Academic literature on the topic 'Luigi Olivi'

Abstract Increasing clinical use of immune checkpoint inhibitors testifies to the importance of modulating the immune TME to obtain meaningful anti-tumor immune responses. Acting only on T lymphocytes may, however, not be sufficient, e.g. in immunologically-cold tumors or due to de novo or acquired resistance. Moreover, immune-related AEs remain hurdles of T cell therapies. To overcome these limitations and to awaken the immune system in an agnostic way against the tumor, we have developed a genetically modified cell-based autologous hematopoietic stem cell platform (Temferon) delivering immunotherapeutic payloads into the TME through Tie-2 expressing monocytes (TEMs), a subset of tumor infiltrating macrophages. TEM-GBM is an ongoing open-label, Phase 1/2a dose-escalating study evaluating the safety & efficacy of Temferon in up to 21 newly diagnosed patients with glioblastoma & unmethylated MGMT promoter assigned to 7 different cohorts (3 pts each) differing by Temferon dose (0.5-4.0x106/kg) and conditioning regimen (BCNU+ or Busulfan+Thiotepa). By Oct 15th, 2021, 15 pts (cohort 1-5) had received escalating doses of Temferon with a median follow up of 267 days (range: 60-749). Rapid engraftment and hematological recovery from nonmyeloablative conditioning occurred in all pts. Temferon-derived differentiated cells, as determined by the presence of vector genomes in the DNA, were found at increasing proportions in PB and BM, reaching up to 30% at 1 month for the highest cohorts tested (2.0x106/kg) and persisting up to 18 months, albeit at lower levels. Despite the significant proportion of engineered cells, only very low median concentrations of IFNα were detected in the plasma (D+30, 5.9; D+90, 8.8pg/mL) and in the cerebrospinal fluid (D+30, 1.5; D+90, 2.4pg/mL), indicating tight regulation of vector expression. SAEs were mostly attributed to conditioning chemotherapy (e.g. infections) or disease progression (e.g. seizures). 1 SUSAR (persistent GGT elevation) has occurred. Median OS is 14 mth from surgery (11 mth post Temferon). Four pts from the low dose cohorts underwent 2nd surgery. These recurrent tumors contained gene-marked cells and expressed IFN-responsive genes, indicative of local IFNα release by TEMs. In 1 pt, a stable lesion (as defined by MRI) had a higher proportion of T cells & TEMs, an increased IFN-response signature and myeloid re-programming revealed by scRNAseq, as compared to a synchronous, progressing tumor. TCR sequencing of blood and tumor samples showed a post-treatment increase in the cumulative frequency of tumor-associated T cell clones identified in 1st and 2nd surgery specimens (up to 4 out of 9 subjects). These results provide initial evidence for on-target activity of Temferon in GBM, to be consolidated with longer follow up in the higher dose cohorts. Citation Format: Bernhard Gentner, Gaetano Finocchiaro, Francesca Farina, Marica Eoli, Alessia Capotondo, Elena Anghileri, Matteo Barcella, Maria Grazia Bruzzone, Matteo Giovanni Carrabba, Valeria Cuccarini, Giorgio D'Alessandris, Francesco Di Meco, Valeria Ferla, Paolo Ferroli, Filippo Gagliardi, Federico Legnani, Pietro Mortini, Matteo Maria Naldini, Alessandro Olivi, Roberto Pallini, Monica Patanè, Rosina Paterra, Bianca Pollo, Marco Saini, Silvia Snider, Valentina Brambilla, Stefania Mazzoleni, Andrew Zambanini, Carlo Russo, Luigi Naldini, Fabio Ciceri. Genetically modified Tie-2 expressing monocytes target IFN-α2 to the glioblastoma tumor microenvironment (TME): Preliminary data from the TEM-GBM Phase 1/2a study [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 5213.

