Journal articles on the topic 'Valtellina (Italy) – History – 17th Century'

AbstractThis article investigates economic management of fiefs as well as social relationships between lords and vassals in 17th- and 18th-century central Italy. Up to recent years, historians of early modern Italy as well as other European countries have stressed the “archaic” features of noble management, which would have prevented the emergence of a “modern” market-oriented agrarian economy, or have portrayed noblemen as market-oriented landowners neglecting their seigneurial rights. I argue here that both dimensions were present in noble management, as lords did not choose between them, but rather leaned upon one or the other according to circumstances. I base my argument on the case of the Borghese, one of the wealthiest papal families of the 17th century. Finally, this study shows that modern elements could be brought into a model characterized by strong seigneurial rights.

Abstract"Printing, Patronage and Prayer: Art Historical Issues in Three Responsa" presents texts from 16th-century Italy, 17th-century Bohemia, and 20th-century Russia that explore the following issues: the impact of the new technology of printing on Jewish ceremonial art and limits to the dedication and use of art in the synagogue.

The Court…, more accurately, the city where the Court resided, was a microcosm of the Monarchy that was governed from it. That was the case in Madrid. This paper deals with a little-known institution, the Hospital and the Church of the Italians, analysing above all its transformation in the 17th century through two important documents, the personal diary of a Neapolitan regent and a record of a conflict of powers between the Council of Italy and the nunciature in Madrid containing the hospital’s founding documents.

The Royal Swedish Collection at Drottningholm palace includes, among various other such scenes, a series of battle paintings by Johan Philip Lemke (1631–1711). This painter, educated in the Netherlands and Italy, carried out two series of paintings to commemorate the wars of the two Swedish monarchs, Carl X Gustav and Carl XI. These enormous compositions painted on canvas were mounted into the walls of two rooms in the palace. One of these views, the series devoted to the victories of Carl X Gustav, comprises twelve pieces, eight of which depict panoramas of towns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Carried out in 1690–1705, these views were copied from the engravings of Eric Johnson Dahlbergh (1625–1703), as is explained in the inscriptions. Unfortunately, the poor condition of these pictures (the effect of 18th-century ‘conservation’ using sand...) rules out comprehensive analysis of what is depicted in them. It can be no more than suspected that Lemke’s Drottningholm paintings were of a high artistic quality. As is proven by his drawings currently housed in the National Museum in Stockholm, this artist was undoubtedly a magnificent painter. These days, more than anything else the paintings under examination represent an interesting attitude of the painter towards history and glorifying the ruler in question.

ABSTRACTAfter the last damaging earthquake in 2012, an anti-seismic reinforcement project of the cathedral of Modena was designed giving us the opportunity to investigate and date the building materials. Radiocarbon (14C), optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), and thermoluminescence (TL) dating techniques were performed on the vaults with the aim to (1) clarify the construction timing, (2) define the history of the restorations, and (3) explore the possible correlation of the main restoration works to the earthquake chronology deduced from the historic catalog. Preliminary results show that medieval older bricks were reused for most of the original construction. Only lime and non-gypsum mortar was used for the original construction in the 15th century and for later repair of damage caused by earthquakes in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gypsum mortar was used for later repair in the 18th century. The results show much stronger damage due to earthquakes than previously thought.

AbstractThe Habsburg Empire was a sovereign dynasty ruled by the Habsburgs between the 15th and 20th centuries. Although its borders were not defined before the 19th century, what is now Austria, Hungary, some areas of the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Italy were at some point part of the Empire. Starting in the 17th century, the Empire had Vienna as the capital, which was a hub for culture and craft where silk was a valued commodity. Despite the political and cultural importance of the Empire, little is known of its trade practices and sources of raw material. Using a combination of X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Photodiode Array Detector (HPLC-PDA) for the study of a Viennese swatch book, we conducted the first systematic approach to understanding the industry. Benedict Codecasa, a prominent merchant active in Vienna between the late 18th and early 19th century sold silk and other textile goods. Authorized by the Royal Court, Codecasa was assumed to sell luxurious and high-quality textiles. However, our results suggested colored goods were dyed with more focus on aesthetics (finding a similar color) rather than quality through unique recipes. This greatly contrasts with other contemporary textile industries praised for their quality and which, in turn, might be related to comparatively lesser quality textiles sold in Vienna.

The article presents the analytical review of “Troubled Times in Russia in the Early 17th and Early 20th Centuries: Nature and Lessons” conference, dedicated to the jubilee of I.O. Tumentsev, which was held in Volgograd in October 2018. The aims of the conference were to conduct a comparative study of the two turning points in the history of the Russian state and society, to identify the patterns of systemic sociopolitical crises emergence and occurrence, to determine causes, factors, directions and boundaries of socio-cultural, economic and political changes that took place in Russia during the Time of Troubles of the early 17th century and the revolution and Civil War of 1917–1922. The conference takes an opportunity to analyze a wide circle of issues related to internal and external factors of the appearance of the Troubled Times in Russia, the specifics of social elevators functioning in the conditions of the system social crisis, the interaction between the elite and ordinary people in revolutionary times, the transformation of the state apparatus and service in the Time of Troubles, and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church at crucial moments in the Russian history. Scientists from Russia, England, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and the USA: historians, political scientists, economists, leading experts in these fields attended the conference. The article describes the content of the reports that were presented at the conference, analyzes the course of discussions, and presents the decisions that were made based on the results of its work. The scientific results obtained during the conference can be used in research on the history of Russia in the 17th and 20th centuries, the history of the national state and law, and in the analysis of contemporary social and political phenomena and processes.

Belgians comprised some of the European missionaries who helped administer the nascent Spanish colony in the Mariana islands. The Christian mission there was founded by Fr. Diego Luis de Sanvitores in 1668 and the task of conversion of the natives to the new faith was entrusted to the Jesuits. Missionaries from Belgium added to those from other nations such as Italy, Germany and Moravia. They were chosen because of their ability to endure harsh conditions. The first decades of the Marianas mission was fraught with extreme difficulties most especially the resistance of the natives to the changes brought by Christianity. Two missionaries, Fr. Peter Coomans and Fr. Balthazar Dubois, paid with their lives while serving as missionaries in the Marianas. Despite the difficulties, they sowed the seeds of the Christian mission in the island and ensured the continued existence of the colony. Fr. Coomans and Fr. Gerard Bouwens played an important part in the islands as superiors in the Mariana Mission. Fr. Bouwens later made recommendations for good governance in the islands. An important role played by these two missionaries was that they recorded the history of the colony and recorded some important aspects of the culture of the native Chamorro people and the challenges faced by the mission including the serious challenges such as the martyrdom of fellow missionaries and the native rebellions which lasted until 1695. For his important role in serving the mission, Fr. Bouwens was hailed as its second founder.

Abstract Simple race games, played with dice and without choice of move, are known from antiquity. In the late 16th century, specific examples of this class of game emerged from Italy and spread rapidly into other countries of Europe. Pre-eminent was the Game of the Goose, which spawned thousands of variants over the succeeding centuries to the present day, including educational, polemical and promotional variants.1 The educational variants began as a French invention of the 17th century, the earliest of known date being a game to teach Geography, the Jeu du Monde by Pierre Duval, published in 1645. By the end of the century, games designed to teach several of the other accomplishments required of the noble cadet class had been developed: History, the Arts of War, and Heraldry being notable among them. A remarkable example of a game within this class is the astronomical game, Le Jeu de la Sphere ou de l’Univers selon Tycho Brahe, published in 1661 by E(s)tienne Vouillemont in Paris. The present paper analyses this game in detail, showing how it combines four kinds of knowledge systems: natural philosophy, based on the Ptolemaic sphere; biblical knowledge; astrology, with planetary and zodiacal influences; and classical knowledge embodied in the names of the constellations. The game not only presents all four on an equal footing but also explores links between them, indicating some acceptance of an overall knowledge-system. Despite the title, there is no evidence of the Tychonian scheme for planetary motion, nor of any Copernican or Galilean influence. This game is to be contrasted with medieval race games, based on numerology and symbolism, and with race games towards the end of the Early Modern period in which science is fully accepted.

At the same time, when Baroque became the dominant style in Italy, in English architecture in the 17th century architects continued using the Classical forms. After that, in the architecture of England appeared a style called Palladian architecture and Jacobean architecture. Style of Baroque became prevalent just at the end of this century. After the Great Fire of London on 5 September 1666 most of the city's buildings were destroyed, all these constructions had to be restored or built new ones. The 17th and 18th centuries were a painful period, not only for the history of Britain but also affected religion. London was full of immigrants from the Continent who brought a part of their culture and religion to English culture. So, during that period, there was a problem of the persistence of the leading position of the Anglican Church of England. Through the hard work of the British architects who have fully dedicated themselves to the work, positions were strengthened. 310 years passed since the intensified struggle against the Anglican Church of England and Catholicism with another popular at that time sects. It started with creating the Act establishing the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches in the Cities of London and Westminster and or the Suburbs thereof. The fact that the Act was passed because of overcrowded with worshipers in the non-conformist chapels around London. In the end, it did not achieve its goal, just twelve churches were built under the tutelage of the Commissioners. A number of these churches became known as the Queen Anne Churches. However, these churches became the main building of Baroque Style in London.

The natural history collection of the Bolognese polymath, encyclopedist, and natural philosopher Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) is regarded as the first museum in the modern sense of the term. It was intended as a resource for scholarship and a microcosm of the natural world, not simply a cabinet of curiosities. In addition to physical specimens, Aldrovandi’s zoological material included a large series of paintings of animals (Tavole di Animali) that were integral to the collection. Following Aldrovandi’s death, his collection was maintained by the terms of his will, but by the 19th century relatively little remained. We examined surviving herpetological components of the collection, comprising 19 specimens of ten species, as well as the corresponding paintings and associated archival material in the Museum of Palazzo Poggi, Museo di Zoologia, and Biblioteca Universitaria Bolognese in Bologna, Italy. Although the antiquity of some of these dried preparations is in question, many are documented in the Tavole di Animali and/or are mentioned in 17th century lists of the museum, verifying them as the oldest museum specimens of amphibians and reptiles in the world. Exotic species are best represented, including two specimens of Uromastyx aegyptia and several boid snakes – the first New World reptiles to be displayed in Europe. However, the Tavole di Animali suggest that the original collection was dominated by Italian taxa and that greater effort may have been made to conserve the more spectacular specimens. The Aldrovandi collection provides a tangible link to the dawn of modern herpetology in Renaissance Italy.

