerged whenever the dialogue between Rome and London was re sumed. Largely based on primary sources, this essay brings new elements to the knowledge of the evolution of bilateral relations in the midst of the dynastic succession that led Elizabeth II to the throne of Saint James.

The century following Duke Humphrey's death has transmitted an image of "the Good Duke" that modern historiography may find misleading. Contemporary scholarship is interested in his role as the promoter of humanism in fifteenth-century England; yet, though in the course of his life there were acknowledgements of his patronage, the years immediately following his death saw his image undergo a metamorphosis. His role as a proto-humanist was quickly forgotten, while the political resonance of his death made later scholars overlook his unsuccessful career as a politician. Humphrey's death created a major sensation, and after the fall of the Lancasters it was quickly exploited for propaganda purposes by the York faction first, and by the Tudors afterwards. Humphrey haunts Elizabethan drama and Ovidian epistles, appears as an improbable Wycliffite in Foxe's Acts and as a wise man of the world in More's Dialogue Concerning Heresies. The present article takes Duke Humphrey and his afterlives as a case study for the examination of the role of propaganda in literary/political biography.

The century following Duke Humphrey's death has transmitted an image of "the Good Duke" that modern historiography may find misleading. Contemporary scholarship is interested in his role as the promoter of humanism in fifteenth-century England; yet, though in the course of his life there were acknowledgements of his patronage, the years immediately following his death saw his image undergo a metamorphosis. His role as a proto-humanist was quickly forgotten, while the political resonance of his death made later scholars overlook his unsuccessful career as a politician. Humphrey's death created a major sensation, and after the fall of the Lancasters it was quickly exploited for propaganda purposes by the York faction first, and by the Tudors afterwards. Humphrey haunts Elizabethan drama and Ovidian epistles, appears as an improbable Wycliffite in Foxe's "Acts" and as a wise man of the world in More's "Dialogue Concerning Heresies". The present article takes Duke Humphrey and his afterlives as a case study for the examination of the role of propaganda in literary/political biography.

Bent Holm's paper analyzes a famous work by Dario Fo, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, which was staged in 1970. The play deals with an event that actually happened the previous year: Pino Pinelli's death while he was in custody at the police headquarters in Milan. One of Holm's fundamental contentions is that Fo's political denunciation is not sufficient to explain the success of the performance. Rather, it must be sought at deeper levels than strictly ideological ones.

This paper aimed to examine the positions adopted by Antonia Minor and dictated by political reasons on the occasion of the death of her oldest son, Germanicus and her only daughter, Livilla. The presence of Antonia during her son's public funeral and posthumous honours is attested by the epigraphic evidences of the Tabula Siarensis and the SC de Cn. Pisone Patre, although Tacitus records her absence (Ann., III 1-3). Allegedly, the daughter Livilla helped her lover Sejanus in poisoning her husband Drusus the Younger and, according to Cassius Dio (LVIII 11, 7), Tiberius handed Livilla over to her mother, who starved her to death: in this act, Antonia Minor seems to exercise a right of the paterfamilias, the power of life and death over his children. Her authority perhaps derives from her status of univira, a woman who had only one husband throughout her life, and from her blood ties with Augustus and her kinship with Tiberius. Hence Antonia Minor is portrayed as consistently loyal to the dynasty.

[Abstract] The death sentence of Saddam Hussein is one of those extreme cases that put in tension the foundations of the absolute prohibition of the capital punishment, still more in the moment in which we think to extend its capacity in a universal sense and consi- dering the fact that numerous States (Arabic Countries, China, United States, Japan, etc.) maintain it, comprised therefore occidental or liberal political systems, and not only authoritarian or religious-political systems: the compact exclusion of Europe from that group moreover regards an entity that has financed yearlong Saddam, giving him enormous amounts of war materials, also chemical, thanks which were realized the genocides that he was charged with, included the crime of the 148 died of Dujail (apart from the tortured ones, deported etc.), killed for reprisal after his assassination attempt, and on which the criminal trial has condemned him has been focused. Looking through the accusations and the numerous violations of the defensive guarantees of the process, moreover it is pointed out that the trial of Saddam Hussein has been an effective pro- cess, not like the ghost-trial that in 1984 the Iraq Revolutionary Court celebrated in order to condemn to death penalty 148 men, women and children suspected opponents of the regimen, 46 of which already were died at that time for the tortures or other cau- ses. The vastness of the ascribed crimes to Saddam could not know "a proportioned" penalty in any case, therefore the punishment in the "gross violations" of the interna- tional criminal law is necessarily out of proportion. In this necessary disproportion can we identify a possible humanistic valence of the criminal law based on the principle (able to renew the foundation of the absolute prohibition of capital punishment) today summarized in the idea that the value of a person cannot be compared with whichever fact he/she committed, because the value of the person is not entirely expressed by the single facts she realizes. The proportion judgment on which the capital punishment is based, results then impossible between one person (his life) and the committed facts. On such positive principle of "unmeasurability" of the distance between the value of a per- son and his conducts, may we refuse the capital punishment as a typical penalty of the "criminal law of the enemy". Humanistic and religious reflections converge on this con- clusion, in a multicultural dimension, which is more positive then a merely secular point of view. The criminal law culture can today carry out a task of singular importance if it indeed agrees to assert the absoluteness of that prohibition, avoiding the "church" of the western (United States) and of the oriental fundamentalisms, and remarking, from a European point of view, the human "corresponsibility" on which the refusal of death penalty is based.

