Lucifer and the Arabic palaeography. A contribution on the Oriental glosses of the bible of Cava de' Tirreni

This contribution is intended to fill a gap in the series of studies already devoted to the glosses of the famous codex Cava 1, a Biblical manuscript written in early 9th-century Spain, and to contribute to its better understanding from a cultural and historical point of view. Sixteen glosses in Arabic language and script and one gloss in Hebrew script and Arabic language will be examined from a paleographical point of view, trying to propose a date and a place for their execution. Moreover, the paper will discuss the con- tents of these glosses, until now discarded by scholars

Introduction

The seminars entitled Palaeography Between East & West, which I convened at Sapienza University, aimed at offering a forum, a place of sharing knowledge and debate, to scholars who deal with manuscript materials in various languages and alphabets. Entitled “Paleografia, paleografie. Esperienze a confronto” (2 March 2011), “Tra lingue e scritture. Itinerari grafici nel Mediterraneo e oltre” (2 April 2012), “La Paleografia tra Oriente e Occidente” (5 April 2013), “La Paleografia tra Oriente e Occidente – Palaeography between East and West” (19 May 2014), these seminars (Figs. 1-4) gathered contributions about very different areas. The essays gathered in this volume contribute to the idea of a world pale- ography. I very much hope that the field of palaeography, and the related do- mains of book-history and manuscript-culture, will receive more attention in future, and scientific recognition as an autonomous domain of research with- in Islamic studies and as a proper field of research within palaeographical studies

One script for two languages. Latin & Arabic in an early allographic papyrus

This contribution presents a unique papyrus letter in Latin script and Latin language and in Latin script and Arabic language that is possible to date, on palaeographic grounds, from the end of the 7th to the 9th century AD. This precious witness is exam- ined under the historical, graphical, linguistic and cultural point of view and its prove- nance is discussed accordingly. An edition of the whole text is provided and a number of correspondences in Arabic are suggested

Umayyad and ‘Abbasid glass stamps from a private collection

This contribution intends to present some Umayyad and ‘Abbasid glass stamps, from a large private collection, probably made in Egypt during the 8th-9th century AD, supposedly by the office of weights and measures (d!r al-‘iy!r). Some of them name people that are well known from historical sources (Caliphs, Governors, Finance Directors...), others bear less known names (of executives and, especially, of artisans of Coptic origins). Last but not least, the group also contains anonymous exemplars, as well as disks with pious formula or crude imitative legends

L'affare Stanzani. Documenti inediti degli archivi romani

The archive records of the Pontificia Accademia dei Virtuosi al Pantheon {Rome) offer documents that enlighten the story of the Stanzani Collection. This paper aims at presenting these unpublished records, at contributing to the history of Islamic coin collections in Europe, in 19th century, and at shedding light on the biography of Ludovico Stanzani. On the one hand Stanzani case finds its place among the studies of individual biographies linked to that of the history of museums through their donations and, on the other hand, his collection testify an interest and a taste that should be considered among the traditional studies devoted to the history of collecting

The Confusion Between Intravenous Sodium Chloride and Potassium Chloride: A Potential Application for a Problem Based Learning (PBL) in Nursing Education to Minimize Medication Errors

Sodium chloride and potassium chloride are two metal halides easily distinguishable by chemistry students.  Nevertheless, it has been shown that the confusion between sodium chloride and potassium chloride is the underlaying cause of serious medical mistakes that may potentially culminate with the death of the patient.  In the present literature review, a qualitative approach is used to examine relevant teaching practices, such as a problem base learning (PBL) approach that could be integrated in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum for nursing students to minimize the confusion between the two chemicals

My encounter with Arabic numismatics and some new thoughts on Rasulid coins

Questo contributo è composto di due parti: nella prima delineo gli esordi del mio interesse scientifico per la numismatica araba; nella seconda parte propongo una nuova, possibile chiave di lettura per l'enigmatica espressione 'dirham riyahi' legata alle emissioni yemenite successive alla riforma monetaria del rasulide al-Mujahid 'Ali (r. 721-764 AH/AD 1322-1363) del 736 AH/AD 1335-36

Early Qur'anic scrolls from the Qubbat al-khazna and their links with the Christian manuscript tradition of Greek-Byzantine scrolls

This contribution aims to reconsider some early Qurʾānic parchment scrolls once stored in Damascus Qubbat al-khazna and currently preserved in Istanbul – at the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts. Their peculiar book form, apart from vague hypothesis, never received a convincing explanation. However, the production of Greek-Byzantine liturgical scrolls in Damascus up to the tenth century offers a meaningful precedent that sheds light on the provenance and the origin of these scrolls. Codicological techniques, bilingual – Greek- Arabic – witnesses and oral performances are some of the elements that link the Christian and Islamic scrolls production in the Syrian area

Biogeochemical characteristics of a long-lived anticyclonic eddy in the eastern South Pacific Ocean

Mesoscale eddies are important, frequent, and persistent features of the circulation in the eastern South Pacific (ESP) Ocean, transporting physical, chemical and biological properties from the productive shelves to the open ocean. Some of these eddies exhibit subsurface hypoxic or suboxic conditions and may serve as important hotspots for nitrogen loss, but little is known about oxygen consumption rates and nitrogen transformation processes associated with these eddies. In the austral fall of 2011, during the Tara Oceans expedition, an intrathermocline, anticyclonic, mesoscale eddy with a suboxic ( 0.5 µM), suggesting that active denitrification occurred in this water mass. Using satellite altimetry, we were able to track the eddy back to its region of formation on the coast of central Chile (36.1° S, 74.6° W). Field studies conducted in Chilean shelf waters close to the time of eddy formation provided estimates of initial O2 and N2O concentrations of the ESSW source water in the eddy. By the time of its offshore sighting, concentrations of both O2 and N2O in the subsurface oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) of the eddy were lower than concentrations in surrounding water and “source water” on the shelf, indicating that these chemical species were consumed as the eddy moved offshore. Estimates of apparent oxygen utilization rates at the OMZ of the eddy ranged from 0.29 to 44 nmol L−1 d−1 and the rate of N2O consumption was 3.92 nmol L−1 d−1. These results show that mesoscale eddies affect open-ocean biogeochemistry in the ESP not only by transporting physical and chemical properties from the coast to the ocean interior but also during advection, local biological consumption of oxygen within an eddy further generates conditions favorable to denitrification and loss of fixed nitrogen from the system