Marrano Poets of the Seventeenth Century

The story of the Marranos (the Jewish converts to Christianity in Spain and Portugal) has long been a source of fascination for Jews interested in their heritage and for all those concerned with the struggle for freedom of conscience against authoritarianism. This book presents selected works of three Marrano poets, together with translations into English and explanatory notes. Each of the poets is introduced with a biography and brief critical assessment. The general introduction provides the historical and literary background of their works and examines the inter-relationship between the Jewish and Christian cultural elements. A balanced picture is given of the Marranos and the process of Jewish re-education they had to undergo in order to reach their goal of integration with authentic Judaism in the Jewish communities outside the Iberian Peninsula. The poets—João Pinto Delgado, Antonio Enríquez Gómez, and Miguel de Barrios—are presented as exemplifying three different “paths to Judaism.” Each poet shares a sense of guilt over his past observance of Christianity and endeavors to reach out towards the authentic sources of the Jewish tradition, to invest his writings with a greater cultural depth. The poems have been selected to give a representative view of each individual poet’s experience and particular literary talents. The general reader is provided with insight into their significance and purpose, and the specialist reader will gain from finding the writings of three little-known poets of similar background brought together for the first time and set in context.

Author(s):  
Kenneth Austin

This chapter summarizes how the Jews of Europe were in a very different position by the end of the seventeenth century compared to where they had been at the start of the sixteenth century. It points out how Spain had still not reversed its policy on Jews while most parts of Europe had become rather more welcoming to Jews in the interim. It also looks into the Jewish communities of Amsterdam, Frankfurt am Main, Prague, and Venice that exceeded 2,000 people for the first time in the seventeenth century, joining other cities, such as Rome that had already achieved that population in the sixteenth century. The chapter recounts how Jewish communities sprung up in places which had not traditionally been a home to Jews, especially in Eastern Europe. It talks about England and France, which had been the first territories to expel their Jewish populations back in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries but had begun to reverse that policy in the seventeenth century.


Author(s):  
Rose-Marie Peake

The chapter introduces the subject, approach, and focus of the book. The book offers a new insight into the history of the unenclosed Catholic Company the Daughters of Charity (les Filles de la Charité) by focusing on the contents and implementation of its value system in the first half of the seventeenth century. The chapter discusses the backbone of the book, the methodological concept of moral management which is a ‘travelling concept’ (Mieke Bal) utilized here for the first time in research on seventeenth-century Catholicism. Moral management is defined as the implementation, within the organization and its charitable activities, of a specific value system that is expressed in actions, behaviour, and mentalities, and that aims at securing the survival of the Company threatened by its perplexing religious identity.


Medieval Europe was a meeting place for the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic civilizations, and the fertile intellectual exchange of these cultures can be seen in the mathematical developments of the time. This book presents original Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic sources of medieval mathematics, and shows their cross-cultural influences. Most of the Hebrew and Arabic sources appear here in translation for the first time. Readers will discover key mathematical revelations, foundational texts, and sophisticated writings by Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic-speaking mathematicians, including Abner of Burgos's elegant arguments proving results on the conchoid—a curve previously unknown in medieval Europe; Levi ben Gershon's use of mathematical induction in combinatorial proofs; Al-Muʾtaman Ibn Hūd's extensive survey of mathematics, which included proofs of Heron's Theorem and Ceva's Theorem; and Muhyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī's interesting proof of Euclid's parallel postulate. The book includes a general introduction, section introductions, footnotes, and references.