Il volume presenta l'edizione definitiva della necropoli dell'Età del Bronzo di Kamilari, situata a pochi chilometri di distanza dal più noto centro palaziale di Festòs, nella Creta meridionale. Lo scavo fu eseguito alla fine degli anni '50 dalla Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene sotto la direzione dell'allora direttore Doro Levi e produsse una dettagliata pubblicazione preliminare che lasciò tuttavia aperte numerose questioni. La ripresa dello studio e la conseguente pubblicazione sono state possibili grazie al supporto della Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene. La necropoli è composta da tre tombe a tholos, la prima delle quali (la Tholos A), la più grande, fu occupata senza soluzione di continuità dagli inizi del II millennio a.C. (Medio Minoico IB) alla fine del XIV secolo a.C. (Tardo Minoico IIIA2), per ricevere poi una parziale rioccupazione tra l'VIII e il VII secolo a.C. Per la ricchezza dei suoi contesti e la straordinaria continuità d'uso, la necropoli getta una luce importante sulle pratiche e i rituali funerari della Creta dell'età del Bronzo e rappresenta la cartina di tornasole per l'interpretazione delle trasformazioni sociali e politiche intervenute nell'area. La necropoli si distingue per l'uso del seppellimento collettivo ancora nel Medio Minoico, ossia in corrispondenza della fondazione e sviluppo del Primo Palazzo di Festòs, quando nell'area meridionale di Creta e in generale nell'intera isola, questa tipologia di seppellimento è già in declino. Ugualmente importanti sono le testimonianze della necropoli nel corso del Tardo Minoico quando, soprattutto nella prima fase, la documentazione funeraria appare intermittente sull'isola; anche nelle fasi di progressiva 'miceneizzazione', momento in cui Creta subisce profonde trasformazioni nelle pratiche funerarie, la Tholos A testimonia la persistenza di pratiche antichissime. Il volume si distingue per la partecipazione di studiosi internazionali che hanno contribuito significativamente in varie parti dell'opera. I dieci capitoli del volume affrontano in maniera esauriente lo studio delle tre tombe, con particolare riguardo alla Tholos A, la tomba più grande, che ha restituito i corredi più ricchi e importanti. Alla trattazione in dettaglio delle architetture e della stratigrafia, segue l'analisi del materiale ceramico, dei modellini fittili, dei vasi in pietra, dei sigilli, degli oggetti in bronzo e dei gioielli (Capitoli I-II.1-14). Il capitolo III è dedicato alla Tholos B; il IV e il V rispettivamente allo studio dei resti ossei umani e animali delle Tholoi A e B; il VI e il VII prendono in esame le conchiglie e il materiale botanico, con particolare riferimento ai resti lignei carbonizzati. Il Capitolo VIII analizza la Tholos C, la cui rioccupazione in epoca ellenistico-romana viene interpretata come possibile sacello connesso con culti di fertilità agraria. Gli ultimi capitoli, IX e X, analizzano rispettivamente le pratiche e i rituali funerari e lo sviluppo generale della necropoli nel contesto della piana della Messarà. Il volume è arricchito da tre appendici e da un esauriente apparato illustrativo di novanta tavole.

Maestro nel creare consenso, mantenendo in precario ma efficace equilibrio le componenti istituzionali e sociali di una realtà complessa, Francesco Sforza, divenuto duca di Milano (1450), portò a compimento la riforma ospedaliera intrapresa dai suoi predecessori e inaugurò la compilazione sistematica dei Registri dei morti, capillare strumento di monitoraggio dello stato di salute della popolazione delle città del dominio, utile all'epoca per inaugurare politiche sanitarie ed economiche mirate, e oggi straordinaria fonte nello studio dei fenomeni demografici e sociali, quali povertà ed emarginazione, spesso sfuggenti in epoca pre-statistica. ; In the mid-Fifteenth Century, Francesco Sforza, become new Duke of Milan, carried out hospital reform and introduce the systematic compilation of the Registry of deaths. This Registry reflects the will of the ducal government to check population mortality and morbidity and suspicious or traumatic deaths in one of the most important cities in Europe, not only for healthcare reasons but also to supervise and to defend the economic value of human capital of the duchy. Today these records open up a significant breakthrough on the causes of individual deaths of marginalized classes of the society, often forgotten by ancient sources.

The chapel of St. James in the Santo, Padua is still commonly described as that of Bonifacio Lupi, a condottiere who participated in all the major political and military adventures of north and central Italy during the second half of the fourteenth century. As is often the case, however, the initial foundation was a more complex affair, which owed much to the relationship between the Lupi and their relations on Bonifacio's mother's side, the Rossi family. The chapel's refurbishment and fresco decoration serves as an excellent example of collaboration between a number of parties, including Caterina di Staggia, wife of Bonifacio. This essay spans thirty years and focuses on Caterina's artistic patronage, first as the spouse of Bonifacio and later as his widow, until her own death in Venice in 1405. A detailed analysis of her gifts in life as in death suggests that despite her self-imposed exile to Venice, Caterina remained true to her adopted city of Padua. Moreover, even after Bonifacio's death, Caterina commissioned furnishings on his behalf. This exemplifies a traditional wish to honour her deceased spouse's memory and provide for his soul, and yet reiterates her independence as a self-standing patron.