At the foothillof Monte Amiata volcano (southern Tuscany, Italy), small extinct lake basins of late Pleistocene age are documented. These lake basins were characterized by the deposition of two very different types of sediment: a) derived from the authigenic precipitation of iron oxides (goethite) and exploited as earth pigments; b) biogenic siliceous sediment composed of fossil diatoms and named diatomaceous earth or diatomite. The lacustrine sediments of Mount Amiata volcano were widely exploited for various applications since ancient times. Literary documents begin in the 16th century, with the descriptions of Cesalpino, Gesner, Agricola, and Imperato. Specific references to the diatomites of Monte Amiata are quoted in the 17th century by Boccone and Bonanno. The quarrying activity was described by Micheli in 1733. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the diatomaceous earths of Monte Amiata are part of the important geological collections of Micheli, Targioni Tozzetti, Baldassarri, Campani, and Tommi. A particular significance has the collection of botanic and ichthyologic fossils collected by Ezio Tongiorgi, and now preserved in the Museum of Natural History of the University of Pisa sited at the Charterhouse of Pisa in the Calci village. These paleontological samples preserve the biological and physical testimonies of the environmental and climatic changes of the late Pleistocene and are now particularly valuable because they are the only remaining evidence of the diatomaceous lacustrine deposits of the paleo-lakes of Monte Amiata. For these reasons, they represent geological materials with a fundamental cultural value.

While the royal houses and the aristocracy of Italy, Low Countries, France and Spain had already an history in collecting pieces of art, Great Britain adopted this “fashion” only under Charles the 1st reign, in 17th century. Charles the 1st understood that his painted portraits, sculpted busts and a royal collection of art could bring a higher value to his royal status and this practice was representing the power, the authority and the virtues of a king. He was a prodigious collector and made numerous acquisitions of paintings and statues. He collected the artworks of more than 1750 artists; that formed the basis of Royal Collection, the greatest private collection nowadays. The reign of Charles the 1st was highly significant for the appearance of “Court Painters”, who also had the quality of diplomats at various European courts. Peter Paul Rubens and Antoon Van Dyck have been highly appreciated at the court of Charles the 1st. In his artworks Van Dyck captured the “flamboyant” spirit of the time; he gave brilliance to his characters and transformed significantly the image of the King, providing him a special refinement, as it can be seen in the portraits he painted to Charles the 1st. The next century was marked by painters such as William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Hogarth was considered „the most famous painter in London”, and he brought his important contribution to the establishment of a copyright law. His printed graphic series and satirical paintings have been inspired from the social and political reality of his time. Aristocracy’s and bourgeoisie’s emancipation in the 18th century led to the flourishing of the portraiture. Reynolds and Gainsborough were the most desired painters when it came about making portraits and their fame transcended their time. Keywords: collection, Great Britain, Royal Painter, portrait, art power

The purpose of the article is to study the influences of the Italian vocal school, the traditions of Italian opera performance on the professional development of Ukrainian singers in this period. Methodology. Analysis was carried out on the basis of such methods as historical and chronological to study trends and patterns of Ukrainian music at the end of the 17th – the beginning of the 19th century, analytical – for a comprehensive consideration of the influence of Italian culture on the emergence of opera in East Slavic areas, source – for elaboration and analysis of sources, bio-bibliographic – for studying creative biographies of artists, the method of systematization – for the reduction of all found facts to a logical unity. Scientific novelty. By studying the creative biographies of prominent Ukrainian musicians (M.Berezovsky, D.Bortnyansky, M.Ivanov, S.Gulak-Artemovsky) for the first time the Italian pages of their creative biography were systematized, new facts were introduced into scientific circulation, which allow to clarify the contribution of Italian vocal culture in the development of the Ukrainian opera school at the initial stage of its formation. Conclusions. The interest of the Russian Empire in Western European, especially Italian, opera led to the rapid development of a new era in the history of musical theater in the East Slavic territories. Internships of Ukrainian musicians in Italy, invitations of Italian artists, composers, vocal teachers to the Russian Empire, joint performances on stage with foreign singers give grounds to assert the influence of the Italian vocal school on the skills of Ukrainian opera singers of the end of the 18th – the beginning of the 19th century and laying of the fundamental foundations for the development of the Ukrainian vocal school.

AbstractOur ideas of what 17th century Dutch interiors looked like have been conditioned by the hundreds of paintings of interiors by Dutch genre painters. Even restorations and reconstructions in our own time (fig. 1) are influenced significantly by them. It is therefore of vital importance to our knowledge of the history of Dutch interior decoration to realise what we can or cannot believe, and to compare these genre interiors with other sources such as probate inventories, building specifications, plans, conditions of sale, contemporary descriptions such as travellers' reports, etc. It is the combination of these different types of information that enables them to supplement and correct each other. Since the fixed interior fittings are not usually mentioned in probate inventories, it is even more important to weigh all the available evidence by critical analysis. The scope of this article allows me to discuss only a few of the many features; I shall therefore restrict my comments to the fixed decorations and closely associated features. This discourse is therefore in part a comment on Peter Thornton's book Seventeenth Century Interior Decoration in England, France and Holland, who made extensive use of Dutch genre paintings but, unfortunately, could not compare them with inventories of Dutch burghers (other than with the published inventories of the princes of the House of Orange) or with other written Dutch sources. The main starting point is a well-known picture by Emanuel de Witte in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningcn in Rotterdam, of which a second version is kept in Montreal (fig. 2-3); hardly any other genre interior has been so consistently used as a prototype for a Dutch 17th century interior. The room in the foreground shows a woman sitting at a virginal, a common feature in Dutch houses of the period, while on the left a man is sleeping in a bed; during this period, wealthier people were only just starting to differentiate between living-rooms and bedchambers, and a combination of the two functions was still quite common. The ceiling, however, shows that the tie-beams do not run parallel to the façade as they ought to, but perpendicular to it. This is clearly an instance of artistic licence, so that the horizontal lines of the beams can close off the composition at the top. Behind this room is the entrance hall, with two more rooms behind. An enfilade of this kind is out of the question in a Dutch house at that time, even in a country house. Here the artist has allowed the emphasis on the perspective view and spatial relationships within the painting to prevail over reality, a common feature in most other Dutch genre interiors (fig. 4). Floors with intricate patterns of contrasting marble slabs are a predominant element in these perspective paintings. They can be seen in most genre pictures from the middle and third quarter of the 17th century. However, very few such floors actually survive. There is a rare example, dating from 1661, in the museum 'Our Good Lord in the Attic' at Amsterdam (fig. 6). At that time Amsterdam was a port of transit for marble and stone from Italy and other countries. Travellers reported seeing patterned marble floors in Amsterdam, although most floors of this kind arc likely to have been in official or public buildings. Their prevalence in the residences of burghers is open to question. Only a few building specifications describe them, while explicit references to expensive wooden floors in rich houses have been found. For instance, in one of the most luxurious Amsterdam residences, the mansion of the Bartolotti family, only two such floors were added between 1649 and 1664, in which latter year the rooms in question were particularised in the inventory as 'stone' chambers. This specific indication is in itself proof of how rare marble floors were, for such designations occur only sporadically in inventories of the period (e.g. of the Trippenhuis). In the elaborate descriptions of his important commissions between 1637 and 1670 (fig. 7) the architect Philips Vingboons always mentions marble floors when there are any: altogether, he describes 'Italian' floors four times. They are however quite plain, consisting solely of white slabs; only in two instances was the white marble relieved by blue or red strips specially cut for this use. The fact that this prominent architect dwells so proudly on this feature demonstrates how exceptional it was; elsewhere he invariably speaks of Prussian deals. Several designs by the architect Pieter Post for interiors of burgher houses survive, some even with patterns for marble floors. Again, though, they are very simplc (fig. 8-9), the more elaborate ones being meant for an entrance hall (fig. 10). And we know from the records that wooden floors were preferred for a house which Post built in Dordrecht, even in the reception rooms. Similarly, a third well-known architect, Adriaen Dortsman, designed stone and marble floors only for the basement and corridors of the house he built for Jan Six in 1666 (fig. 11) - not, however, for the main rooms. Examples like these, moreover, apply to the houses of the absolute upper class in Amsterdam, the richest city in Holland. Marble and stone floors were in fact largely confined to halls and corridors, as in the palace Huis ten Bosch built by Pieter Post (fig. 12-13). Of the other palaces belonging to the Prince of Orange, only Rijswijk was famous for its marble floors in most of the rooms (fig. 14). The rooms in the two earliest 17th-century dolls houses, dating from the 1670s, do not have marble floors either, except for the entrance hall (fig. 15); a slightly later one has a marble floor in the hall and the best kitchen, but also in the lying-in chamber (fig. 16). These Amsterdam dolls houses again clearly indicate a preference for wooden floors in reception and living rooms. The rarity of marble floors in living rooms is understandable, since they struck cold and were uncomfortable to dwell on. In the front halls, where marble or stone floors were much more common, there was usually a wooden platform (called a zoldertje) for people to sit on (fig. 19). All this is borne out by one quantitative source: a series of the conditions of sale pertain ing to houses in the city of Haarlem over a period of sixty years. Although they concern the second half of the 18th century, a considerable number of 17th-century interior features were still preserved. No fewer than approximately 5000 different houses are described in this source: by then nearly all larger houses had marble entrance halls and corridors, most of them dating from the 18th century; however, a total of no more than nine living rooms arc mentioned as having marble or stone floors! All these considerations lead to the conclusion that, although marble floors did exist in the houses of Dutch burghers, they were