I miss the ferry to San Pietro, so after a long bus trip winding through the southern Sardinian rocky terrain past gum trees, shrubs, caper plants, and sheep, I take refuge from the rain in a bar at the port. While I order a beer and panini, the owner, a man in his early sixties, begins to chat asking me why I’m heading to the island. For the tuna, I say, to research cultural practices and changes surrounding the ancient tuna trap la tonnara, and for the Girotonno international tuna festival, which coincides with the migration of the Northern Bluefin Tuna and the harvest season. This year the slogan of the festival reads Dal Sulcis a Sushi ("From Sulcis to Sushi"), a sign of the diverse tastes to come. Tuna here is the best in the world, he exclaims, a sentiment I hear many times over whilst doing fieldwork in southern Italy. He excitedly gestures for me to follow. We walk into the kitchen and on a long steel bench sits a basin covered with cloth. He uncovers it, and proudly poised, waits for my reaction. A large pinkish-brown loin of cooked tuna sits in brine. I have never tasted tuna in this way, so to share in his enthusiasm I conjure my interest in the rich tuna gastronomy found in this area of Sardinia called Sulcis. I’m more familiar with the clean taste of sashimi or lightly seared tuna. As I later experience, traditional tuna preparations in San Pietro are far from this. The most notable characteristic is that the tuna is thoroughly cooked or the flesh or organs are preserved with salt by brining or drying. A tuna steak cooked in the oven is robust and more like meat from the land than the sea in its flavours, colour, and texture. This article is about taste: the taste of, and tastes for, tuna in a traditional fishing community. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork and is part of a wider inquiry into the place of tradition and culture in seafood sustainability discourses and practices. In this article I use the notion of a taste network to explore the relationship between macro forces—international markets, stock decline and marine regulations—and transformations within local cultures of tuna production and consumption. Taste networks frame the connections between taste in a gustatory sense, tastes as an aesthetic preference and tasting as a way of learning about and attuning to modes and meanings surrounding tuna. As Antoine Hennion asserts, taste is more than a connoisseurship of an object, taste represents a cultural activity that concerns a wide range of practices, exchanges and attachments. Elspeth Probyn suggests that taste “acts as a connector between history, place, things, and people” (65) and “can also come to form communities: local places that are entangled in the global” (62). Within this framework, taste moves away from Bourdieu’s notion of taste as a social distinction towards an understanding of taste as created through a network of entities—social, biological, technological, and so forth. It turns attention to the mundane activities and objects of tuna production and consumption, the components of a taste network, and the everyday spaces where tradition and transformation are negotiated. For taste to change requires a transformation of the network (or components of that network) that bring such tastes into existence. These networks and their elements form the very meaning, matter, and moments of tradition and culture. As Hennion reminds us through his idea of “reservoir(s) of difference” (100), there are a range of diverse tastes that can materialise from the interactions of humans with objects, in this case tuna. Yet, taste networks can also be rendered obsolete. When a highly valued and endangered species like Bluefin is at the centre of such networks, there are material, ethical, and even political limitations to some tastes. In a study that follows three scientists as they attempt to address scallop decline in Brest and St Brieuc Bay, Michael Callon advocates for “the abandonment of all prior distinction between the natural and the social” (1). He draws attention to networks of actors and significant moments, rather than pre-existing categories, to figure the contours of power. This approach is particularly useful for social research that involves science, technology and the “natural” world. In my own research in San Pietro, the list of human and non-human actors is long and spans the local to the global: Bluefin (in its various meanings and as an entity with its own agency), tonnara owners, fishermen, technologies, fish shops and restaurants, scientific observers, policy (local, regional, national, European and international), university researchers, the sea, weather, community members, Japanese and Spanish buyers, and markets. Local discourses surrounding tuna and taste articulate human and non-human entanglements in quite