Author(s):  
Judith Herrin

This book explores the exceptional roles that women played in the vibrant cultural and political life of medieval Byzantium. This book evokes the complex and exotic world of Byzantium's women, from empresses and saints to uneducated rural widows. Drawing on a diverse range of sources, the book sheds light on the importance of marriage in imperial statecraft, the tense coexistence of empresses in the imperial court, and the critical relationships of mothers and daughters. It looks at women's interactions with eunuchs, the in-between gender in Byzantine society, and shows how women defended their rights to hold land. The book describes how women controlled their inheritances, participated in urban crowds demanding the dismissal of corrupt officials, followed the processions of holy icons and relics, and marked religious feasts with liturgical celebrations, market activity, and holiday pleasures. The vivid portraits that emerge here reveal how women exerted an unrivalled influence on the patriarchal society of Byzantium, and remained active participants in the many changes that occurred throughout the empire's millennial history. The book brings together the author's finest essays on women and gender written throughout the long span of her career. This volume includes three new essays published here for the very first time and a new general introduction. It also provides a concise introduction to each essay that describes how it came to be written and how it fits into her broader views about women and Byzantium.


2020 ◽  
pp. 128-138
Author(s):  
A. S. Bik-Bulatov

The article uses little known letters of M. Gorky, many of which were published for the first time in 1997, as well as findings of Samara-based experts in local history to shed light on the writer’s work as editor-in-chief of the Samarskaya Gazeta newspaper in 1895. The researcher introduces hitherto unstudied reminiscences of the journalist D. Linyov (Dalin) about this period, which reference a letter by Gorky, now lost. The paper details a newly discovered episode of Gorky’s professional biography as a journalist: it concerns his campaign against a Samara ‘she-wolf,’ the madam of a local brothel A. Neucheva. Linyov’s reminiscences turn out to be an important and interesting source, offering an insight into the daily grind of the young editor Gorky, providing new evidence of his excellent organizational skills, and describing his moral and social stance. The author presents his work in the context of a recently initiated broader discussion about the need to map out all Russian periodicals for the period until 1917, as well as all research devoted to individual publications.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1031
Author(s):  
Xixiang Shuai ◽  
Taotao Dai ◽  
Mingshun Chen ◽  
Ruihong Liang ◽  
Liqing Du ◽  
...  

The planting area of macadamia in China accounted for more than one third of the world’s planted area. The lipid compositions, minor components, and antioxidant capacities of fifteen varieties of macadamia oil (MO) in China were comparatively investigated. All varieties of MO were rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, mainly including oleic acid (61.74–66.47%) and palmitoleic acid (13.22–17.63%). The main triacylglycerols of MO were first time reported, including 19.2–26.1% of triolein, 16.4–18.2% of 1-palmitoyl-2,3-dioleoyl-glycerol, and 11.9–13.7% of 1-palmitoleoyl-2-oleoyl-3-stearoyl-glycerol, etc. The polyphenol, α-tocotrienol and squalene content varied among the cultivars, while Fuji (791) contained the highest polyphenols and squalene content. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated the polyphenols and squalene content positively correlated with the antioxidant capacity. This study can provide a crucial directive for the breeding of macadamia and offer an insight into industrial application of MO in China.