Nicolaus Steno (Niels Stensen, 1638–86) is considered to be the founder of geology as a discipline of modern science, and is also considered to be founder of scientific conceptions of the human glands, muscles, heart and brain. With respect to his anatomical results the judgment of posterity has always considered Steno to be one of the founders of modern anatomy, whereas Steno’s paternity to the methods known to day of all students of geology was almost forgotten during the 130 yr from 1700 to 1830. Besides geology and anatomy there are still important sides of Steno’s scientific contributions to be rediscovered. Steno’s general philosophy of science is one of the clearest formulated philosophies of modern science as it appeared during the 17th Century. It includes • separation of scientific methods from religious arguments, • a principle of how to seek “demonstrative certainty” by demanding considerations from both reductionist and holist perspectives, • a series of purely structural (semiotic) principles developing a stringent basis for the pragmatic, historic (diachronous) sciences as opposed to the categorical, timeless (achronous) sciences, • “Steno’s ladder of knowledge” by which he formulated the leading principle of modern science i.e., how true knowledge about deeper, hidden causes (“what we are ignorant about”) can be approached by combining analogue experiences with logic reasoning. However, Steno’s ideas and influence on the general principles of modern science are still quite unknown outside Scandinavia, Italy, France and Germany. This unfortunate situation may be explained with the fact that most of his philosophical statements have not been translated to English until recent decades. Several Latin philologists state that Steno’s Latin language is of great beauty and poetic value, and that translations to other languages cannot give justice to Steno’s texts. Thus, translations may have seemed too difficult. Steno’s ideas on the philosophy of science appear in both his many anatomical and in his fewer geological papers, all of which with one exception (in French) were written in Latin. A concentration of his philosophy of science was given by himself in his last scientific lecture “Prooemium” (1673), which was not translated from Latin to English before 1994. Therefore, after the decline of Latin as a scientific language Steno’s philosophy of science and ideas on scientific reasoning remained quite unknown, although his ideas should be considered extremely modern and path finding for the scientific revolution of the bio- and geo-sciences. Moreover, Steno’s philosophy of science is comparable to Immanuel Kant’s 80 yr younger theory on perception, Charles S. Peirce’s 230 yr younger theory on abduction, and—especially—Karl R. Popper’s 300 yr younger theory on scientific discovery by conjecture and refutation.

AbstractA century ago the Rijksprentenkabinet in Amsterdam acquired a 19th-century album containing 56 rapid sketches in black chalk after 17th-century, mostly Dutch paintings (Note 1). The sketches, which are numberd, have the names of the painters wrillen on them in the artist's own hand. They were first published in 1895 (Note 2) by E. W. Moes, who concluded that they were by a Delft artist, and C. Hofstede de Groot, who convincingly attributed them to Leonaert Bramer (1596-1674) and identified two of the paintings in question. Since then various other paintings have been identified (Notes 5, 7, 8, 11 and 12), notably by A. Blankert, who has made his findings available for the present publication, and other drawings belonging to the series have been found, Frits Lugt leading the way here (Notes 9 and 10). The present study, the first to be undertaken in depth since 1895, has brought to light three more sketches after paintings by Bramer himself (cat. nos.9-11) and one probably after Wouwerman (cat. no.65), while seven more paintings have been identified and one of the sketches without a name has proved to be after a painting by Antonio Maria Viani. Two lists of the sketches so far found are given here: that of State I reproduces the original order, that of State II gives the artists in alphabetical order as they appear in the catalogue published here. These sketches are of exceptional documentary value, since they have not only given us the names of some previously unknown painters, such as M. de Berch, J. Garbaal, P. Monincx and A. Pick, but they have also revealed unexpected aspects of some well-known ones, e.g. a still life by P. van Groenewegen, a Dutch landscape by J.B. Weenix and a genre piece of a very Utrecht character by L. de Jongh. Moreover, the sketches afford a fine glimpse of collecting in Holland in the 17th century, a subject otherwise known uirtually only from non-visual documents. On the back of one of the drawings (cat. no.6) appears a list of the owners of the pictures sketched (Fig. I), possibly written by Bramer himself. This is reproduced here in an amplified version of Moes' transcription, with one completely new name yielded by the present study. The styles given in the list suggest that the men concerned appear in it in order of their social standing. The first, Simon Graswinckel (c.1611-71), was a member of a wealthy Delft family of brewers and regents. He owned a great deal of property in and around Delft, but is reported by his brothers-in-law to have spent his time in gaming-houses and taverns (Note 30). His will of 1663 is known, but no paintings are mentioned in it. The second man on the list was probably a Van Beresteijn, another family from the wealthy upper echelons of Delft society. His precise identity came to light in a roundabout way via the inventory of 28 February 1652 of Adriaen van Vredenburg, in which are listed a number of paintings that were very probably sketched by Bramer (Note 32), notably one of Jezebel, this mention and Bramer's sketch being virtually unique indications of this subject in Dutch 17th-century painting. Vredenburg does not appear in the list of owners of the paintings, but on his death his property went to his stepdaughter, whose guardian he had been and who married Theodorus van Beresteijn in November 1652. Antonie van Bronchorst is known only from the commission he gave Bramer in 1653 to painl frescoes in his house (Note 34), while Capitein van der Bon..., Nicolaas van der Werch and Johan Persijn have not yet been traced in the Delft archives. Willem de Langue (1599-1666), on the other hand, was a lawyer and a connoisseur of paintings unparalleled in Delft in the mid 17th century (Note 36). He himself made the inventories of the paintings in important estates and he numbered many artists among his clientele (Note 37). Portraits of him and his wife by Van Vliet are known (Note 38), while he also appears as an officer in a militia piece of 1648 by Jacob Willemsz Delff (Fig. 2). Abraham de Cooge (before 1600-after 1680) was the most versatile person in the list, being an engraver, painter, dealer in tulip bulbs, organs and paintings and pottery manufacturer (Note 39). He was registered in the Guild of St. Luke in Delft in 1632 and two paintings by him are known (Note 40). In 1646 Leonaerl Bramer made illustrations to the picaresque novel Lazarilo de Tormes for him (Note 17). In the 1650's De Cooge was increasingly involved in art-dealing and that on no small scale. He also had representatives in Antwerp, so was probably among the biggest art-dealers in the Northern Netherlands. Adam Pick (c. 1622-before 1666) enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke in Delft in 1642 (Note 43) and was active in the town up to the early 1650's as a painter of landscapes, genre pieces and still lifes (Fig.3) and also as the keeper of the Toelast ( Wine Cask) inn. He probably moved to Leiden, where he is mentioned in 1654 as a vintner, in 1653, perhaps as a consequence of the death of his first wife in 1652, f or he certainly sold the inn that year. The inventory of their joint property drawn up in 1653 includes a list of paintings, which tally with nos.8(?) -98 in the State I list. Only one painting by Pick is known (Fig.3), plus the sketch by Bramer after another (cat. no.44). Reinier Jansz Vermeer (1591-1652, Note 46), the father of Johannes, started out as a silk weaver, but appears in 1629 as an innkeeper and in 1631 was registered in the Guild of St. Luke in Delft as an art-dealer. From then on he came into frequent contact with local painters, Bramer included, but his dealing was probably only a sideline of his innkeeping. He died in October 1652. The last owner on the list is Bramer himself, who returned to Delft in 1628 after a lengthy period in France and Italy (1614-27, Note 49). He played a leading part in the Guild of St. Luke and was among the most successful painters in Delft around the middle of the 17th century. Later in life, however, he was often in financial difficulties (Note 50). He was one of the very few Dutch fresco painters (Note 51), as well as a painter of history and genre pieces and a prolific draughtsman and illustrator (Note 52), while just one document provides evidence of his dealing in paintirtgs (Note 54). The presence of works by Bramer himself among the sketches seems to rule out the theory that he made them as an aide mémoire for his own use (Note 15), while their very rapid character makes it unlikely that they were produced for one of the owners as an art-object. It also seems highly improbable that the collectors/owners would have wanted their collections of paintings sketched together in one book. The most acceptable suggestion appears to be that they were made in connection with a forthcoming sale of pictures, particularly as three of the owners listed were involved in art-dealing, while in the cases of Vermeer, Pick and Van Beresteijn there was every reason for paintings from their collections being sold around the end of 1652 or beginning of 1653: Vermeer's death left his family in dire financial straits, Pick will probably have sold his pictures (as he did his inn) before moving to Leiden and Van Beresteijn will probably have wanted to realize some money on his wife's inheritance. Thus the dates of Vermeer's burial in October 1652 and Pick's inventory of March 1653 would seem to provide crucial clues to the dating of the sketches, which were probably made in rapid succession, to judge from the unity of style, despite the great diversity of the models, and the straightforward consecutive numbering. Presumably the intention was to bring these pictures from Delft collections together for a sale (Note 18) and Bramer was commissioned to make sketches in advance (or even to make a certain selection, Note 19) possibly to give an idea of what was on offer to collectors or dealers elsewhere (which might explain the 'inking in' of the painters' names originally written in chalk on five of the drawings, cat. nos. 17, 35, 36, 47 and 64). Bramer made such chalk inscriptions on ten of the drawings (Note 20), probably while sketching them. Afterwards he inscribed and numbered all of them in ink (Note 5). Notes in another 17th-century hand appear on cat. nos.22 and 24. The sheets may all have been of the same size originally, but have since been cut down, often wholly or partly along the framing lines around the sketch. This may well have been done by Bramer himsef or the dealer he made them for. Just over half of them remained together and were stuck into the present album in the 19th century. There are no portraits among the sketches and only two stll lifes and two marine paintings, but eleven Italianate landscapes and 22 history paintings. Thus the subjects differ somewhat from the categories arrived at by Montiasfor mid 17th-century Delft from his study of inventories (Note 56). The preference for history pieces is probably to be explained by the high social standing of the owners. The majority of the pictures were very modern for that time and of the 41 artists, 28 were still alive in 1652-3 and eight of them were only 35 or younger. Bramer's material contradicts Montlas' conclusion that Delft collectors showed a preference for local painters (Note 58), whose work amounted to 40-50% of that listed in the inventories. Of Bramer's 41 painters, only thirteen were from Delft (Note 59) and only five are found in Montias' list of the most common painters in Delft inventories. Thus the pictures sketched by Bramer fall outside the 'normal Delft pattern' and evince a less provincial taste. However, the collectors were still not among the leading figures of their day in this field by comparison with, for example, Boudewijn de Man of Delft (Note 62), whose collection included works by Goltzius, Bloemaert, Rubens, Rembrandt and Ter Brugghen in 1644. The pictures sketched by Bramer were presumably to be brought together for public auction and the sketches may very probably have been made with an eye to the sale catalogue. While sale catalogues are known in the second half of the 17th century, they only relate to very important collections, which makes these sketches very unusual as a documentation of a sale of pictures from average well-to-do collectors and dealers. The collection of sketches as such certainly has no parallel at this period (Note 64).