particular ways. In San Pietro, as with much of Italy, notions of place, environment, identity, quality, and authenticity are central to the culture of tuna production and consumption. Food products are connected to place through ecological, cultural and technological dimensions. In Morgan, Marsden, and Murdoch’s terms this frames food and tastes in relation to a spatial dimension (its place of origin), a social dimension (its methods of production and distribution), and a cultural dimension (its perceived qualities and reputation). The place name labelling of canned tuna from San Pietro is an example of a product that represents the notion of provenance. The practice of protecting traditional products is well established in Italy through appellation programs, much like the practice of protecting terroir products in France. It is no wonder that the eco-gastronomic movement Slow Food developed in Italy as a movement to protect traditional foods, production methods, and biodiversity. Such discourses and movements like Slow Food create local/global frameworks and develop in relation to the phenomenon and ideas like globalisation, industrialization, and homogenisation. This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in San Pietro over the 2013 tuna season. This included interviews with some thirty participants (fishers, shop keepers, locals, restaurateurs, and tonnara owners), secondary research into international markets, marine regulations, and environmental movements, and—of course—a gustatory experience of tuna. Walking down the main street the traditions of the tonnara and tuna are palpable. On a first impression there’s something about the streets and piazzas that is akin to Zukin’s notion of “vernacular spaces”, “sources of identity and belonging, affective qualities that the idea of intangible culture expresses, refines and sustains” (282). At the centre is the tonnara, which refers to the trap (a labyrinth of underwater nets) as well as the technique of tuna fishing and land based processing activities. For centuries, tuna and the tonnara have been at the centre of community life, providing employment, food security, and trade opportunities, and generating a wealth of ecological knowledge, a rich gastronomy based on preserved tuna, and cultural traditions like the famous harvest ritual la mattanza (the massacre). Just about every organ is preserved by salting and drying. The most common is the female ovary sac, which becomes bottarga. Grated onto pasta it has a strong metallic offal flavour combined with the salty tang of the sea. There is also the male equivalent lusciami, a softer consistency and flavour, as well as dried heart and lungs. There is canned tuna, a continuation of the tradition of brining and barrelling, but these are no ordinary cans. Each part of the tuna is divided into parts corresponding loosely to anatomy but more closely to quality based on textures, colour, and taste. There is the ventresca from the belly, the most prized cut because of its high fat content. Canned in olive oil or brine, a single can of this cut sells for around 30 Euros. Both the canned variety or freshly grilled ventresca is a sumptuous experience, soft and rich. Change is not new to San Pietro. In the long history of the tonnara there have been numerous transformations resulting from trade, occupation, and dominant economic systems. As Stefano Longo describes, with the development of capitalism and industrialization, the socio-economic structure of the tonnara changed and there was a dramatic decline in tonnare (plural) throughout the 1800s. The tonnare also went through different phases of ownership. In 1587 King Philip II formally established the Sardinian tonnare (Emery). Phillip IV then sold a tonnara to a Genovese man in 1654 and, from the late 18th century until today, the tonnara has remained in the Greco family from Genova. There were also changes to fishing and preservation technologies, such as the replacement of barrels after the invention of the can in the early 1800s, and innovations to recipes, as for example in the addition of olive oil. Yet, compared to recent changes, the process of harvesting, breaking down and sorting flesh and organs, and preserving tuna, has remained relatively stable. The locus of change in recent years concerns the harvest, the mattanza. For locals this process seems to be framed with concepts of before, and after, the Japanese arrived on the island. Owner Giuliano Greco, a man in his early fifties who took over the management of the tonnara from his father when it reopened in the late 1990s, describes these changes: We have two ages—before the Japanese and after. Before the Japanese, yes, the tuna was damaged. It was very violent in the mattanza. In the age before the pollution, there was a crew of 120 people divided in a