scholarly journals THE CITY WALLS OF FLORENCE, A METHOD TO MANAGE INFORMATIONS OF A COMPLEX SYSTEM

Author(s):  
J. G. Vitale

Abstract. The city walls of Florence constitute a complex system: six circles and at least nine distinct phases of use and transformation, from the foundation of Florentia to Florence Capital, to contemporary adjustments. The DIDA, Department of Architecture of the University of Florence with the Municipality of Florence, has been carrying out since 2012 the FIMU project with the study of the various walls circuits and diachronic surveys of the surviving wall sections. The aim is to combine and harmonize the historical data with technical-scientific innovation, expressing its own vision of the relationship between the history of the city of Florence and the correct valorization of one of its important Landmark. Every citizen must be able to recognize in the traces of the past his belonging to a community, the results expected from this research are the realization of an informative-didactic and informative apparatus that will emphasize this important historical testimony of Florence and its transformations occurred over the centuries. Data acquisition, processing and visualization methods define this research as ‘experimental’ for the knowledge and evolution of a historic city that would contribute to elevating services for the technical scientific community and the citizen, to which data would become available currently ‘raw’ with the preparation of an apparatus based on a database through the ‘Open Data’ platform of the Municipality of Florence.

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1.4) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Francesco Alberti ◽  
Raffaele Paloscia

The upgrading of riverfronts is a theme that has long played a central role in the renewal programs of large, medium and small cities throughout Europe. The case study presented in this paper is Florence, whose Roman origins and development, from the Middle Ages to today, are closely linked to the Arno River, which runs from east to west. After briefly reviewing some salient moments in the history of the relationship between the city and the river, the paper illustrates some research and projects carried out within the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence, focused on the role that Arno can still play in the future of the Florentine metropolitan area, as a catalyst for interventions aimed at improving urban sustainability, livability and resilience to climate change.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-317
Author(s):  
Martijn Storms

Abstract The Trekvliet canal and the pall-mall at Leiden Pall-mall was a popular lawn game in the 17th century. The oldest pall-mall in the Netherlands was built in The Hague in 1606. Leiden was one of the universities with such a facility. In 1581, Leiden University already had several courts for ball sports. Some manuscript maps show their locations outside the city walls. The building of a pall-mall in Leiden coincided with the digging of the canal for horse-drawn boats to The Hague and Delft. The first plans for a boat canal probably date from around 1633 and the canal was completed in 1637. Alongside, between the boat canal and the Leiden city walls, a pall-mall was built, about 700 meters in length. The university bought some plots of land from the Leiden orphanage, on which the lawn was built. The history of the building of the boat canal and pall-mall is documented in several property maps and town plans that have survived. In the university’s archive, a concept of regulations of the Leiden pall-mall is kept, which gives insight in how the game had to be played and into the rules that the students had to adhere to. The pall-mall remained in use until at least the end of the 18th century. On the cadastral plan from the early 19th century (1811-1832) the strip of land is still owned by the university but indicated as ‘economic garden’ and the heyday of pall-mall was over.


Author(s):  
Mtra. Martha De Jesús Portilla León

La reseña que presento aborda los contenidos expuestos acerca de la cultura escolar y el patrimonio histórico educativo durante las Primeras Jornadas sobre Patrimonio Histórico Educativo realizadas en la ciudad de Zamora, España. Este evento fue convocado por la Universidad de Salamanca, campus Viriato, bajo la coordinación del Centro Museo Pedagógico (CEMUPE) y reunió a algunos de los más destacados especialistas en el campo de la Historia de la Educación en España. Las ponencias que se presentaron sirven de referente teórico para los trabajos en torno a los cuadernos escolares, la cultura material e inmaterial de la escuela y los museos pedagógicos.AbstractThe present review discusses the contents on school culture and historical heritage education exposed during the First Conference on Historical Heritage Education held  in the city of Zamora, Spain. This event was organized by the University of Salamanc, Viriato campus, under the coordination of the Pedagogical Museum Center (CEMUPE) and brought together some of the leading specialists in the field of History of Education in Spain. The papers presented provide a theoretical reference for the work around school exercise books, the tangible and intangible culture of the school and pedagogical museums.Recibido: 14 de noviembre de 2012Aceptado: 28 de noviembre de 2012


Substantia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 5-17
Author(s):  
Stefano Dominici ◽  
Gary D. Rosenberg

