Gaetano Baccani's "Systematization" of the Piazza del Duomo in Florence

2000 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 454-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Church And State ◽  
General View ◽  
Historic Monument ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Visual Materials ◽  
Santa Maria

Emilio de Fabris's completion of the west front of Santa Maria del Fiore is the best-known of the architectural interventions carried out during the nineteenth century in the Piazza del Duomo and Piazza di San Giovanni in Florence. But this initiative was preceded by an earlier one that was more radical in character, insofar as it transformed the area around the Campanile and Duomo. A proposal of November 1823 by the architect Gaetano Baccani resulted in the demolition of a large part of the late medieval cathedral canonry and the creation of an extensive new piazza on the south side of Santa Maria del Fiore. This intervention introduced two issues that were to become fundamental to the notion of urban patrimony. On the one hand, it prompted consideration of the relationship between a historic monument and its ambience; on the other, it brought into focus the tension that was likely to exist between conservation and the creation of a modern urban environment. The present study publishes Baccani's formal submission to the Deputazione Secolare sopra l'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore and draws on other documents preserved in the Archivio dell'Opera to construct a detailed history of the project. The study also introduces other literary and visual materials to establish the nature of Baccani's "systematization" of the Piazza del Duomo. Baccani's project is linked retrospectively to a Napoleonic plan for the modernization of Florence, but it is discussed also as a harbinger of later programs of urban renewal in Florence and in other Italian cities. The paper outlines the history of the canonry compound and places Baccani's reorganization of it in the context of the development of a new relationship between church and state in Florence. The piazza likewise is considered in relation to the transformation of Florence into a modern, orderly city, well-suited to the growing tourist industry. From Baccani's proposal to the Deputazione Secolare it is apparent that he wished it to be believed that his project was in keeping with the intentions of the original architects of the Duomo. The present study considers Baccani's project in this light, while also assessing the extent to which his plans were rooted in his own time. In particular, Baccani's conception of the area around the Duomo is discussed in relation to other urbanistic projects that were planned in Florence, Milan, and Rome during the Napoleonic period. Finally, Baccani's scheme is considered in relation to recent studies of the area around the Duomo by Piero Sanpaolesi, Margaret Haines, and Marvin Trachtenberg. The paper establishes that Baccani's intervention fundamentally changed the manner in which Santa Maria del Fiore and the Campanile could be seen, revealing an "ideal" view of the two buildings in juxtaposition. Baccani's vision is discussed in relation to a widespread nineteenth-century wish to consecrate the individual monument. The study concludes by introducing a number of unfamiliar images of the Campanile and Duomo and proposes that they lent authority to Baccani's concept of a "best" general view of these monuments.

Spain and Portugal

2021 ◽  
pp. 729-745
Author(s):  
Julio de la Cueva
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Pluralism ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
State And Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

The modern religious history of Spain and Portugal begins with the religious unity between the state and society forged around Catholicism, and ends with the present era epitomized by ongoing secularization and incipient religious pluralism. With some difficulty, the Catholic Church adapted to the trials posed by nineteenth-century liberalism, reaching an accommodation with the constitutional monarchies in both Iberian countries. The first serious challenge came with the arrival of the republics in Portugal in 1910 and in Spain in 1931. The republics did not last long, however; two Catholic dictatorships governed the fate of the Peninsula until the 1970s, though separation of church and state was formally maintained in Portugal. The dictatorships ended in 1974 and 1975, respectively, giving way to the establishment of new democracies, accompanied on the one hand by secularization in both the state and society, and on the other by growing religious pluralism.

