Leopoldo Zea en Puerto Rico

Esta investigación presenta el contenido temático respecto al Primer Seminario de Historia de las Ideas en Puerto Rico del 3 al 8 de diciembre de 1956 convocado por el Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e Historia, institución que patrocina a la Colección Historia de las Ideas de América la cual dirige el Dr. Leopoldo Zea en 1956. Esta participación intelectual es la primera en Puerto Rico del filósofo mexicano. En ella se enlaza la Isla a la corriente filosófica latinoamericana. Este aspecto lo destacará Zea posteriormente en un artículo del tomo publicado sobre el Sesquicentenario de Eugenio María de Hostos celebrado en 1989. This research presents the thematic content of the First Seminar on History of Ideas in Puerto Rico from December 3 to 8, 1956, convened by the Pan American Institute of Geography and History, institution that sponsors the Collection History of Ideas of America, directed by Dr. Leopoldo Zea in 1956. This intellectual participation is the first in Puerto Rico of the Mexican philosopher. It links the island to the Latin American philosophical current. Zea will emphasize this aspect later in an article of the volume published on the Sesquicentennial of Eugenio Maria de Hostos celebrated in 1989.

The Dominicans as Conveyors of Mesoamerican Objects to Italy and Europe

It has been customary to trace back to the early shipments sent by the Spanish conquistadors most of the Mesoamerican artefacts held in ancient European collections. Early 21st-century scholarship, however, has demonstrated that Dominican friars such as Domingo de Betanzos (1480–1549) had a key role in bringing indigenous objects from Mexico to Italy during the 16th century. This new understanding allows a rethinking of the ideological motivations that ignited the transatlantic circulation of indigenous artefacts; textual analysis of relevant sources, in fact, reveals that they were observed and understood within a missionary discourse on indigenous ingenuity, rationality, and convertibility. Once in Italy, the objects entered local art collections in Bologna, Rome, Florence, and other Italian cities, where they aroused an antiquarian approach to their study. The investigation of the collection history of these objects, which in some instances ended up in museums in other European countries, shows that our knowledge of many of the most iconic Mesoamerican artworks known today can be traced back to the actions of the Dominican friars.

Georg Lukács

Georg (György) Lukács (b. 13 April 1885–d. 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian philosopher and literary theorist of Jewish origin. His work substantially determined the 20th-century theoretical current of Western Marxism. Lukács had a long and often turbulent life due to his constant (not necessarily successful) efforts to unify theory and political practice. Consequently, his intellectual trajectory is marked by important theoretical shifts—a fact that makes it impossible to refer to central themes of his work without simultaneously distinguishing its main periods. There is, of course, a central idea, which permeates his investigations throughout his work. It is the critical analysis of the domination of subjectivism in modern society and culture that causes men’s alienation from their historical reality. One can distinguish three main periods in which Lukács was occupied by this question in different ways and on different levels: Lukács’s early work divided into his early pre-Marxist period, ranging from his young age to his turn to Marxism at the end of 1918, and his early revolutionary Marxist work of the 1920s (the most representative and influential of it being the collection History and Class Consciousness (1923)); his middle Marxist period, from his emigration to Moscow in 1930 to his return to Hungary in 1945; and his later Marxist period (among others, his mature works on aesthetics and social ontology). Lukács’s early (pre-Marxist and Marxist) work substantially influenced intellectuals of the wider tradition of critical theory, such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Lucien Goldman, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Löwenthal Jürgen Habermas, Michael Löwy, Andrew Feenberg, Cornelius Castoriadis, and others. His middle and later work had an important impact on his disciples, the members of the Budapest school (Ágnes Heller, Ferenc Fehér, György Márkus, Mihály Vajda). After a period of vivid interest in Lukács in the 1960s and 1970s, a more subterranean process of reception of his work followed. Since 2010 a significant revitalization of the international interest in his work has been observed. At the same time, his works on realist literature are often considered as part of the canon of literary studies. Bibliography of and on Lukács is vast; therefore, its presentation has to be selective. This bibliography emphasizes the general overviews and collective volumes that offer multifaceted analyses of his work. As for the original works and the relevant special secondary literature we prioritize writings published in English.