The Bender fortress - the largest fortification in Moldova, consisting of a castle and a stone-earth fortress, was used by the 14th Army of the Russian Federation until 2008. Therefore for a long time, it was inaccessible for field studies, which soon revealed the contradiction between the accepted history and architecture. Two historical documents - the history of Sultan Suleiman about the construction of the fortress in 1538 and the memoirs of a traveler of the 17th century. Evlia Celebi determined the official record of the foundation of the stone fortress called Benders, closing the topic of the fortress's history before the Ottoman rejection, previously known in the sources as Tighina. A study of the castle's architecture and its comparison with graphic materials and historical photographs revealed that the current state had preserved enough details and traces of structures dating back to its construction before the use of artillery in defense. Among them: traces of the upper battle on the towers, adaptations for the mosque of the second tier of the entrance tower, the absence of walls facing the courtyard of the prismatic towers, a filled-in ditch near the walls of the castle - all these features indicate that, according to one of the most likely versions, the builders of the castle Tighina were Genoese. An analysis of graphic images and photographs of the castle, made before the architectural degradation of the structure, revealed the missing details that indicate features characteristic of the period before the probable construction of 1538. The castle's architecture was two centuries older than it is currently dated based on historical research, corresponding to a time before the use of firearms and artillery. This is evidenced by the loss of the first moat arranged near the walls of the castle, the wooden galleries on the top of the towers, from which the exit openings to the galleries and sockets from the consoles have been preserved, the missing walls of the prismatic towers facing the courtyard, similar to fortresses in northern Italy. The arrangement of the mosque in the second tier of the entrance tower was carried out later, for which it was necessary to dismantle the stone vault of the entrance passage, replacing it 2.0 m lower with a flat ceiling, and to arrange the entrance to the mosque several steps below the fighting passage, etc. Round artillery loopholes replaced vertical embrasures for bow and arrow defense. The Tighinsky castle was not made of wood and earth; a stone made by Turkish builders did not replace it - it is the same castle mentioned in 1408 as a guardhouse and customs house, and the details indicate a specific time and architectural and cultural region of influence. During the Turkish period, the Upper Fortress and a second moat were built at a distance from the castle, along the inner edge of which, on three sides, bastions for artillery, characteristic of the 16th century, were arranged, from which a tower with a drawbridge was preserved - it seems that this is all that was preserved from Mimar Sinan's contribution to the strengthening of the Bender Castle.

The historical attire of women from the Lithuania Minor (Klaipėda Region) has a characteristic practical detail: a textile pocket tied at the waist, which functionally corresponds to the modern handbag or pocket. Such textile pockets are called delmonai (pl.) and are usually decorated with colorful ornaments. The purpose of this article is introducing the prototypes of the ornamental motifs in terms of intercultural comparison, employing the visual materials collected by the author and historically formed intercultural contacts. While introducing her hypothesis of possible long-term influences, the author presents décor samples from identical or related textile pockets (from the 17th century until the middle of the 20th century), discussing the possibilities of their finding way to the Lithuania Minor. Researching the change occurring in the décor motifs, the author employs comparative analysis of the traditional (from the beginning of the 19th century until 1930s) and modern (from the beginning of the 21st century) textile pockets, still used as part of the national costume of the Lithuania Minor. The origins of several decorative motifs, e.g. the wreath, the crowned musical instrument, and the flower bouquet, are analyzed in more detail. The vegetal ornaments predominate in the décor of the textile pockets from the Lithuania Minor, including blossoms, branches, bouquets, leafs, wreaths and stylized trees. Certain modes of representation have been appropriated by the folk art from professional art or textiles. The most important centers of high fashion emerging in France, Italy, and Germany, exercised certain impact on tendencies occurring in the folk handicraft. Examples of textile pockets worn by the nobility were widely promoted by the periodicals. The surviving samples of embroidery patterns indicate one of the possible sources for the textile pockets’ décor in the Lithuania Minor: namely, the printed sheets with ornamental patterns, used by the nobility and lower social classes alike. Another likely source would be functionally similar needlework by women from the neighboring countries, since textile pockets make part of the national costume there as well. Sea trade created favorable conditions for commercial and cultural interchange between neighbors. The motif of wreath, rather frequently used in the Lithuania Minor, and the occasional motif of the flower bouquet also occur on textile pockets from Pomerania (the border region between Poland and Germany). Ornamentation of the pockets from Bavaria (in Germany) is also rather close in character to the décor of the Lithuania Minor. Such congruities may be determined by several reasons. Firstly, the producers of these textile works could have had interconnections (after the onslaught of devastating plague in Europe, numerous people from Salzburg moved to the fertile but rather wasted out territories of the Lithuania Minor). Secondly, the producers could have used the same original pattern, e.g. the printed sheet. However, although the mutual influence in the needlework décor of the neighboring countries determined by their economic and cultural connections is obvious, the décor of the textile pockets from the Lithuania Minor stands out in terms of its peculiar features (particular colors, modes of décor, etc.).In terms of spreading the regional ethnic culture, the problem of preserving the regional character of the folk art acquires special significance. Although separate parts of the national costumes inevitably change as result of the technical innovations increasingly applied to their production, these costumes should still remain recognizable as a continuation of the folk attire characteristic to the particular region. The patterns of décor used while making the textile pockets nowadays follow to some extent the traditional motifs of floral compositions. Although individual authors tend to create their original compositions, the majority of the textile pockets produced as part of the national costume of the Lithuania Minor still are easily recognizable as belonging to this particular region. The ornamental motifs are not especially distanced from the original ones as well, with embroidered flower bouquets and wreaths still making the majority. However, the motifs of the bouquet placed in a bag and the crowned musical instrument have lost their popularity. Rather than just making part of the national costume of the Lithuania Minor, the textile pockets increasingly appear as part of the modern clothing characterizing its regional peculiarity.

AbstractPhilips Wouwerman(s) was undoubtedly the most accomplished and successful Dutch painter of equestrian scenes in the 17th century. Even so, neither a critical study of his work nor a documented biography has been published. The present essay not only presents the results of archive research but also outlines his artistic development. Besides the seven dated pictures by the artist known by Hofstede de Groot, several others have been discovered. Wouwerman was born in Haarlem, the eldest son of the painter Pouwels Joosten and his fourth wife, Susanna van den Bogert. Two other sons, Pieter and Johannes Wouwerman, were also to become painters. Wouwerman's grandfather originally came from Brussels. Philips probably received his first painting lessons from his father, none of whose work has been identified however, making it impossible to determine the extent of his influence on the son's work. According to Cornelis de Bie, Wouwerman was next apprenticed to Frans Hals. He is subsequently reputed to have spent several weeks in 1638 or 1639 working in Hamburg in the studio of the German history painter Evert Decker. In Hamburg he married Annetje Pietersz van Broeckhof. On 4 September 1640 Wouwerman became a member of the Haarlem painters' guild, in which he held the office of vinder in 1646. In the following years his presence in Haarlem is mentioned repeatedly. In view of the many southern elements in his landscapes it has frequently been suggested that Wouwerman travelled to France or Italy. However, there is no documentary evidence of his having left Haarlem for any length of time. Wouwerman died on 19 May 1668 and was buried on 23 May 1668 in the Nieuwe Kerk in Haarlem. He evidently attained a certain degree of prosperity, going by the relatively large sums of money each of his seven children inherited on his widow's death in 1670 and by the various houses he owned. No confirmation can be found of Arnold Houbraken's often quoted remark that Wouwerman's daughter Ludovica brought a dowry of 20,000 guilders with her in 1672 when she married the painter Hendrik de Fromantiou (1633/34 - after 1694). Wouwerman's oeuvre consists mainly of small cabinet pieces with horses, such as battle and hunting scenes, army camps, smithies and interiors of stables. He also painted sensitively executed silvery-grey landscapes, genre pieces and a few original representations of religious and mythological scenes. Wouwerman was also exceptionally prolific. Although he only lived to the age of 48, more than a thousand paintings bear his name. Even when one bears in mind that a number of these paintings should actually be attributed to his brothers Pieter and Jan, Philips left an extraordinarily large oeuvre. Only a small number of drawings by his hand are known. His pupils include Nicolaes Ficke, Jacob Warnars, Emanuel Murant and his brothers Pieter (1623-1682) and Jan Wouwerman (1629-1666). He had many followers and his paintings were much sought after in the i8th and early 19th centuries, especially in France. Important collections created during that period, including those which form the nuclei of the museums in St Petersburg, Dresden and The Hague, all contain a large number of his works. Establishing a chronology with respect to Philips Wouwerman's work is extremely problematic. His extensive oeuvre notwithstanding, only a comparatively small number of paintings are dated. The style of the signature enables us to date pictures only within wide margins: the monogram composed of P, H, and W was only used before 1646; thenceforth he used a monogram composed of PHILS and W. Wouwerman's earliest dated work, of 1639 (sale London, Christie's, October 10, 1972), is of minor quality. However, during the 1640s his talents improved rapidly. During that period he was strongly influenced by the Haarlem painter Pieter van Laer (1599 - after 1642) with respect to both style and subject matter. This tallies with Houbraken's remark that Wouwerman laid his hands on sketches and studies by Van Laer after that artist's death. Van Laer's influence is evident in Attack on a Coach, dated 1644, in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Vaduz. Several figures and details are quotations from works by Van Laer. Most of Wouwerman's compositions of the mid-1640os are dominated by a diagonally placed hill or dune covering most of the horizon, a tree - often dead - as a repoussoir and a few rather large figures, usually with horses. Landscape with Peasants Merrymaking in front of a Cottage in the City Art Gallery, Manchester, Battle Scene in the National Gallery, London and Landscape with a Resting Horseman in the Museum der Bildcnden Künste, Leipzig, all dated 1646, are proof that Wouwerman gradually developed his own style; nonetheless, Van Laer continued to be an important source of inspiration. As demonstrated by the four known dated paintings of 1649, the artist had replaced his sombre palette for a more colourful one by that time, and had also adopted a predominantly more horizontal scheme for his compositions. During that same period Wouwerman' pictures came to reflect a growing interest in landscape, and in the first half of the 1650s he produced a number of paintings which bear witness to his mastery of the landscape idiom. In a Landscape with Horsemen, of 1652, in a private British collection, painted in silvery tones, the figures and horses are reduced to a fairly insignificant staffage. Genre elements continued to play an important role in most of his paintings, though. One of his most successful works of that period is the Festive Peasants before a Panorama, dated 1653, in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Perhaps nowhere else in his oeuvre did the artist succeed in producing such a happy synthesis of genre and landscape elements. In the second half of the 1650s Wouwerman painted many of the fanciful hunting scenes - often with a vaguely Italian setting and brighter local colours - which were particularly sought after in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Only a few dated works from the last decade of his life have been preserved, but they do show a tendency towards more sombre colours and suggest a slight decline in his artistic skills. Van Laer's stylistic influence on Wouwerman had almost disappeared by then, although it continued to play a major role in terms of subject matter. After the middle of the 19th century Wouwerman's popularity waned, but more recently his work has met with increasing acclaim.