little team named the stellati. The more expert and more important at the centre of the boat, the others at the side because at the centre there was more tuna. When there was mattanza it was like a race, a game, because if they caught more tuna they had more entrails, which was good money for them, because before, part of the wage was in nature, part of the tuna, and for this game the tuna was damaged because they opened it with a knife, the heart, the eggs etc. And for this method it was very violent because they wanted to get the tuna entrails first. The tuna remained on the boat without ice, with blood everywhere. The tonnara operated within clear social hierarchies made up of tonnarotti (tuna fishermen) under the guidance of the Rais (captain of tonnara) whose skills, charisma and knowledge set him apart. The Rais liaised with the tonnarotti, the owners, and the local community, recruiting men and women to augment the workforce in the mattanza period. Goliardo Rivano, a tonnarotto (singular) since 1999 recalls “all the town would be called on for the mattanza. Not only men but women too would work in the cannery, cutting, cleaning, and canning the tuna.” The mattanza was the starting point of supply and consumption networks. From the mattanza the tuna was broken down, the flesh boiled and brined for local and foreign markets, and the organs salted and dried for the (mainly) local market. Part of the land-based activities of tonnarotti involved cleaning, salting, pressing and drying the organs, which supplemented their wage. As Giuliano described, the mattanza was a bloody affair because of the practice of retrieving the organs; but since the tuna was boiled and then preserved in brine, it was not important whether the flesh was damaged. At the end of the 1970s the tonnara closed. According to locals and reportage, pollution from a nearby factory had caused a drastic drop in tuna. It remained closed until the mid 1990s when Japanese buyers came to inquire about tuna from the trap. Global tastes for tuna had changed during the time the tonnara was closed. An increase in western appetites for sushi had been growing since the early 1970s (Bestore). As Theadore Bestore describes in detail, this coincided with a significant transformation of the Japanese fishing industry’s international role. In the 1980s, the Japanese government began to restructure its fleets in response to restricted access to overseas fishing grounds, which the declaration of Excusive Economic Zones enforced (Barclay and Koh). At this time, Japan turned to foreign suppliers for tuna (Bestore). Kate Barclay and Sun-Hui Koh describe how quantity was no longer a national food security issue like it had been in post war Japan and “consumers started to demand high-quality high-value products” (145). In the late 1990s, the Greco family reopened the tonnara and the majority of the tuna went to Japan leaving a smaller portion for the business of canning. The way mattanza was practiced underwent profound changes and particular notions of quality emerged. This was also the beginning of new relationships and a widening of the taste network to include international stakeholders: Japanese buyers and markets became part of the network. Giuliano refers to the period as the “Japanese Age”. A temporal framing that is iterated by restaurant and fish shop owners who talk about a time when Japanese began to come to the island and have the first pick of the tuna. Giuliano recalls “there was still blood but there was not the system of opening tuna, in total, like before. Now the tuna is opened on the land. The only operation we do on the boat is blooding and chilling.” Here he references the Japanese technique of ikejime. Over several years the technicians taught Giuliano and some of the crew about killing the tuna faster and bleeding it to maintain colour and freshness. New notions of quality and taste for raw or lightly cooked tuna entered San Pietro. According to Rais Luigi “the tuna is of higher quality, because we treat it in a particular way, with ice.” Giuliano describes the importance of quality. “Before they used the stellati and it took five people, each one with a harpoon to haul the tuna. Now they only use one hook, in the mouth and use a chain, by hand. On board there is bleeding, and there is blood, but now we must keep the quality of the meat at its best.” In addition to the influence of Japanese tastes, the international Girotonno tuna festival had its inauguration in 2003, and, along with growing tourism, brought cosmopolitan and international tastes to San Pietro. The impact of a global taste for tuna has had devastating effects on their biomass. The international response to the sharp decline was the expansion of the role of inter-governmental monitoring bodies like International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the