A group of scientists interested in history of science and fascinated by the figure of Nicolaus Steno (1638-1686) gathered in Florence for the 350th anniversary of the publication of his De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento prodromus dissertationis. A public conference held at Palazzo Fenzi on 16 October 2019 and a geological fieldtrip on the following day were occasions to discuss different points of view on the last published work of the Danish natural philosopher, dedicated to "solids naturally enclosed in other solids" (De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento, or De solido in short). The title of the gathering, "Galilean foundation for a solid earth", emphasized the philosophical context that Steno found in Florence, where in 1666-1668 he established tight human and philosophical bonds with renowned Italian disciples of Galileo Galilei and members of the Accademia del Cimento. For participants to the 2019 gathering, the Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence, hosting some of Steno's geological specimens, and the region of Tuscany itself, formed the perfect location to discuss the phenomena that Steno had observed from 1666-1668, the motivations for his research, the methodology of his discovery and, generally stated, the European scientific context which informed his inquiry. Some of the talks given in that meeting are included within this volume, kindly hosted by Substantia, International Journal of the History of Chemistry published by the Florence University Press. In addition some of the invited speakers who were unable to attend, also contributed a paper to this publication. The collection is about earth science in the early modern period, when the study of minerals, rocks, and the fossilized remains of living things did not yet form a distinct path to knowledge about earth history, but was an integral part of the wider "philosophy of nature".


Author(s):  
Jeanne Clegg ◽  
Emma Sdegno

Our contribution concerns a phase in the history of the building that gives the University its name. When Ruskin came to Venice in 1845 he was horrified by the decayed state of the palaces on the Grand Canal, and by the drastic restorations in progress. In recording their features in measurements, drawings and daguerreotypes, Ca’ Foscari took priority, and his studies of its traceries constitute a unique witness. This work also helped generate new ideas on the role of shadow in architectural aesthetic, and on the characteristics of Gothic, which were to bear fruit in The Seven Lamps and The Stones of Venice. In his late guide to the city, St Mark’s Rest, Ruskin addressed «the few travellers who still care for her monuments» and offered the Venetian Republic’s laws regulating commerce as a model for modern England. Whether or not he knew of the founding of a commercial studies institute at Ca’ Foscari in 1868, he would certainly have hoped that it would teach principles of fair and just trading, as well as of respectful tourism.


2015 ◽  
Vol 96 (6) ◽  
pp. 1084-1089
Author(s):  
R S Spevak

The aim of work was the objective coverage of the 1930s events, associated with the opening of Medical Institute in Voroshilov (Stavropol), revealing the background of its creation, analysis of the problems accompanying decision implementation. Using the comparative analysis method in the archival sources study common trends and patterns of regional development and their cause and effect relationships, which contributed to pauses in the university organization, were identified. The main prerequisites for the institute creation were general tendency to increase the medical schools number in the country to provide the population with medical staff of expanding network of health care institutions; regional features, reflected in the fact that the Stavropol was one of the major administrative, cultural and scientific centers in the region, which had a favorable equidistant position from the cities with already existing medical schools. In addition to that, Voroshilov Medical Institute was not established on the basis of the department or by already established institution transfer to the city, as it has been originally planned by the RSFSR Council of People’s Commissars. Although the decision to open a medical school in Stavropol has been made, the city did not have the necessary areas for its placement. Local authorities petitions on medical school establishment were of adventurous nature, the measures they took were not implemented in time. The university organization proceeded in difficult conditions: academic buildings, dormitories for students and teachers were lacking; premises surrender to medical institute from other organizations was delayed for objective reasons. Thanks to the university administration persistent efforts, with the higher authorities support Medical Institute was opened and began its work. We can not say that with the opening of the Institute the stage of its organization was completed as abovementioned problems had to be solved in the future. Otherwise, liquidation threatened to the university.


Author(s):  
Patrick Wikus ◽  
Wolfgang Frantz ◽  
Rainer Kümmerle ◽  
Patrik Vonlanthen

Abstract Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a wide-spread analytical technique which is used in a large range of different fields, such as quality control, food analysis, material science and structural biology. In the widest sense, NMR is an analytical technique to determine the structure of molecules. At the time of writing this manuscript, commercial NMR spectrometers with a proton resonance frequency ≥ 900 MHz are only available from Bruker. In 2019, Bruker installed the first 1.1 GHz (25.8 T) NMR spectrometer at the St. Jude Children Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, followed by the installation of the first 1.2 GHz (28.2 T) NMR spectrometer at the University of Florence in Italy in 2020. These were the first commercial NMR spectrometers operating at magnetic fields in excess of what can be achieved with conventional low temperature superconductors, and which depend on high temperature superconductors to generate the required magnetic field. In this paper, the requirements on commercial NMR magnets are discussed and the history of high-field NMR magnets is reviewed. Bruker’s R&D program for 1.1 and 1.2 GHz NMR magnets and spectrometers will be described, and some of the key properties of these first commercial NMR magnets with high-temperature superconductors are reported.


