Un «Re di fiori» per Nerone : modelli desunti dalle stampe nelle botteghe sardo-catalane (1488-1518)

In epoca tardomedievale un modello artistico, inteso come immagine o forma esemplare da imitare e riprodurre, nasceva grazie all'azione innovatrice degli artisti capaci di trasferire in immagini i linguaggi, le suggestioni, i racconti generati dalle esigenze comunicative del proprio sostrato sociale e culturale. A partire dalla seconda metà del XV secolo, con l'avvento sul mercato dei libri stampati, che spesso contenevano illustrazioni, si diffusero negli stessi canali commerciali anche la vendita e lo scambio delle stampe d'immagini prodotte dalle incisioni dei più noti maestri europei. Le stampe potevano essere realizzate attraverso diverse tecniche incisorie; vendute singolarmente o raccolte in cicli tematici, di grande tiratura o di ridotta diffusione; prodotte da lastre incise dalla mano degli stessi pittori o frutto del meticoloso lavoro di copiatura degli orafi o degli incisori che ben presto si specializzarono in queste riproduzioni. Le stampe, grazie alla loro rapida e capillare circolazione, divennero intermediarie privilegiate tra i modelli figurativi ideati dai grandi maestri e l'opera degli artisti attivi fino nelle regioni più periferiche d'Europa, contribuendo, al contempo, ad arricchire e diffondere il dizionario figurativo a disposizione dei pittori tardomedievali. Un'attenta analisi comparativa tra alcune delle immagini contenute nelle stampe degli incisori italiani e Nordeuropei attivi dal 1450 fino al 1518 e le opere pittoriche degli artisti operanti negli stessi anni nelle botteghe sardo-catalane, dimostrerà il pieno inserimento della Sardegna nei vivaci circuiti artistici internazionali che, all'epoca, caratterizzarono gli stilemi tardogotici percorrendo in lungo e in largo tutte le sponde del Mediterraneo.The artistic model, as an image or exemplary form to be imitated or reproduced, came into being in the late medieval period as the result of the work of innovative artists capable of transforming into visual images the speech, suggestions and stories arising from the communication needs of their social and cultural substratum. From the second half of the fifteenth century, with the advent of the market for printed books that often contained illustrations, these trade channels would also see the sale and exchange of prints made from engravings produced by some of Europe's greatest artists. The prints, which were produced using a variety of engraving techniques, were either sold individually or as part of a thematic cycle, and manufactured in large-scale production runs or limited editions from plates created either by the original artist or hand copied meticulously by specialized goldsmiths or engravers. Thanks to their rapid and widespread circulation, the prints soon assumed a pre-eminent position as intermediaries between the figurative models created by the great masters and artists working in the far-flung corners of Europe, while also helping to enrich and disseminate the figurative lexicon available to late medieval painters. A careful, comparative analysis of the images that appear in the prints produced by Italian and northern European engravers working from 1450 to 1518, and the work produced by the artists of the Sardinian-Catalan workshops during the same period, demonstrates that Sardinia was fully engaged with the vibrant international artistic movements that typified the late Gothic stylistic currents found throughout the Mediterranean basin at the time

Decision map for spatial decision making in urban planning

In this paper, we introduce the concept of decision map and illustrate the way this new concept can be used effectively to support participation in spatial decision making and in urban planning. First, we start by introducing our spatial decision process which is composed of five, non-necessary sequential, phases: problem identification and formulation, analysis, negotiation, concertation, and evaluation and choice. Negotiation and concertation are two main phases in spatial decision making but most available frameworks do not provide tools to support them effectively. The solution proposed here is based on the concept of decision map which is defined as an advanced version of conventional geographic maps which is enriched with preferential information and especially designed to clarify decision making. It looks like a set of homogenous spatial units; each one is characterised with a global, often ordinal, evaluation that represents an aggregation of several partial evaluations relative to different criteria. The decision map is also enriched with different spatial data exploration tools. The procedure of the construction of a decision map contains four main steps: definition of the problem (i.e. generation of criteria maps), generation of an intermediate map, inference of preferential parameters, and generation of a final decision map. The concept of decision map as defined here is a generic tool that may be applied in different domains. This paper focuses on the role of the decision map in supporting participation in spatial decision making and urban planning. Indeed, the decision map is an efficient communication tool in the sense that it permits to the different groups implied in the spatial decision process to ‘think visually’ and to communicate better between each other.ou

Archaeal diversity in deep-sea sediments estimated by means of different Terminal-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphisms (T-RFLP) protocols