introduction of quotas, and an increase in the presence of marine authorities on fleets, scientific research and environmental campaigns. In San Pietro, international relationships further widened and so did the configuration of taste networks, this time to include marine regulators, a quota on Bluefin, a Spanish company, and tuna ranches in Malta. The mattanza again was at the centre of change and became a point of contention within the community. This time because as a practice it is endangered, occurring only once or twice a year, “for the sake of tradition, culture” as Giuliano stated. The harvest now takes place in ranches in Malta because for the last three years the Greco family have supplied the tonnara’s entire quota (excluding tuna from mattanza or those that die in the net) to a major Spanish seafood company Riccardo Fuentes e Hijos, which transports them live to Malta where they are fattened and slaughtered, predominantly for a Japanese market. The majority of tuna now leave the island whole, which has profoundly transformed the distribution networks and local taste culture, and mainly the production and trade in tuna organs and canned tuna. In 2012, ICCAT and the European Union further tightened the quotas, which along with competition with industrial fisheries for both quota and markets, has placed enormous pressure on the tonnara. In 2013, it was allocated a quota that was well under what is financially sustainable. Add to the mix the additional expense of financing the obligatory scientific observers, and the tonnara has had to modify its operations. In the last few years there has been a growing antagonism between marine regulations, global markets, and traditional practices. This is exemplified in the limitations to the tuna organ tradition. It is now more common to find dried tuna organs in vacuum packs from Sicily rather than local products. As the restaurateur Secondo Borghero of Tonno della Corsa says “the tonnara made a choice to sell the live tuna to the Spanish. It’s a big problem. The tuna is not just the flesh but also the interior—the stomach, the heart, the eggs—and now we don’t have the quantity of these and the quality around is also not great.” In addition, even though preserved organs are available for consumption, local preserving activities have almost ceased along with supplementary income. The social structures and the types of actors that are a part of the tonnara have also changed. New kinds of relationships, bodies, and knowledge are situated side by side because of the mandate that there be scientific observers present at certain moments in the season. In addition, there are coast guards and, at various stages of the season, university staff contracted by ICCAT take samples and tag the tuna to generate data. The changes have also introduced new types of knowledge, activities, and institutional affiliations based on scientific ideas and discourses of marine biology, conservation, and sustainability. These are applied through marine management activities and regimes like quotas and administered through state and global institutions. This is not to say that the knowledge informing the Rais’s decisions has been done away with but as Gisli Palsson has previously argued, there is a new knowledge hierarchy, which places a significant focus on the notion of expert knowledge. This has the potential to create unequal power dynamics between the marine scientists and the fishers. Today in San Pietro tuna tastes are diverse. Tuna is delicate, smooth, and rich ventresca, raw tartare clean on the palate, novel at the Girotono, hearty tuna al forno, and salty dry bottarga. Tasting tuna in San Pietro offers a material and affective starting point to follow the socio-cultural, political, and ecological contours and contentions that are part of tuna traditions and their transformations. By thinking of gustatory and aesthetic tastes as part of wider taste networks, which involve human and non-human entities, we can begin to unpack and detail better what these changes encompass and figure forms and moments of power and agency. At the centre of tastes and transformation in San Pietro are the tonnara and the mattanza. Although in its long existence the tonnara has endured many changes, those in the past 15 years are unprecedented. Several major global events have provided conditions for change and widened the network from its once mainly local setting to its current global span. First, Japanese and global tastes set a demand for tuna and introduced different tuna production and preparation techniques and new styles of serving tuna raw or lightly cooked tuna. Later, the decline of Bluefin stocks and the increasing involvement of European and international monitoring bodies introduced catch limitations along with new processes