AbstractAry Scheffer (1795-1858) is so generally included in the French School (Note 2)- unsurprisingly, since his career was confined almost entirely to Paris - that the fact that he was born and partly trained in the Netherlands is often overlooked. Yet throughout his life he kept in touch with Dutch colleagues and drew part of his inspiration from Dutch traditions. These Dutch aspects are the subject of this article. The Amsterdam City Academy, 1806-9 Ary Scheffer was enrolled at the Amsterdam Academy on 25 October 1806, his parents falsifying his date of birth in order to get him admitted at the age of eleven (fifteen was the oficial age) . He started in the third class and in order to qualify for the second he had to be one of the winners in the prize drawing contest. Candidates in this were required to submit six drawings made during the months January to March. Although no-one was supposed to enter until he had been at the Academy for four years, Ary Scheffer competed in both 1808 and 1809. Some of his signed drawings are preserved in Dordrecht. (Figs. 1-5 and 7), along with others not made for the contest. These last in particular are interesting not only because they reveal his first prowess, but also because they give some idea of the Academy practice of his day. Although the training at the Academy broadly followed the same lines as that customary in France, Italy and elsewhere (Note 4), our knowledge of its precise content is very patchy, since there was no set curriculum and no separate teachers for each subject. Two of Scheffer's drawings (Figs. 2 and 3) contain extensive notes, which amount to a more or less complete doctrine of proportion. It is not known who his teacher was or what sources were used, but the proportions do not agree with those in Van der Passe's handbook, which came into vogue in the 18th century, or with those of the canon of a Leonardo, Dürer or Lebrun. One gets the impression that what are given here are the exact measurements of a concrete example. Scheffer's drawings show him gradually mastering the rudiments of art. In earlier examples the hatching is sometimes too hasty (Fig. 4) or too rigidly parallel (Fig.5), while his knowledge of anatomy is still inadequate and his observation not careful enough. But right from the start he shows flair and as early as 1807 he made a clever drawing of a relatively complex group (Fig. 6) , while the difficult figure of Marsyas was already well captured in 1808 and clearly evinces his growing knowledge o f anatomy, proportion , foreshortening and the effects of light (Fig. 7). The same development can be observed in his portrait drawings. That of Gerardus Vrolik (1775-1859, Fig.8), a professor at the Atheneum Illustre (the future university) and Scheffer' s teacher, with whom he always kept in touch (Note 6), is still not entirely convincing, but a portrait of 1809, thought to be of his mother (Fig.9, Note 7), shows him working much more systematically. It is not known when he left the Academy, but from the summer of 1809 we find him in France, where he was to live with only a few breaks from 1811 to his death. The first paintings and the Amsterdam exhibitions of 1808 and 1810 Ary Scheffer's earliest known history painting, Hannibal Swearing to Avenge his Brother Hasdrubal's Death (Fig. 10) Notes 8-10) was shown at the first exhibition of living masters in Amsterdam in 1808. Although there was every reason for giving this subject a Neo-Classical treatment, the chiaroscuro, earthy colours and free brushwork show Scheffer opting for the old Dutch tradition rather than the modern French style. This was doubtless on the prompting of his parents,for a comment in a letter from his mother in 1810 (Note 12) indicates that she shared the reservations of the Dutch in general about French Neo-Classicism. (Note 11). As the work of a twelve to thirteen year old, the painting naturally leaves something to be desired: the composition is too crowded and unbalanced and the anatomy of the secondary figures rudimentary. In a watercolour Scheffer made of the same subject, probably in the 1820's, he introduced much more space between the figures (Fig. 11, Note 13). Two portraits are known from this early period. The first, of Johanna Maria Verbeek (Fig. 12, Note 14), was done when the two youngsters were aged twelve. It again shows all the characteristics of an early work, being schematic in its simplicity, with some rather awkward details and inadequate plasticity. On the other hand the hair and earrings are fluently rendered, the colours harmonious and the picture has an undeniable charm. At the second exhibition of works by living masters in 1810, Ary Scheffer showed a 'portrait of a painter' (Fig. 13), who was undoubtedly his uncle Arnoldus Lamme, who also had work in the exhibition as did Scheffer's recently deceased father Johan-Bernard and his mother Cornelia Scheffer-Lamme, an indication of the stimulating surroundings in which he grew up. The work attracted general attention (Note 16) and it does, indeed, show a remarkable amount of progress, the plasticity, effects of light, brushwork and colour all revealing skill and care in their execution. The simple, bourgeois character of the portrait not only fits in with the Dutch tradition which Scheffer had learned from both his parents in Amsterdam, but also has points in common with the recent developments in France, which he could have got to know during his spell in Lille from autumn 1809 onwards. A Dutchman in Paris Empire and Restoration, 1811-30 In Amsterdam Scheffer had also been laught by his mother, a miniature painter, and his father, a portrait and history painter (Note 17). After his father's death in June 1809, his mother, who not only had a great influence on his artistic career, but also gave his Calvinism and a great love of literature (Note 18), wanted him to finish his training in Paris. After getting the promise of a royal grant from Louis Napoleon for this (Note 19) and while waiting for it to materialize, she sent the boy to Lille to perfect his French as well as further his artistic training. In 1811 Scheffer settled in Paris without a royal grant or any hope of one. He may possibly have studied for a short time under Prudhon (Note 20) , but in the autumn of 1811 he was officially contracted as a pupil of Guérin, one of the leading artists of the school of David, under whom he mastered the formulas of NeD-Classicism, witness his Orpheus and Eurydice (Fïg.14), shown in the Salon of 1814. During his first ten years in Paris Scheffer also painted many genre pieces in order, so he said, to earn a living for himself and his mother. Guérin's prophecy that he would make a great career as a history painter (Note 21) soon came true, but not in the way Guérin thought it would, Scheffer participating in the revolution initiated by his friends and fellow-pupils, Géricault and Delacroix, which resulted in the rise of the Romantic Movement. It was not very difficult for him to break with Neo-Classicism, for with his Dutch background he felt no great affinity with it (Note 22). This development is ilustrated by his Gaston de Foix Dying on the Battlefield After his Victory at Ravenna, shown at the Salon of 1824, and The Women of Souli Throwing Themselves into the Abyss (Fig.15), shown at that of 1827-8. The last years of the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Influence of Rembrandt and the Dutch masters In 1829, when he seemed to have become completely assimilated in France and had won wide renown, Scheffer took the remarkable step of returning to the Netherlands to study the methods of Rembrandt and other Dutch old masters (Note 23) . A new orientation in his work is already apparent in the Women of Souli, which is more harmonious and considered in colour than the Gaston dc Foix (Note 24). This is linked on the one hand to developments in France, where numbers of young painters had abandoned extreme Romanticism to find the 'juste milieu', and on the other to Scheffer's Dutch background. Dutch critics were just as wary of French Romanticism as they had been of Neo-Classicism, urging their own painters to revive the traditions of the Golden Age and praising the French painters of the 'juste milieu'. It is notable how many critics commented on the influence of Rembrandt on Scheffer's works, e.g. his Faust, Marguérite, Tempête and portrait of Talleyrand at the Salon of 1851 (Note 26). The last two of these date from 1828 and show that the reorientation and the interest in Rembrandt predate and were the reasons for the return to the Netherlands in 1829. In 1834 Gustave Planche called Le Larmoyeur (Fig. 16) a pastiche of Rembrandt and A. Barbier made a comparable comment on Le Roi de Thule in 1839 (Note 27). However, as Paul Mantz already noted in 1850 (Note 28), Scheffer certainly did not fully adopt Rembrandt's relief and mystic light. His approach was rather an eclectic one and he also often imbued his work with a characteristically 19th-century melancholy. He himself wrote after another visit to the Netherlands in 1849 that he felt he had touched a chord which others had not attempted (Note 29) . Contacts with Dutch artists and writers Scheffer's links with the Netherlands come out equally or even more strongly in the many contacts he maintained there. As early as 1811-12 Sminck-Pitloo visited him on his way to Rome (Note 30), to be followed in the 1820's by J.C. Schotel (Note 31), while after 1830 as his fame increased, so the contacts also became more numerous. He was sought after by and corresponded with various art dealers (Note 33) and also a large number of Dutch painters, who visited him in Paris or came to study under him (Note 32) Numerous poems were published on paintings by him from 1838 onwards, while Jan Wap and Alexander Ver Huell wrote at length about their visits to him (Note 34) and a 'Scheffer Album' was compiled in 1859. Thus he clearly played a significant role in the artistic life of the Netherlands. International orientation As the son of a Dutch mother and a German father, Scheffer had an international orientation right from the start. Contemporary critics and later writers have pointed out the influences from English portrait painting and German religious painting detectable in his work (Note 35). Extracts from various unpublished letters quoted here reveal how acutely aware he was of what was likely to go down well not only in the Netherlands, but also in a country like England, where he enjoyed great fame (Notes 36-9) . July Monarchy and Second Empire. The last decades While most French artists of his generation seemed to have found their definitive style under the July Monarchy, Scheffer continued to search for new forms of expression. In the 1830's, at the same time as he painted his Rembrandtesque works, he also produced his famous Francesca da Rimini (Fig. 17), which is closer to the 'juste milieu' in its dark colours and linear accents. In the 1840's he used a simple and mainly bright palette without any picturesque effects, e.g. in his SS. Augustine and Monica and The Sorrows of the Earth (Note 41), but even this was not his last word. In an incident that must have occurred around 1857 he cried out on coming across some of his earlier works that he had made a mistake since then and wasted his time (Note 42) and in his Calvin of 1858 (Fig. 18) he resumed his former soft chiaroscuro and warm tones. It is characteristic of him that in that same year he painted a last version of The Sorrows of the Earth in the light palette of the 1840's. Despite the difficulty involved in the precise assessment of influences on a painter with such a complex background, it is clear that even in his later period, when his work scored its greatest successes in France, England and Germany, Scheffer always had a strong bond with the Netherlands and that he not only contributed to the artistic life there, but always retained a feeling for the traditions of his first fatherland. Appendix An appendix is devoted to a study of the head of an old man in Dordrecht, which is catalogued as a copy of a 17th-century painting in the style of Rembrandt done by Ary Scheffer at the age of twelve (Fig.19, Note 43). This cannot be correct, as it is much better than the other works by the twelve-year-old painter. Moreover, no mention is made of it in the catalogue of the retrospective exhibition held in Paris in 1859, where the Hannibal is given as his earliest work (Note 44). It was clearly unknown then, as it is not mentioned in any of the obituaries of 1858 and 1859 either. The earliest reference to it occurs in the list made bv Scheffer's daughter in 1897 of the works she was to bequeath to the Dordrecht museum. A clue to its identification may be a closely similar drawing by Cornelia Scheffer-Lamme (Fig. 20, Note 46), which is probably a copy after the head of the old man. She is known to have made copies after contemporary and 17th-century masters. The portrait might thus be attributable to Johan-Bernard Scheffer, for his wife often made copies of his works and he is known from sale catalogues to have painted various portraits of old men (Note 47, cf. Fig.21). Ary Scheffer also knew this. In 1839 his uncle Arnoldus Lamme wrote to him that he would look out for such a work at a sale (Note 48). It may be that he succeeded in finding one and that this portrait came into the possession of the Scheffer family in that way, but Johan-Bernard's work is too little known for us to be certain about this.