Despite the increasing recognition of the quantitative importance of Archaea in all marine systems, the protocols for a rapid estimate of Archaeal diversity patterns in deep-sea sediments have been only poorly tested yet. We collected sediment samples from 11 deep-sea sites covering a wide latitudinal range (from 79°N to 36°N, at depths comprised from 469 to 5500 m) and compared the performance of two different primer sets (ARCH21f/ARCH958r and ARCH109f/ARCH 915r) and three restriction enzymes (AluI, Rsa I and HaeIII) for the fingerprinting analysis (T-RFLP) of Archaeal diversity. In silico and experimental analyses consistently indicated that different combinations of primer sets and restriction enzymes can result in different values of benthic Archaeal ribotype richness and different Archaeal assemblage compositions. The use of the ARCH109f/ARCH 915r primer set in combination with AluI provided the best results (a number ribotypes up to 4-folds higher than other combinations), suggesting that this primer set should be used in future studies dealing with the analysis of the patterns of Archaeal diversity in deep-sea sediments. Multivariate, multiple regression analysis revealed that, whatever the T-RFLP protocol utilized, latitude and temperature explained most of the variance in benthic Archaeal ribotype richness, while water depth had a negligible role

Preliminary results on the verification of the water balance aspects of the regcm3 regional climate model on yearly scales

In this report some preliminary results obtained implementing the RegCM3 regional climate model to downscale, at the relatively high horizontal spatial resolution of about 25km, one year (the 1982) of the ECMWF ERA40 reanalysis in the Western Europe and Mediterranean area, are discussed. The main aim of this work is to assess the performance of the RegCM3 describing the runoff (R), the precipitation (P) and the evapotranspiration (E) components of the hydrological budget. This has been made comparing the monthly precipitation averages for 1982 against a gridded dataset, at spatial resolution of 0.5, of measured data (CRU dataset) and then checking physical consistency of the simulated P field with the corresponding R and E fields

Soft x-rays absorption and high-resolution powder x-ray diffraction study of superconducting CaxLa(1-x)Ba(1.75-x)La(0.25+x)Cu3Oy system

We have studied the electronic structure of unoccupied states measured by O K-edge and Cu L-edge x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), combined with crystal structure studied by high resolution powder x-ray diffraction (HRPXRD), of charge-compensated layered superconducting CaxLa(1-x)Ba(1.75-x)La(0.25+x)Cu3Oy (0<x<0.4, 6.4<y<7.3) cuprate. A detailed analysis shows that, apart from hole doping, chemical pressure on the electronically active CuO2 plane due to the lattice mismatch with the spacer layers greatly influences the superconducting properties of this system. The results suggest chemical pressure to be the most plausible parameter to control the maximum critical temperatures (Tcmax) in different cuprate families at optimum hole density.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solid

Installazione di debian 3.0 su workstation hpx4000

In questo documento vengono descritte le linee guida per l’installazione di GNU/Linux Debian 3.0 su una Workstation Hp x4000. Viene inoltre descritta la configurazione di VMWare (con windows 2000) e la creazione di un repository per i packages .deb, la loro gestione e la loro installazione

Open CASCADE and rapid prototyping in human carotid lumen reconstruction

Image processing algorithms, CAD-CAM tools and rapid prototyping (RP) techniques are able to produce complex lumen artery replicas. This work presents a system for manufacturing the lumen of human carotid from computed tomography acquisition. The pipe-line of manufacturing process of a human carotid lumen replication is presented. Each stage of the pipe-line is briefly discussed. Technical details of the 3D surface reconstruction phase, based on the Open Cascade geometric modelling software, and the RP manufaturing process based on Fused Deposition Modelling are presented

Lo stock di capitale fisso nelle regioni italiane. 1970 - 1994

The aim of this paper is to estimate the series of capital stock at the regional level for Italy. Using the permanent inventory approach we obtain series for 20 regions and 17 sectors of economic activity covering the period 1970 - 1994. The first descriptive analysis presented in this paper confirms the dualistic structure of the Italian economy. Southern regions represent only 30% of total capital stock and their accumulation rate is declining. Moreover we show how the sectoral composition and change of the capital stock presents huge differences across regions

Seafloor heterogeneity influences the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships in the deep sea

Theoretical ecology predicts that heterogeneous habitats allow more species to co-exist in a given area. In the deep sea, biodiversity is positively linked with ecosystem functioning, suggesting that deep-seabed heterogeneity could influence ecosystem functions and the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF). To shed light on the BEF relationships in a heterogeneous deep seabed, we investigated variations in meiofaunal biodiversity, biomass and ecosystem efficiency within and among different seabed morphologies (e.g., furrows, erosional troughs, sediment waves and other depositional structures, landslide scars and deposits) in a narrow geo-morphologically articulated sector of the Adriatic Sea. We show that distinct seafloor morphologies are characterized by highly diverse nematode assemblages, whereas areas sharing similar seabed morphologies host similar nematode assemblages. BEF relationships are consistently positive across the entire region, but different seabed morphologies are characterised by different slope coefficients of the relationship. Our results suggest that seafloor heterogeneity, allowing diversified assemblages across different habitats, increases diversity and influence ecosystem processes at the regional scale, and BEF relationships at smaller spatial scales. We conclude that high-resolution seabed mapping and a detailed analysis of the species distribution at the habitat scale are crucial for improving management of goods and services delivered by deep-sea ecosystem