and types of knowledge and authorities. Coinciding with this was the development of relationships with middle companies, which again introduced new techniques and technologies, namely the gabbie (cage) and ranches, to the taste network. In the cultural setting of Italy where the conservation of tradition is of particular importance, as I have explained earlier through the notion of provenance, the management of a highly regulated endangered marine species is a complex project that causes much conflict. Because of the dire state of the stocks and continual rise in global demand, solutions are complex. Yet it would seem useful to recognise that tuna tastes are situated within a network of knowledge, know-how, technology, and practices that are not simple modes of production and consumption but also ways of stewarding the sea and its species. Ethics Approval Original names have been used when participants gave consent on the official consent form to being identified in publications relating to the study. This is in accordance with ethics approval granted through the University of Sydney on 21 March 2013. Project number 2012/2825. References Barclay, Kate, and Koh Sun-Hui “Neo-liberal Reforms in Japan’s Tuna Fisheries? A History of Government-business Relations in a Food-producing Sector.” Japan Forum 20.2 (2008): 139–170. Bestor, Theadore “Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World.” Foreign Policy 121 (2000): 54–63. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Harvard UP, 1984. Callon, Michael “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay” Power, Action, Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge? Ed. John Law. London: Routledge, 1986. 196–223. Emery, Katherine “Tonnare in Italy: Science, History and Culture of Sardinian Tuna Fishing.” Californian Italian Studies 1 (2010): 1–40. Hennion, Antoine “Those Things That Hold Us Together: Taste and Sociology” Cultural Sociology 1 (2007): 97–114. Longo, Stefano “Global Sushi: A Socio-Ecological Analysis of The Sicilian Bluefin Tuna Fishery.” Dissertation. Oregon: University of Oregon, 2009. Morgan, Kevin, Marsden, Terry, and Johathan Murdoch. Worlds of Food: Place, Power, and provenance in the Food Chain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Palsson, Gisli. Coastal Economies, Cultural Accounts: Human Ecology and Icelandic Discourse. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1991. Probyn, Elspeth “In the Interests of Taste & Place: Economies of Attachment.” The Global Intimate. Eds. G. Pratt and V. Rosner. New York: Columbia UP (2012). Zukin, Sharon “The Social Production of Urban Cultural Heritage: Identity and Ecosystem on an Amsterdam Shopping Street.” City, Culture and Society 3 (2012): 281–291.

Il breve periodo qui preso in analisi è tra i più controversi nonché ignorati dalla storia delle istituzioni internazionali. La storiografia tradizionale, non avendo fornito uno studio adeguato del mileu in cui il diritto internazionale moderno ha posto le radici, ha spesso considerato l’Institut de Droit International e il progetto scientifico dei giuristi internazionali che lo composero un preludio fallimentare della prima guerra mondiale. Inoltre sono state poste in analisi le riflessioni dottrinali dei giuristi internazionali con la volontà di sottolineare le instabilità, le divisioni interne e le arretratezze strutturali rispetto al contesto preparatorio della prima guerra mondiale. Queste passate linee di ricerca presentano però una lettura deviante del periodo prebellico in quanto cercano esclusivamente di fornire spiegazioni al fallimento liberale della Grande Guerra, dando così scarsa risonanza al contributo apportato dalle riflessioni e dall’operato dei giuristi di fine Ottocento. Si tendono perciò a sovrastimare i momenti di crisi ed i fallimenti, trascurando invece le continuità, i mutamenti e le esperienze scientifiche che, pur non avendo apportato sostanziali cambiamenti nelle relazioni internazionali tra gli stati di fine Ottocento, sono state preparatorie e propedeutiche alle riflessioni del diritto internazionale del XX secolo. L’intima relazione dell’Institut de Droit International e dei suoi protagonisti con la politica liberale di secondo Ottocento è il vero leitmotiv che emerge da questo lavoro, in cui si pone l’accento proprio sulla comunità italiana di giuristi e uomini politici che contribuirono alla riforma del diritto internazionale. È per questo motivo che l’importanza dell’istituto di Gent, per non dire anche il motivo del suo oblio, risiede nel suo intreccio con la trama dei valori fondamentali e dei criteri generali del liberalismo del XIX secolo. I giuristi e gli uomini politici italiani che contribuirono alla formazione e allo sviluppo dell’Institut de Droit International, seppero, con modalità d’intervento, di mediazione e di interazione