Abstract A survey of the extant toccatas in the 17th-century Italian lute and theorbo repertories reveals that the toccata emerged as an important genre for these instruments in the early Baroque. The assumption that the toccata was primarily a keyboard genre has, however, meant that lute and theorbo toccatas have received little scholarly attention to date. Like the toccatas in the keyboard repertory, the lute and theorbo works in various printed and manuscript sources show the emergence of idiomatic instrumental music that was increasingly freed from vocal style and from contrapuntal traditions. Some lute and theorbo toccatas also reveal how instrumental composers working in different milieus grappled with the expressive possibilities of the new musical language of the seconda pratica. This article considers various musical and contextual aspects of the lute and theorbo toccatas in order to argue that this rich repertory not only deserves more prominence within a representative history of the toccata genre in particular, but also has much to contribute to musical and social studies of the 17th century in general.

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the figure of Francesco Maria Fiorentini, a 17th-century physician from Lucca (Tuscany, Italy) and member of the Iatromechanical School, who distinguished himself for his role during the plague and the typhus epidemics that spread throughout Italy in the first half of that century. His work must be contextualized in a precise historical moment, which marked the gradual transition of Western medicine from the archaism of Galenic doctrine to that of the Iatromechanical School, when the foundations started to be laid for an experimental type of medicine that based its assumptions on the direct observation of phenomena concerning the human body. In this work, we mainly focus on the medical biography of Fiorentini and on the reasons why he enjoyed great social prestige among the most prominent figures of his time. However, Fiorentini should also be remembered as a multifaceted scholar, as evidenced by his numerous writings, which underline his erudition in disparate fields of knowledge.

The ceiling decoration of the Great Hall of Brežice Castle was executed for the Attems family by the painter Franz Carl Remp in 1702–1703. Its form had most probably been inspired by an engraving, reproducing the fresco by Pietro da Cortona in the hall of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. During the 17th century, many engravings of various motifs and types were used as models for monumental paintings in Central Europe. However, it was above all graphic reproductions of famous ceiling paintings in different artistic centres in Italy which inspired the qualitative turn of Central European ceiling painting around 1700.

Abstract An understanding of destructive historic eruptions has important implications for the assessment of active plumbing systems and the processes that might precede future hazardous eruptions. At Mount Etna (Sicily, Italy), magma production and eruption frequency have increased dramatically since 1970, however, the recent eruptions are considerably less voluminous than those of the 17th century, which occurred at greater intervals. Seventeenth century activity culminated in the 1669 flank eruption, the most voluminous and destructive in Etna’s recorded history, marking the beginning of a new eruptive period. In this study, we examine trace element zoning patterns recorded in clinopyroxene (lava hosted microcrysts: 0·5–1 mm, lava hosted macrocrysts: 1–5 mm and scoria hosted megacrysts: >5 mm) to reconstruct magma dynamics leading up to the 1669 eruption. The clinopyroxene data are considered alongside previous studies of olivine and plagioclase to present an updated conceptual model for the plumbing system, providing a better understanding of magmatic processes in the lead up to hazardous volcanism. Petrological observations in combination with laser ablation ICP-MS mapping reveal sharp compositional zoning of clinopyroxene, not seen in major element transects. Trace element data, including Cr, Zr, Ni and rare earth elements, show that core, mantle and rim regions originated in distinct magmatic environments. Chromium-rich cores (up to 1080 ppm Cr) are in disequilibrium with the glassy-microcrystalline host groundmass and indicate crystal inheritance from a primitive magma source. Oscillatory zoning in the mantle of the crystals suggests a sustained period of magma replenishment and crystallization. Finally, ubiquitous Cr-rich (170–220 ppm) rims host many large melt inclusions, suggesting a final recharge event inducing relatively rapid crystal growth and eruption. Temperatures of 1120–1160 ± 27°C and pressures of 300–600 ± 200 MPa calculated for the three magmatic environments based on clinopyroxene composition at 2 wt % H2O place most of the clinopyroxene crystallization at more than 10 km depth. Measuring the consistent thickness of crystal rims (219 ± 33 µm) and assuming growth at a low degree of undercooling (10−8 cm/s), we calculate that the eruption triggering magma recharge invaded the plumbing system less than a month before eruption onset, in agreement with historical accounts of pre-eruptive seismicity. Notably, Cr enrichment in the recharge magma was not coupled with increases in MgO content. We therefore propose that a cryptic recharge with similar composition to the resident melt may have tipped the system to erupt, and that the volume of recharge rather than composition or temperature acted as the primary trigger. Finally, LA-ICP-MS maps of clinopyroxene from the previous eruption of Mount Etna (1651–53) revealed strikingly similar compositional zonation to that of 1669, supporting the notion that magmatic storage environments, associated with voluminous 17th century activity, were long-lived.

The south-western Sardinian coast (Italy), in the sector between the small village of Chia (Domus de Maria) and the Piscinnì locality (Teulada), is one of the most interesting of the island, being characterized by a wide geodiversity, a complex history testified by several archaeological sites, rich ecosystems, and beautiful landscapes. This area is already famous as a seaside resort, but its rich geological heritage is totally unrecognized and the educational and touristic potential of its archaeological sites is widely undervalued. In this paper, we propose an itinerary in seven stages, each of which selected considering mainly its geology (geodiversity, scientific relevance of the geological features, and educational potential), and also the additional values as the presence of archaeological sites and/or of ecological diversity and/or touristic attractions. The aim of this work is to propose the study area as a geotrail since it represents a valuable geological (and not only) heritage to be protected, preserved, and valorized in the broadest meaning of the word. The following sites have been selected: Chia tower hill, showing interesting geological features and the Punic-Roman archaeological site of Bithia; Campana and Su Giudeu beaches with their dune system and the adjacent wetlands; Settiballas, near to the Chia-Laguna resort displaying a significant geological contact; Capo Spartivento rias and cliffs; Tuerredda beach and sand dunes; Capo Malfatano, a panoramic promontory made up of 460 million years old metamorphic rocks; and Piscinnì area, where a beautiful beach and a wide Punic/Roman sandstone quarry can be observed. In addition, the most panoramic points are overlooked by Spanish towers built during the 16th to 17th century. The study area is described from geological and archaeological points of view, after a detailed field survey, the petrographic characterization of the main rocks, and an overview of the scientific literature. The quantitative assessment of the geosite values has been also performed, revealing the high potential for scientific, educational, and touristic purposes. The main concerns related to the preservation and valorization of this geosite are also addressed. Finally, a discussion on the geosite assessment methods is proposed to contribute to the scientific literature on the geoheritage. The site-by-site description is reported at the end of the paper to be used as a field guide.