2021 ◽  
Vol 502 (3) ◽  
pp. 3294-3311
Author(s):  
Yuanming Wang ◽  
Artem Tuntsov ◽  
Tara Murphy ◽  
Emil Lenc ◽  
Mark Walker ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT We present the results from an Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder search for radio variables on timescales of hours. We conducted an untargeted search over a 30 deg2 field, with multiple 10-h observations separated by days to months, at a central frequency of 945 MHz. We discovered six rapid scintillators from 15-min model-subtracted images with sensitivity of $\sim\! 200\, \mu$Jy/beam; two of them are extreme intra-hour variables with modulation indices up to $\sim 40{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ and timescales as short as tens of minutes. Five of the variables are in a linear arrangement on the sky with angular width ∼1 arcmin and length ∼2 degrees, revealing the existence of a huge plasma filament in front of them. We derived kinematic models of this plasma from the annual modulation of the scintillation rate of our sources, and we estimated its likely physical properties: a distance of ∼4 pc and length of ∼0.1 pc. The characteristics we observe for the scattering screen are incompatible with published suggestions for the origin of intra-hour variability leading us to propose a new picture in which the underlying phenomenon is a cold tidal stream. This is the first time that multiple scintillators have been detected behind the same plasma screen, giving direct insight into the geometry of the scattering medium responsible for enhanced scintillation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olav Sundnes ◽  
William Ottestad ◽  
Camilla Schjalm ◽  
Peter Lundbäck ◽  
Lars la Cour Poulsen ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Alarmins are considered proximal mediators of the immune response after tissue injury. Understanding their biology could pave the way for development of new therapeutic targets and biomarkers in human disease, including multiple trauma. In this study we explored high-resolution concentration kinetics of the alarmin interleukin-33 (IL-33) early after human trauma. Methods Plasma samples were serially collected from 136 trauma patients immediately after hospital admission, 2, 4, 6, and 8 h thereafter, and every morning in the ICU. Levels of IL-33 and its decoy receptor sST2 were measured by immunoassays. Results We observed a rapid and transient surge of IL-33 in a subset of critically injured patients. These patients had more widespread tissue injuries and a greater degree of early coagulopathy. IL-33 half-life (t1/2) was 1.4 h (95% CI 1.2–1.6). sST2 displayed a distinctly different pattern with low initial levels but massive increase at later time points. Conclusions We describe for the first time early high-resolution IL-33 concentration kinetics in individual patients after trauma and correlate systemic IL-33 release to clinical data. These findings provide insight into a potentially important axis of danger signaling in humans.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1219
Author(s):  
Marek Bunse ◽  
Peter Lorenz ◽  
Florian C. Stintzing ◽  
Dietmar R. Kammerer

The present study aimed at the identification and quantitation of phenolic compounds, fatty acids, and further characteristic substances in the seeds of Geum urbanum L. and Geum rivale L. For this purpose, individual components of extracts recovered with MeOH, CH2Cl2, and by cold-pressing, respectively, were characterized by HPLC-DAD/ESI-MSn and GC/MS and compared with reference compounds. For both Geum species, phenolic compounds, such as flavonoids and gallic acid derivatives, and triterpenes, such as saponins and their aglycones, were detected. Surprisingly, both Geum species revealed the presence of derivatives of the triterpenoid aglycons asiatic acid and madecassic acid, which were characterized for the first time in the genus Geum. Furthermore, the fatty acids of both species were characterized by GC–MS after derivatization. Both species showed a promising fatty-acid profile in terms of nutritional properties because of high proportions of unsaturated fatty acids. Linoleic acid and linolenic acid were most abundant, among other compounds such as palmitic acid and stearic acid. In summary, the present study demonstrates the seeds of G. urbanum and G. rivale to be a valuable source of unsaturated fatty acids and bioactive phenolics, which might be exploited for nutritional and cosmetic products and for phytotherapeutic purposes.


Tempo ◽  
1950 ◽  
pp. 15-18
Author(s):  
Dennis Arundell

Ever since the seventeenth century composers of English operas have been handicapped by the snob-preference for foreign works irrespective of their merits. In Purcell's day a second-rate French composer, whose past is still shrouded in Continental mystery, was so boosted in London even by Dryden that it was only through an open-air performance by Mr. Priest's school-girls at Chelsea that Dido and Aeneas convinced both London theatre managers and eventually Dryden himself that Purcell was “equal with the best abroad.” In this century, when the usual opera favourites were established, it has been even more difficult for English opera-composers to get a showing (at one time it had not been unheard of for English operas to be translated into Italian or German for production in this country): but twenty-five years ago the Royal College of Music followed the example of Mr. Priest by producing for the first time Vaughan Williams' Hugh the Drover, which was afterwards given publicly by the British National Opera Company, and in 1931 under the auspices of the Ernest Palmer Opera Fund, introduced The Devil Take Her, the first opera by the Australian composer Arthur Benjamin. The enthusiasm of the singers, headed by Sarah Fischer and Trefor Jones, the cunning skill of the conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham and the practical knowledge of the producer, John B. Gordon, who had had so much experience at Cologne and who was at the time doing such good work for opera at the Old Vic, all combined to make the performance outstanding.


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