diverse nel tempo, instaurare un ordine mondiale costituito da un liberalismo imperante, in virtù della loro formazione liberale. L’Institut de Droit International nello studio delle dinamiche e dei dibattiti interni si caratterizza come un momento istituzionale importante e come luogo in cui si articola una nuova professione internazionale, quella del giusinternazionalista. Ne emergono così figure qualificate con conoscenze tecniche, valori politici ed esperienze parlamentari in grado di interloquire ripetutamente con i governi di tutta Europa nella prassi delle relazioni internazionali di fine secolo. All’interno del processo che condusse al riconoscimento e all’istituzionalizzazione di autonome discipline si palesò la separazione sempre più marcata della scienza dalla politica, a favore di un tecnicismo mai conosciuto prima, a tal punto che, non solo i giuristi internazionali, ma tutti gli intellettuali di primo Novecento, apparvero inadatti a reggere la grande prova politica del 1914 cui erano chiamati a rispondere. È quindi l’intero mondo occidentale il luogo in cui si vive il fervore di una sorta di “repubblica delle scienze” che, desiderosa di porsi al servizio dell’umana società, cerca di rendersi indipendente dalla politica a cui era legata, istituzionalizzandosi e formalizzandosi. In un gioco tra l’edito e l’inedito, emerge la consapevolezza che questo consistente tentativo di organizzazione scientifica non sia stato una mera casualità individuale, ma un reale confluire di molteplici e diverse vicende intellettuali e politiche. Si è mosso dunque il proposito di delineare non solo i contenuti e le logiche comunicative dell’Institut de Droit International, ma, sulla base delle vicende professionali, politiche e accademiche dei suoi protagonisti, si sono volute illustrare le strategie metodologiche attraverso cui questi giuristi e uomini politici intrapresero nell’istituto di Gent il percorso che li avrebbe identificati come un corpo professionale. Le corrispondenze personali, in particolare, sono impregnate di valori liberali che insieme ai criteri tecnico professionali, espressi maggiormente dalla documentazione scientifica edita, formano un interessante bagaglio culturale e professionale che verrà ripreso dal diritto internazionale dopo la “pausa” della Grande Guerra. Per comprendere al meglio l’Institut de Droit International si è articolata dunque una ricerca orientata all’ “interno”, cercando di porre in risalto il milieu politico-culturale, nascosto nelle riflessioni sul diritto internazionale moderno, all’interno del quale mossero i primi passi i giuristi internazionali. Attraverso un ritorno a tutte quelle disposizioni ufficiali dell’Institut de Droit International e ai carteggi sorti par le concours harmonique des forces de la science, si riporta alla luce quel rapporto particolare che intercorre tra istituzione, stato e giuristi internazionali. Da queste considerazioni si vuole compiere un’associazione fra due punti di osservazione diversi: uno microscopico che potremmo dire interpersonale, in grado di far risaltare l’apporto interessante dei giuristi italiani all’interno della compagine europea ed un altro macroscopico in grado di rendere una visione d’insieme del milieu di quel laboratorio di idee che si formò a Gent. Lo studio delle prassi di politica estera, nonché lo studio del pensiero giuridico di fine Ottocento, si affiancano quindi allo studio ed alla ricerca delle metodologie, dei “luoghi” reali e figurati e delle modalità decisionali dei giuristi internazionali. Dai valori e dalle esperienze sulla base dei quali agivano gli “uomini del 1873”, protagonisti dell’Institut de Droit International, emerge il valore aggiunto di una linea di ricerca che si colloca tra lo studio del pensiero giuridico e le attività di ricerca di storia delle istituzioni. Per rispondere ad un contesto socio politico sconvolto da processi di state building e da un nuovo ordine mondiale si palesarono nuovi sforzi di cooperazione, di diversa ispirazione, che furono in grado di concorrere allo stato contingente della fondazione dell’Institut de Droit International. Questi processi ed eventi indipendenti dall’istituto di Gent, nella loro ricerca di nuovi standard legali congrui, hanno dunque aperto la strada ad un nuovo spirito di riforma nel diritto internazionale. Gli intellettuali sulla base di un inedito protagonismo, chiamati a rispondere a questioni di vicini e lontani orizzonti, vissero una tensione riformatrice che connotò ampi aspetti del loro “modo di essere internazionali”. Il diritto internazionale moderno vivendo le tensioni, i disincanti e le speranze dei protagonisti della seconda metà dell’Ottocento può essere inteso a pieno titolo come uno specchio fedele di quella “macchina mondiale” in continuo mutamento rappresentata dagli ultimi decenni del XIX secolo.