Cremer, Annette C. / Martin Mulsow (Hrsg.), Objekte als Quellen der historischen Kulturwissenschaften. Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung (Ding, Materialität, Geschichte, 2), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2017, Böhlau, 352 S. / Abb., € 50,00. (Alexander Georg Durben, Münster) Pfister, Ulrich (Hrsg.), Kulturen des Entscheidens. Narrative – Praktiken – Ressourcen (Kulturen des Entscheidens, 1), Göttingen 2019, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 409 S. / Abb., € 70,00. (Wolfgang Reinhard, Freiburg i. Br.) Krischer, André (Hrsg.), Verräter. Geschichte eines Deutungsmusters, Wien / Köln / Weimar 2019, Böhlau, 353 S. / Abb., € 39,00. (Wolfgang Reinhard, Freiburg i. Br.) Baumbach, Hendrik / Horst Carl (Hrsg.), Landfrieden – epochenübergreifend. Neue Perspektiven der Landfriedensforschung auf Verfassung, Recht, Konflikt (Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Beiheft 54), Berlin 2018, Duncker & Humblot, 280 S., € 69,90. (Fabian Schulze, Ulm / Augsburg) Ertl, Thomas (Hrsg.), Erzwungene Exile. 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(Jörg Rogge, Mainz) Hole, Jennifer, Economic Ethics in Late Medieval England, 1300 – 1500 (Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics), Cham 2016, Palgrave Macmillan, XII u. 300 S., € 123,04. (Petra Schulte, Trier) Klingner, Jens / Benjamin Müsegades (Hrsg.), (Un)‌Gleiche Kurfürsten? Die Pfalzgrafen bei Rhein und die Herzöge von Sachsen im späten Mittelalter (1356 – 1547) (Heidelberger Veröffentlichungen zur Landesgeschichte und Landeskunde, 19), Heidelberg 2017, Universitätsverlag Winter, 280 S. / Abb., € 45,00. (Jörg Schwarz, München) Mütze, Dirk M., Das Augustiner-Chorherrenstift St. Afra in Meißen (1205 – 1539) (Schriften zur sächsischen Geschichte und Volkskunde, 54), Leipzig 2016, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 434 S. / Abb., € 49,00. (Stefan Tebruck, Gießen) Langeloh, Jacob, Erzählte Argumente. Exempla und historische Argumentation in politischen Traktaten c. 1265 – 1325 (Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 123), Leiden / Boston 2017, Brill, X u. 414 S., € 128,00. (Frank Godthardt, Hamburg) The Dedicated Spiritual Life of Upper Rhine Noble Women. A Study and Translation of a Fourteenth-Century Spiritual Biography of Gertrude Rickeldey of Ortenberg and Heilke of Staufenberg, hrsg., komm. u. übers. v. Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker in Zusammenarbeit mit Gertrud J. Lewis / Tilman Lewis / Michael Hopf / Freimut Löser (Sanctimoniales, 2), Turnhout 2017, Brepols, VIII u. 269 S., € 80,00. (Jörg Voigt, Rom) Roeck, Bernd, Der Morgen der Welt. Geschichte der Renaissance (Historische Bibliothek der Gerda Henkel Stiftung), München 2017, Beck, 1304 S. / Abb., € 44,00. (Reinhard Stauber, Klagenfurt) Eming, Jutta / Michael Dallapiazza (Hrsg.), Marsilio Ficino in Deutschland und Italien. Renaissance-Magie zwischen Wissenschaft und Literatur (Episteme in Bewegung, 7), Wiesbaden 2017, Harrassowitz, VIII u. 291 S. / Abb., € 56,00. (Michaela Boenke, München) Furstenberg-Levi, Shulamit, The Accademia Pontaniana. A Model of a Humanist Network (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 258), Leiden / London 2016, Brill, VIII u. 223 S., € 116,00. (Tobias Daniels, München) Andermann, Ulrich, Humanismus im Nordwesten. Köln – Niederrhein – Westfalen, Münster 2018, Aschendorff, 361 S., € 56,00. (Jan-Hendryk de Boer, Essen) Adams, Jonathan / Cordelia Heß (Hrsg.), Revealing the Secrets of the Jews. Johannes Pfefferkorn and Christian Writings about Jewish Life and Literature in Early Modern Europe, Berlin / Boston 2017, de Gruyter, XV u. 325 S. / Abb., € 79,95. (Gudrun Emberger, Berlin) Buchet, Christian / Gérard Le Bouëdec (Hrsg.), The Sea in History / La mer dans l’histoire, [Bd. 3:] The Early Modern World / La période moderne, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge / Rochester 2017, The Boydell Press, XXVI u. 1072 S., £ 125,00. (Jann M. Witt, Laboe) Broomhall, Susan (Hrsg.), Early Modern Emotions. An Introduction (Early Modern Themes), London / New York 2017, Routledge, XXXVIII u. 386 S. / Abb., £ 36,99. (Hannes Ziegler, London) Faini, Marco / Alessia Meneghin (Hrsg.), Domestic Devotions in the Early Modern World (Intersections, 59.2), Leiden / Boston 2019, Brill, XXII u. 356 S. / Abb., € 154,00. (Volker Leppin, Tübingen) Richardson, Catherine / Tara Hamling / David Gaimster (Hrsg.), The Routledge Handbook of Material Culture in Early Modern Europe (The Routledge History Handbook), London / New York 2017, Routledge, XIX u. 485 S. / Abb. £ 105,00. (Kim Siebenhüner, Jena) Ilmakunnas, Johanna / Jon Stobart (Hrsg.), A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe. Display, Acquisition and Boundaries, London [u. a.] 2017, Bloomsbury Academic, XV u. 318 S. / Abb., £ 85,00. (Kim Siebenhüner, Jena) Czeguhn, Ignacio / José Antonio López Nevot / Antonio Sánchez Aranda (Hrsg.), Control of Supreme Courts in Early Modern Europe (Schriften zur Rechtsgeschichte, 181), Berlin 2018, Duncker & Humblot, 323 S. / Abb., € 89,90. (Peter Oestmann, Münster) Heuser, Beatrice (Hrsg.), Small Wars and Insurgencies in Theory and Practice, 1500 – 1850, London / New York 2016, Routledge, XII u. 219 S., £ 29,95. (Horst Carl, Gießen) Koopmans, Joop W., Early Modern Media and the News in Europe. Perspectives from the Dutch Angle (Library of the Written Word, 70; The Handpress World, 54), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XVII u. 361 S. / Abb., € 140,00. (Johannes Arndt, Münster) Miller, John, Early Modern Britain. 1450 – 1750 (Cambridge History of Britain, 3), Cambridge 2017, Cambridge University Press, XVIII u. 462 S. / Abb., £ 22,99. (Michael Schaich, London) Blickle, Renate, Politische Streitkultur in Altbayern. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Grundrechte in der frühen Neuzeit, hrsg. v. Claudia Ulbrich / Michaela Hohkamp / Andrea Griesebner (Quellen und Forschungen zur Agrargeschichte, 58), Berlin / Boston 2017, de Gruyter, XII u. 226 S., € 69,95. (Thomas Wallnig, Wien) Näther, Birgit, Die Normativität des Praktischen. Strukturen und Prozesse vormoderner Verwaltungsarbeit. Das Beispiel der landesherrlichen Visitation in Bayern (Verhandeln, Verfahren, Entscheiden, 4), Münster 2017, Aschendorff, 215 S. / Abb., € 41,00. (Franziska Neumann, Rostock) Sherer, Idan, Warriors for a Living. The Experience of the Spanish Infantry during the Italian Wars, 1494 – 1559 (History of Warfare, 114), Leiden / Boston 2017, Brill, VIII u. 289 S. / Abb., € 120,00. (Heinrich Lang, Leipzig) Abela, Joan, Hospitaller Malta and the Mediterranean Economy in the Sixteenth Century, Woodbridge 2018, The Boydell Press, XXVI u. 263 S. / Abb., £ 75,00. (Magnus Ressel, Frankfurt a. M.) Bünz, Enno / Werner Greiling / Uwe Schirmer (Hrsg.), Thüringische Klöster und Stifte in vor- und frühreformatorischer Zeit (Quellen und Forschungen zu Thüringen im Zeitalter der Reformation, 6), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2017, Böhlau, 461 S., € 60,00. (Ingrid Würth, Halle a. d. S.) Witt, Christian V., Martin Luthers Reformation der Ehe. Sein theologisches Eheverständnis vor dessen augustinisch-mittelalterlichem Hintergrund (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation, 95), Tübingen 2017, Mohr Siebeck, XIV u. 346 S., € 99,00. (Iris Fleßenkämper, Münster) Freitag, Werner / Wilfried Reininghaus (Hrsg.), Beiträge zur Geschichte der Reformation in Westfalen, Bd. 1: „Langes“ 15. Jahrhundert, Übergänge und Zäsuren. Beiträge der Tagung am 30. und 31. Oktober 2015 in Lippstadt (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Westfalen. Neue Folge, 35), Münster 2017, Aschendorff, 352 S. / Abb., € 39,00. (Andreas Rutz, Düsseldorf) Hartmann, Thomas F., Die Reichstage unter Karl V. Verfahren und Verfahrensentwicklung 1521 – 1555 (Schriftenreihe der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 100), Göttingen / Bristol 2017, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 370 S., € 70,00. (Reinhard Seyboth, Regensburg) Der Reichstag zu Regensburg 1541, 4 Teilbde., bearb. v. Albrecht P. Luttenberger (Deutsche Reichstagsakten. Jüngere Reihe, 11), Berlin / Boston 2018, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 3777 S., € 598,00. (Eva Ortlieb, Graz) Putten, Jasper van, Networked Nation. Mapping German Cities in Sebastian Münster’s „Cosmographia“ (Maps, Spaces, Cultures, 1), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XXIII u. 353 S. / Abb., € 135,00. (Felicitas Schmieder, Hagen) Müller, Winfried / Martina Schattkowski / Dirk Syndram (Hrsg.), Kurfürst August von Sachsen. Ein nachreformatorischer „Friedensfürst“ zwischen Territorium und Reich. Beiträge zur wissenschaftlichen Tagung vom 9. bis 11. Juli 2015 in Torgau und Dresden, Dresden 2017, Sandstein, 240 S. / Abb., € 28,00. (Vinzenz Czech, Potsdam) Haas, Alexandra, Hexen und Herrschaftspolitik. Die Reichsgrafen von Oettingen und ihr Umgang mit den Hexenprozessen im Vergleich (Hexenforschung, 17), Bielefeld 2018, Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 319 S. / Abb., € 29,00. (Rainer Walz, Bochum) Flurschütz da Cruz, Andreas, Hexenbrenner, Seelenretter. Fürstbischof Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn (1573 – 1617) und die Hexenverfolgungen im Hochstift Würzburg (Hexenforschung, 16), Bielefeld 2017, Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, 252 S. / Abb., € 24,00. (Rainer Walz, Bochum) Sidler, Daniel, Heiligkeit aushandeln. Katholische Reform und lokale Glaubenspraxis in der Eidgenossenschaft (1560 – 1790) (Campus Historische Studien, 75), Frankfurt a. M. / New York 2017, Campus, 593 S. / Abb., € 58,00. (Heinrich Richard Schmidt, Bern) Moring, Beatrice / Richard Wall, Widows in European Economy and Society, 1600 – 1920, Woodbridge / Rochester 2017, The Boydell Press, XIII u. 327 S. / Abb., £ 75,00. (Margareth Lanzinger, Wien) Katsiardi-Hering, Olga / Maria A. Stassinopoulou (Hrsg.), Across the Danube. Southeastern Europeans and Their Travelling Identities (17th–19th C.) (Studies in Global Social History, 27; Studies in Global Migration History, 9), Leiden / Boston 2017, Brill, VIII u. 330 S. / Abb., € 110,00. (Olivia Spiridon, Tübingen) „wobei mich der liebe Gott wunderlich beschutzet“. Die Schreibkalender des Clamor Eberhard von dem Bussche zu Hünnefeld (1611 – 1666). Edition mit Kommentar, hrsg. v. Lene Freifrau von dem Bussche-Hünnefeld / Stephanie Haberer, [Bramsche] 2017, Rasch, 216 S. / Abb., € 34,50. (Helga Meise, Reims) Rohrschneider, Michael / Anuschka Tischer (Hrsg.), Dynamik durch Gewalt? Der Dreißigjährige Krieg (1618 – 1648) als Faktor der Wandlungsprozesse des 17. Jahrhunderts (Schriftenreihe zur Neueren Geschichte, 38; Neue Folge, 1), Münster 2018, Aschendorff, VII u. 342 S. / Abb., € 48,00. (Claire Gantet, Fribourg) Schloms, Antje, Institutionelle Waisenfürsorge im Alten Reich 1648 – 1806. Statistische Analyse und Fallbeispiele (Beiträge zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, 129), Stuttgart 2017, Steiner, 395 S., € 62,00. (Iris Ritzmann, Zürich) Mühling, Christian, Die europäische Debatte über den Religionskrieg (1679 – 1714). Konfessionelle Memoria und internationale Politik im Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV. (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz, 250), Göttingen 2018, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 587 S., € 85,00. (Cornel Zwierlein, Bamberg) Dietz, Bettina, Das System der Natur. Die kollaborative Wissenskultur der Botanik im 18. Jahrhundert, Köln / Weimar / Wien 2017, Böhlau, 216 S., € 35,00. (Flemming Schock, Leipzig) Friedrich, Markus / Alexander Schunka (Hrsg.), Reporting Christian Missions in the Eighteenth Century. Communication, Culture of Knowledge and Regular Publication in a Cross-Confessional Perspective (Jabloniana, 8), Wiesbaden 2017, Harrassowitz, 196 S., € 52,00. (Nadine Amsler, Frankfurt a. M.) Berkovich, Ilya, Motivation in War. The Experience of Common Soldiers in Old-Regime Europe, Cambridge / New York 2017, Cambridge University Press, XII u. 280 S. / graph. Darst., £ 22,99. (Marian Füssel, Göttingen) Stöckl, Alexandra, Der Principalkommissar. Formen und Bedeutung sozio-politischer Repräsentation im Hause Thurn und Taxis (Thurn und Taxis Studien. Neue Folge, 10), Regensburg 2018, Pustet, VII u. 280 S., € 34,95. (Dorothée Goetze, Bonn) Wunder, Dieter, Der Adel im Hessen des 18. Jahrhunderts – Herrenstand und Fürstendienst. Grundlagen einer Sozialgeschichte des Adels in Hessen (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Hessen, 84), Marburg 2016, Historische Kommission für Hessen, XIV u. 844 S. / Abb., € 39,00. (Alexander Kästner, Dresden) Mährle, Wolfgang (Hrsg.), Aufgeklärte Herrschaft im Konflikt. Herzog Carl Eugen von Württemberg 1728 – 1793. Tagung des Arbeitskreises für Landes- und Ortsgeschichte im Verband der württembergischen Geschichts- und Altertumsvereine am 4. und 5. Dezember 2014 im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart (Geschichte Württembergs, 1), Stuttgart 2017, Kohlhammer, 354 S. / Abb., € 25,00. (Dietmar Schiersner, Weingarten) Bennett, Rachel E., Capital Punishment and the Criminal Corpse in Scotland, 1740 – 1834 (Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and its Afterlife), Cham 2018, Palgrave Macmillan, XV u. 237 S., € 29,96. (Benjamin Seebröker, Dresden) York, Neil L., The American Revolution, 1760 – 1790. New Nation as New Empire, New York / London 2016, Routledge, XIII u. 151 S. / Karten, Hardcover, £ 125,00. (Volker Depkat, Regensburg) Richter, Roland, Amerikanische Revolution und niederländische Finanzanleihen 1776 – 1782. Die Rolle John Adams’ und der Amsterdamer Finanzhäuser bei der diplomatischen Anerkennung der USA (Niederlande-Studien, 57), Münster / New York 2016, Waxmann, 185 S. / Abb., € 29,90. (Volker Depkat, Regensburg) Steiner, Philip, Die Landstände in Steiermark, Kärnten und Krain und die josephinischen Reformen. Bedrohungskommunikation angesichts konkurrierender Ordnungsvorstellungen (1789 – 1792), Münster 2017, Aschendorff, 608 S. / Abb., € 59,00 (Simon Karstens, Trier)