Author(s):  
Peter Probst

Susanne Wenger was an Austrian artist and an instrumental figure in the history of Nigerian modernism. Born on July 4, 1915 in the city of Graz, Austria, Wenger first attended the local School of Applied Arts before she moved to Vienna to continue her art education, first at the School of Graphic Design and then, from 1933 to 1935, at the Academy of Art. Like other students, Wenger’s interest was in contemporary post-secessionist movements. The few works remaining from Wenger’s Viennese phase exemplify different styles ranging from pencil studies of plants and animal bodies, executed with an almost photographic precision, to expressionistic and cubist paintings, to surrealist crayon drawings. After the war she moved from Vienna to Paris, where she met editor Ulli Beier (1922–2011). The encounter with Beier marked a profound and lasting shift in Wenger’s life. The two fell in love and decided to spend the next years in Nigeria, where he got a job as a lecturer at the University of Ibandan. What they thought would be an adventure became a confrontation with the colonial reality. The colonial curriculum had an exclusive focus on Western history and culture. Interaction between Nigerians and members of the British faculty hardly existed. While Beier reacted to the colonial reality by seeking refuge in the newly established extramural department, which allowed him to work outside the campus, Wenger’s response was more private and personal. After a severe illness, she embarked on a journey—both spiritual and artistic—which resulted in the so-called "Osogbo experiment."


1941 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 819-852

William Bulloch, Emeritus Professor of Bacteriology in the University of London and Consulting Bacteriologist to the London Hospital since his retirement in 1934, died on n February 1941, in his old hospital, following a small operation for which he had been admitted three days before. By his death a quite unique personality is lost to medicine, and to bacteriology an exponent whose work throughout the past fifty years in many fields, but particularly in the history of his subject, has gained for him wide repute. Bulloch was born on 19 August 1868 in Aberdeen, being the younger son of John Bulloch (1837-1913) and his wife Mary Malcolm (1835-1899) in a family of two sons and two daughters. His brother, John Malcolm Bulloch, M.A., LL.D. (1867-1938), was a well-known journalist and literary critic in London, whose love for his adopted city and its hurry and scurry was equalled only by his passionate devotion to the city of his birth and its ancient university. On the family gravestone he is described as Critic, Poet, Historian, and indeed he was all three, for the main interest of his life outside his profession of literary critic was antiquarian, genealogical and historical research, while in his earlier days he was a facile and clever fashioner of verse and one of the founders of the ever popular Scottish Students’ Song Book .


1961 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 75-84 ◽  

Robert Alexander Frazer was born in the City of London on 5 February 1891. His father, Robert Watson Frazer, LL.B., had retired from the Madras Civil Service and had become Principal Librarian and Secretary of the London Institution at Finsbury Circus, whence in the following two decades he produced four books on India and its history, of which perhaps the best known was one published in the ‘Story of the Nations’ Series by Fisher Unwin, Ltd., in 1895. The family lived at the Institution and Robert was born there. Young Frazer proceeded in due course to the City of London School where he did remarkably well and won several scholarships and medals. By the time he was eighteen years of age, the City Corporation, desiring to commemorate the distinction just gained by Mr H. H. Asquith, a former pupil of the school, on his appointment as Prime Minister, founded the Asquith Scholarship of £100 per annum tenable for four years at Cambridge. It thus came about that at the school prize-giving in 1909 the Lord Mayor announced that the new Asquith Scholarship had been conferred on Frazer, who was so enabled to proceed to Pembroke College, Cambridge, that autumn. Frazer, in the course of his subsequent career, had two other formal links with London. In 1911 he was admitted to the Freedom of London in the Mayoralty of Sir Thomas Crosby, having been an Apprentice of T. M. Wood, ‘Citizen and Gardener of London’; and in 1930 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science by the University of London. The former may or may not have been a pointer to his subsequent ability as a gardener in private life; the latter was certainly a well-deserved recognition of his scientific work at the time.


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