Victorian Pain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Ablow
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Victorian Literature ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Harriet Martineau ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
First Time

The nineteenth century introduced developments in science and medicine that made the eradication of pain conceivable for the first time. This new understanding of pain brought with it a complex set of moral and philosophical dilemmas. If pain serves no obvious purpose, how do we reconcile its existence with a well-ordered universe? Examining how writers of the day engaged with such questions, this book offers a compelling new literary and philosophical history of modern pain. The book provides close readings of novelists Charlotte Brontë and Thomas Hardy and political and natural philosophers John Stuart Mill, Harriet Martineau, and Charles Darwin, as well as a variety of medical, scientific, and popular writers of the Victorian age. The book explores how discussions of pain served as investigations into the status of persons and the nature and parameters of social life. No longer conceivable as divine trial or punishment, pain in the nineteenth century came to seem instead like a historical accident suggesting little or nothing about the individual who suffers. A landmark study of Victorian literature and the history of pain, the book shows how these writers came to see pain as a social as well as a personal problem. Rather than simply self-evident to the sufferer and unknowable to anyone else, pain was also understood to be produced between persons—and even, perhaps, by the fictions they read.

Sr. José, the Worker mélomane, or Opera and Democracy in Lisbon ca. 1850

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-105
Author(s):  
Gabriela Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Bel Canto ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
One Act ◽  
A Performance

Sr. José do capote, a worker and an opera lover, is the monad contemplated in this article. He is a theatrical figure, the protagonist of the one-act burlesque parody Sr. José do capote assistindo a uma representação do torrador (Sr. José of the Cloak attends a performance of The Roaster, 1855), but also an idea that expresses in abbreviated form the urban environment of nineteenth-century Lisbon, the theatrical and operatic sensibility of its citizens, and the politics of their engagement with the stage. This article is a history of Il trovatore and of bel canto claimed for a nascent culture of democracy in nineteenth-century Portugal.

The Neuropathic Diathesis, or the Diathesis of the Degenerate

1888 ◽  
Vol 34 (146) ◽  
pp. 167-176
Author(s):  
G. T. Revington
Keyword(s):  
Family History ◽  
Normal Development ◽  
Personal History ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
General Paralysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind

I think that the foregoing statistics, and those which follow, together with the large number of cases which I quote, and which connect general paralysis with almost every form of neurotic manifestation, will prove conclusively that neurotic inheritance is a striking feature in the causation of general paralysis. I question whether a distinction between “the cerebral and the insane element” in general paralysis can be maintained. If general paralysis is not a degeneration of the mind-tissue, then the pathology of insanity has no existence, and I would say that the subtle influence for evil, which is transmitted from parents, whose brains are deteriorated by neurotic outbursts, or soaked in alcohol, or wrecked by physiological immorality, tends strongly towards such degeneration. If insanity is, as Dr. Savage says, a perversion of the ego, then a general paralytic is the in-sanest of the insane. We know that the children of a melancholic parent, for example, may develop any form of neurosis—in other words, it is not that melancholia or general paralysis, or any other definite disease, is transmitted, but that a certain tendency to deviate from normal development is transmitted. This tendency to deviate is the neurotic diathesis, and the form of its development is determined by collateral circumstances, and a certain series of collateral circumstances determine the development of general paralysis. Perhaps neurotic inheritance may mean in some cases a limited capital of nervous energy, and if this is wasted recklessly the individual breaks down suddenly and pathologically, as we all do slowly and physiologically. I would also point out that considering the number of histories of insanity which owing to ignorance or reticence we, do not receive, and considering that we never receive information as to the existence of the slighter neuroses, it is marvellous that we get so high a percentage as 51. Of the 145 general paralytics with a reliable history, 38 had a family history of insanity, 28 a family history of drink, 8 of both, 43 had a personal history of drink, 8 of a previous attack too remote to be considered, at least, according to our present ideas, as part of the disease, and the vast majority had a history of some physiological irregularity which must be considered as conducive to the creation of an acquired neurosis. We may now pass to some further statistics.

