Why Print Poetry?

The 1590s saw what has come to be known as the ‘lyric’ poetry of many of the writers in this book printed for the first time. This chapter investigates the rush of activity in Lisbon’s print houses as the century came to a close, focusing especially on why the many individuals involved in the print trade chose to print poems that had been circulating, sometimes widely, in manuscript for quite some time. It sets out a distaste for love poetry that was frequently articulated in Inquisitorial printing licences and in the paratexts to other books printed in the period, before tracing how the terms of approval for non-devotional poetry began to shift towards the end of the sixteenth century. Three principal justifications for printing collections of poetry were presented in the period. The first involved using print to disseminate a vision of the best of the Portuguese language, simultaneously to those outside the nation, who doubt its capacity as a vehicle for ideas, and to native speakers of the language, who might learn from its most able and elegant practitioners, i.e. poets. The second reason relates more closely to the change in medium in question: editors and printers argued that print was a means of tackling the errors introduced by manuscript dissemination. The third and final justification was the desire to make a name for a poet, which ties in closely with the other justifications for print, because establishing an individual’s renown required settling their oeuvre and often involved claiming them as a national icon.

Rooms triomfalisme in de Amsterdamse straten : De betekenis van het 27e Internationaal Eucharistisch Congres (22-27 juli 1924) voor de ontwikkeling van het Nederlandse katholicisme

This article analyses the preparations and the implementation of the 27th International Eucharistic Congress, held at Amsterdam in 1924. After an introduction on the (negative) image of this congress in Dutch historiography, on the person of de papal legate (the Dutch cardinal Willem van Rossum CSSR), and on the phenomenon of the ‘Eucharistic Congresses’ and its organizing committee, the author analyses the forces pro and contra the organization of such a Congress in Amsterdam. The initiative was taken by some ultramontane clergy and laypeople, gathered around the revival of the devotion of the Amsterdam Eucharistic Miracle (1345). The bishop involved, mgr. A. Callier of Harlem, felt little of inviting the organizing committee to choose for Amsterdam, and also the (Roman Catholic) Prime Minister Ruijs de Beerenbrouck kept aloof, fearing a revival of protestant antipapism. So in advance it was already clear that the government and queen Wilhelmina would avoid every diplomatic presence ‐ quit different as was the case at similar congresses in other countries. Besides, a grand procession through the Amsterdam streets was impossible because of the then still prevailing prohibition of public religious processions. The most important ceremonies thus were held in the Amsterdam soccer stadium. The Congress strengthened the feeling of unity of the ‘common’ Catholics with the Dutch cardinal as their shared national icon, but on the other hand it worsened the relations between the Dutch episcopate and the Prime Minister, and their ‘man in Rome’. In the end the Eucharistic Congress had no antipapistic consequences, and only limited political consequences, thanks to quite a lot of informal negotiations before and during the Congress. It nevertheless played a role on the background, when the government decided in 1925 to close the Dutch embassy at the Vatican.

Pearl Oyster: From National Icon To Guardian of Qatar's Marine Environment

The NPRP9-394-1-090 project “Pearl Oyster: from national icon to guardian of Qatar's marine environment” had as main aim to develop and apply an integrated suite of chemical and biological methods as early warning tools to assess the “health” of Qatar’s marine environment. The central theme consisted in an investigative monitoring program around the use of the pearl oyster, Pictada imbricata radiata, as a sentinel or guardian species. We have characterized the main environmental contaminants of concern at a selected number of sites around the Qatari coast (UmmBab, Al Khor, Al Wakra and Simaisma), during 2 years, in summer and winter. Potential ecological effects of contaminants (targeted and untargeted) were investigated at different biological organization levels (gene, chromosome, cell, individual, population), through a multidisciplinary approach, using classical and genotoxicological endpoints, integrative histopathology and transcriptomic responses to the different environmental stresses. To our knowledge, this is the first time an integrated approach connecting all these disciplines has been applied in the Qatari marine environment. We present here the main results, of this 3 years project, obtained in all different disciplinary approaches. The results of this project will leave a legacy of resources for future Qatari researchers, including an open access transcriptome data base and the first description of common pathologies observed in the pearl oyster P. i. radiata. Moreover, they will also represent a sound science-based baseline data essential for conservation and management planning, by integration of the data from all the different disciplines applied in the project to assess the potential ecological effects of contaminants at different biological levels.