Rediscovery of the Sculptured Toadstool, Amanita sculpta (Amanitaceae) in SingaporeFlora of Singapore precursors, 25: Taxonomic notes on new discoveries from Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, including two native genera newly recorded

As part of a project to sample tissue from all native vascular plants in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, we collected material from four species that have not been previously recorded in Singapore. Of these, Nervilia singaporensis Niissalo has already been described as a new species, native to Singapore. Two species, Lepidogyne longifolia (Blume) Blume (Orchidaceae) and Ptyssiglottis kunthiana (Wall. ex Nees) B.Hansen (Acanthaceae), which are reported here, belong to genera that have not previously been recorded in Singapore. Based on their collection history in the region and their habitat in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, we consider them native to Singapore. The fourth new record, Plectocomiopsis cf. corneri Furtado (Arecaceae), also reported here, is a new species record for Singapore, but based on the collection history of the species and its only known locality in Singapore, we consider it introduced. The nomenclature and history of these species are discussed and we designate lectotypes for several names that are relevant to these species: Neottia longifolia Blume, Lepidogyne sceptrum Schltr., Polytrema aequale Ridl., Polytrema aequale Ridl. var. minor Ridl. and Polytrema vulgare C.B.Clarke. We also designate a neotype for Lepidogyne minor Schltr.

THE WIND GOD AND THE DESCENT OF THE TZITZIMITL: NEW INSIGHTS ON THE ICONOGRAPHY AND PROVENANCE OF THE MOSAIC-ENCRUSTED BIRD HEAD AT THE FRIEDENSTEIN PALACE, GOTHA, GERMANY

The Friedenstein Palace in Gotha, Germany, holds a Late Postclassic Mesoamerican bird head sculpture made of wood encrusted with precious stone and shell mosaic. Although known since the nineteenth century, scholars have not given the artifact the attention it deserves. Based on observations made during a thorough in situ inspection, we provide a detailed description of the object, stressing both technological and aesthetic aspects, documented through new photos and reconstructive drawings prepared by Nicolas Latsanopoulos. Then, we offer an interpretation of the artifact's iconography, demonstrating it should be understood as a representation of the Wind God in its manifestation as a Tzitzimitl, a category of deities associated with creation and destruction; an aspect made evident in the small figure adorning the avian forehead. We finally reconstruct the collection history of the object, suggesting that the Giustiniani family, a prominent Roman noble family renowned for its collecting activities, once owned the sculpture; in turn, this proposal might imply that the Dominican friar Domingo de Betanzos brought the mosaic to Italy in 1532 and that it might be originally from the Puebla-Tlaxcala Valley or, more broadly, from the south-central area of the modern state of Puebla.

The Development of Mounts and Mounting Techniques at the Albertina in Vienna from 1805 to 2018

This article is part of the oral history research project at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and discusses the development of mountings and passe-partouts at the Grafische Sammlung Albertina from 1805 until 2018. Based on the history of passe-partouts, the professionalisation of paper conservation in Vienna can be described. Passe-partouts of drawings and prints were chronologically classified. The collection history, the appearance of the passe-partouts as well as inventory catalogues and collection stamps served to classify the passe-partouts. The prints were mounted on back mounts at the beginning of the 19th century, after 1822 they were stored in albums. Since 1900, prints were removed from the albums, from nationalisation in 1919 onwards, they were set in passe-partouts. The drawings, however, were always kept in passe-partouts. At the beginning, these only consisted of back mounts. In the 1860ies, they were supplemented by a window mount. The hinged window mount that appeared in the 1960ies has been complemented with a cover sheet since the 1990ies.