Emerson's Atom and the Matter of Suffering

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-47
Author(s):  
Mark Noble
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Classical Field Theory ◽  
Classical Field ◽  
The Other ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Solid Bodies ◽  
Lines Of Force

This essay argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson's interest in the cutting-edge science of his generation helps to shape his understanding of persons as fluid expressions of power rather than solid bodies. In his 1872 "Natural History of Intellect," Emerson correlates the constitution of the individual mind with the tenets of Michael Faraday's classical field theory. For Faraday, experimenting with electromagnetism reveals that the atom is a node or point on a network, and that all matter is really the arrangement of energetic lines of force. This atomic model offers Emerson a technology for envisioning a materialized subjectivity that both unravels personal identity and grants access to impersonal power. On the one hand, adopting Faraday's field theory resonates with many of the affirmative philosophical and ethical claims central to Emerson's early essays. On the other hand, however, distributing the properties of Faraday's atoms onto the properties of the person also entails moments in which materialized subjects encounter their own partiality, limitation, and suffering. I suggest that Emerson represents these aspects of experience in terms that are deliberately discrepant from his conception of universal power. He presumes that if every experience boils down to the same lines of force, then the particular can be trivialized with respect to the general. As a consequence, Emerson must insulate his philosophical assertions from contamination by our most poignant experiences of limitation. The essay concludes by distinguishing Emersonian "Necessity" from Friedrich Nietzsche's similar conception of amor fati, which routes the affirmation of fate directly through suffering.

scholarly journals Insomnia and the late nineteenth-century insomniac: the case of Albert Kimball

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 20190074 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Beaumont
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sleep Problems ◽  
Urban Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Individual

This article explores the emergence, in late nineteenth-century Britain and the USA, of the ‘insomniac’ as a distinct pathological and social archetype. Sleeplessness has of course been a human problem for millennia, but only since the late-Victorian period has there been a specific diagnostic name for the individual who suffers chronically from insufficient sleep. The introductory section of the article, which notes the current panic about sleep problems, offers a brief sketch of the history of sleeplessness, acknowledging the transhistorical nature of this condition but also pointing to the appearance, during the period of the Enlightenment, of the term ‘insomnia’ itself. The second section makes more specific historical claims about the rise of insomnia in the accelerating conditions of everyday life in urban society at the end of the nineteenth century. It traces the rise of the insomniac as such, especially in the context of medical debates about ‘neurasthenia’, as someone whose identity is constitutively defined by their inability to sleep. The third section, tightening the focus of the article, goes on to reconstruct the biography of one exemplary late nineteenth-century insomniac, the American dentist Albert Kimball, in order to illustrate the claim that insomnia was one of the pre-eminent symptoms of a certain crisis in industrial and metropolitan modernity as this social condition was lived by individuals at the fin de siècle .

Entrepreneurship in the Internet

2011 ◽  
pp. 1405-1411 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Serarols-Tarrés
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
New Ventures ◽  
Distribution Channel ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Venture Creation ◽  
Creation Process ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The One

The increasing development of information technologies (IT) has significantly affected both firms and markets. IT is currently changing the world in a more permanent and far-reaching way than any other technology in the history of mankind (Carrier, Raymond, & Eltaief, 2004). A new economy, where knowledge is the most important strategic resource, is forcing firms to review their traditional routines and take advantage of the tools able to create new value. Nowadays, there are two types of firms using this new IT. On the one hand, firms with physical presence (traditional companies) use the Internet as a new distribution channel or alternatively as a logical extension of their traditional business. On the other hand, there are dotcoms, Internet start-ups, or cybertraders (European Commission, 1997), which have been specifically conceived to operate in this new environment. A number of scholars have attempted to explain the creation of new ventures from many different theoretical perspectives (economics, psychology, and population ecology among others) and have also offered frameworks for exploring the characteristics of the creation process (Bhave, 1994; Carter, Gartner, & Reynolds, 1996; Gartner, 1985; Shook, Priem, & McGee, 2003; Veciana, 1988; Vesper, 1990; Webster, 1976). However, despite the growing literature in this area, few studies have explored the process of venture creation in dotcom firms. Cyberentrepreneurship is still in its emergent phase, and there is more to know about the phenomenon and the elements of the venture creation process (Carrier et al., 2004; Jiwa, Lavelle, & Rose, 2004; Martin & Wright, 2005). What are the stages they follow to create their firms? This article attempts to answer this question. First, we analyse the entrepreneurial process of a new firm’s creation. Second, we shed some light on how this process is applied by cyberentrepreneurs in starting their businesses based on an in-depth, multiple case study of eight entrepreneurs in Spain.