The short time taken in analysis here is one of the most controversial and ignored by the history of international institutions. Traditional historiography, by failing to provide an adequate study of milieu in which modern international law has taken root, has often considered the Institut de Droit International and the scientific project of international lawyers who composed a prelude to the bankruptcy of the first world war. In addition, the doctrinal reflections of international lawyers were analyzed with a willingness to emphasize the instability, internal divisions and structural backwardness compared to the context of preparation for WWI. These lines of research have, however, a deviant reading of the prewar period as they seek only to explain the liberal failure of the Great War, thus giving little resonance to the contribution provided by the reflections and the work of jurists in the late nineteenth century. In such a way the continuities, changes and scientific experience that, despite not having made substantial changes in international relations between the states of the late nineteenth century, were preparatory to the reflections of the international law of the twentieth century, were neglected. The intimate relationship of the Institut de Droit International and its players with the liberal politics of the late nineteenth century is the true leitmotif that emerges from this work, which focuses in particular on the Italian community of lawyers and politicians who contributed to reform of international law. It is for this reason that the importance of the Institute of Gent, to say the reason for his neglect, lies in its intertwining with the plot of the core values and general principles of liberalism of the nineteenth century. The Italian jurists and politicians who contributed to the formation and development of the Institut de Droit International, were be able, with different rules in time for intervention, mediation and interaction, to establish a world order based on the liberalism, as their liberal education suggests. The Institut de Droit International in the study of the dynamics and internal debates becomes an important institutional time and a place in which it emerges a new international profession: the international lawyer. These figures are notably skilled, with technical knowledge, political values and parliamentary experiences able to interact repeatedly with governments throughout Europe in the practice of international relations of the late century. Within the process that led to the recognition and institutionalization of autonomous disciplines, the separation of science from politics appeared, in favor of a technicality never known before, so that not only international lawyers, but all intellectuals of the early twentieth century, appeared unfit to rule the big political test of 1914 they were called to respond. Therefore, the entire Western world is the place where is felt the fervor of a "republic of science" who, in the service of humanity, tries to be independent by politics by means of institutionalization. In a game between the published and unpublished, it is shown an awareness that this consistent effort of scientific management is not merely random, but a real confluence of many different intellectual and political events. The aim is to outline not only the content and the communicative logic of the Institut de Droit International, but also, on the basis of professional affairs and academic policies of its protagonists, the methodological strategies that constituted the professionalization of the jurist. The personal correspondences, in particular, are imbued with liberal values, which together with technical and professional criteria expressed mainly by the published scientific literature, form an interesting cultural and professional background that will be taken up by international law after the "pause" the Great War. To better understand the Institut de Droit International the research was focused to an “internal” perspective, trying to emphasize the cultural-political milieu, hidden in the debate on modern international law, in which the international lawyers undertook their first actions. Through a return to all the official provisions of the Institut de Droit International and the correspondences suited “par le concours harmonique des forces de la science”, it sheds light on the special relationship that exists between the institution, state and international jurists. From these considerations, the goal is to make an association between two different viewpoints: one microscopic which is “interpersonal” and is able to bring out the interesting contribution of the Italian jurists within the European team and another that makes a macroscopic overview of the milieu of that laboratory of ideas that rose in Gent. The study of the practice of foreign policy and the study of the legal thought of the late nineteenth century, were associated to the study of the methodologies, the real and figurative "places" and the manner of decision expressed by the international lawyers. From the values and experiences shown by the "men of 1873", the protagonists of the Institut de Droit International, it emerges the surplus value of a line of research that is between the study of legal thought and the research in the history of the institutions. To answer to a socio political context devastated by the processes of state building and the new world order, new cooperative efforts of different inspirations were able to compete to the contingent state of the founding of the Institut de Droit International. These processes and events independent by the institution of Ghent, in their search for new suitable legal standards, therefore, have inaugurate the way for a new spirit of reform in international law. The intellectuals, called to respond to issues of near and far horizons, lived a reforming tension who characterized many aspects of their "way of being international". The modern international law, by living the tensions, the disenchantments and the hopes of the protagonists of the second half of the nineteenth century, can rank as a true reflection of that "worldwide mechanism" very changeable represented by the last decades of the nineteenth century.