Postmodernism, French critics of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reginald Lilly
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Rational Discourse ◽  
Philosophical School ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Second World

French anti-postmodernism emerged with the generation of philosophers that came of age in the late 1970s and early 1980s and counts among its ranks some of the most visible and prolific young scholars in France. Unlike schools of thought such as phenomenology, existentialism or Marxism, French anti-postmodernism has no founding figure, central text or core doctrine; anti-postmodernism (a term seldom, if ever, used by the French) therefore is less a philosophical school than a characterization for a diverse group of thinkers who react against those trends that have dominated French intellectual life since the Second World War, especially Marxism, structuralism, existentialism and deconstruction. These trends, grouped together under the heading of ‘postmodernism’, are seen by anti-postmodernists as the last episodes in a failed intellectual adventure whose origins go back at least to the French Revolution. Critical of nineteenth-century philosophy as having produced, on the one hand, totalizing, speculative philosophies such as those of Hegel and Marx, and, on the other hand, the anti-rationalism of Nietzsche and his postmodern scions, anti-postmodernists (or neo-moderns as the French prefer to say) represent a return to the concept of the individual and of history as the product of free human agency. Reaffirming the efficacy of public, rational discourse, they tend to be interested in political philosophy, taking democracy and its ideals as a model for raising and addressing philosophical issues. Pluralist in their outlook, they value the disciplinary structure of scholarly work; fields such as epistemology, theology, philosophy of science and the history of ideas which were neglected or marginalized by much postmodern thought have enjoyed renewed prestige and interest among the anti-postmodernists.

scholarly journals An Overview of Public History in Italy: No Longer A Field Without a Name

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Serge Noiret
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Public History ◽  
Public Archaeology ◽  
Italian Association ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Post War ◽  
New Millennium

AbstractThis article traces the origins and development of public history in Italy, a field not anymore without this name today. Public history in Italy has its roots in historical institutions born in the nineteenth century and in the post WW2 first Italian Republic. The concept of “public use of history” (1993), the important role played by memory issues in post-war society, local and national identity issues, the birth of public archaeology (2015) before public history, the emergence of history festivals in the new millennium are all important moments shaping the history of the field and described in this essay. The foundation of the “Italian Association of Public History” (AIPH) in 2016/2017, and the promotion of an Italian Public History Manifesto (2018) together with the creation of Public History masters in universities, are all concrete signs of a vital development of the field in the Peninsula.

““Das verlassene Määgdlein””: Grief Partaken

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-192
Author(s):  
Karen M. Bottge
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Musical Settings ◽  
Musical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Perhaps the most influential abandoned woman to surface in the musical history of the nineteenth century was that conceived by Biedermeier poet Eduard Möörike. Since its initial publication in 1832, his ““Das verlassene Määgdlein”” has engaged the sustained attention of composers, performers, and even music analysts and critics. Not only did his Määgdlein prompt the creation of numerous nineteenth-century volkstüümliche varianten throughout Germany and Austria, but she also inspired 130 musical settings dating between 1832 and 1985. Yet, although Möörike is just one of many figures within a long tradition of male poets writing on female abandonment, there seems to be something to this particular poem, that is, to Möörike's Määgdlein, that has compelled composers to retell her tale again and again in song. My discussion begins by first revisiting the poem's original novelistic context, Maler Nolten: Novelle in zwei Theilen (1832). Thereafter I follow Möörike's Määgdlein from her poetic beginnings to two of her best-known musical reappearances: Robert Schumann's ““Das verlassne Määgdelein”” (op. 64, no. 2) of 1847 and the work it inspired forty years later, Hugo Wolf's 1888 ““Das verlassene Määgdlein”” (also op. 64, no. 2), perhaps the most renowned setting of them all. Through the juxtaposition of these two settings we may not only uncover their potential textual and musical interconnections, but also gain insight into the tacit cultural understandings and ideologies surrounding those who take up the voice of the abandoned.

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