The craft of portable flint-lock firearms has been developed in the Balkan area under the influence of OttomanTurks. The military needs made the Ottomans to support the start up and development of the weaponryproduction related crafts in the Balkan Peninsula. The armorers, who came from the East together with theOttoman army, were part of the janissary troops, the latter being the ones who taught the local craftsmen the secretof manufacturing such weapons.Most of the Balkan flint-lock pistols used an exterior spring-based arming mechanism, also referred to asmiquelet, as Spanish mechanism, or a Turkish mechanism, depending on the context it was used on most orientalC rearms. During the same period, the western C rearms were based on an interior spring-based arming mechanism(the spring was incorporated within the mechanism), also referred to as the French mechanism, developed andenhanced by the French armorers around 1630. The French mechanism was used in the Balkan area especiallyduring the 19th century for the kubura flintlock pistols.The consolidation of the Ottoman authority in the Balkan area led to important changes in respect to the wayof life of the autochthon Christian population. In many towns from Kosovo and Metohija, Bosnia, Herzegovina,Montenegro, Macedonia, Northern Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, the weaponry workshop productionwas significantly developed, during the 17th, 18th and especially in the 19th centuries. In the aforementionedcenters, the firearms were manufactured both for the local needs and for their trading in other provinces inthe Ottoman Empire. The weaponry workshops had been increasingly developed, especially in the peripheralpashaliks of the Ottoman Empire (Bosnia and Herzegovina), but also in the territories where the Ottomanauthority had been weakened and the anarchy danger had been as real as possible (Northern Albania). In theBalkan workshops, where the flintlock firearms were manufactured, both the barrels and the actual mechanismswere initially imported from Northern Italy. In time, especially in the 19th century, the autochthon armorersmanaged to manufacture the barrels (Prizren, Fojnica) and the flintlock mechanisms (Constantinople) locally,giving thus a particularity to the firearms of the late phase of the Empire.The pistol is a portable firearm, perfect for relatively short distance fights. The name of a pistol was closelyrelated to the place of manufacture and also to the materials used for its manufacture and decoration. The flintlockpistols were characterized by downwards grips, having long bulbs ended with a metallic button. The flintlockmechanism usually used was a Spanish mechanism also referred to as miquelet.Traditionally, the pistol was often referred to as kubura. The flintlock kubura was characterized by a downwardsgrip, with a massive metallic bulb and French type flintlock mechanism and an interior cock-spring. The kuburterm is a Turkish word, widely used in the Balkans, generally standing for a cavalry pistol. These types of firearmsare usually given the name of the manufacturing place. The widely spread kubura in the Balkanic area was thekubura pećanka, manufactured by the famous workshop from Peć (Metohija).Among the flintlock Balkan pistols, we should remind ledenica, considered to be the most elegant and luxuriousBalkan pistol in the 18th–19th centuries and the Albanian pistol of Elbasan, known under the name of „Rat Tail”.Referring to these firearms, besides kubura pećanka from the Balkan Peninsula, we should mention that otherkubure were manufactured at Foča (Eastern Herzegovina) or Shkodra (Northern Albania), both types being wellknownfor their rich ornaments made of silver and precious stones.The firearms collection from the Banat Museum in Timişoara holds three flintlock pistols and ten flintlockkubure manufactured in the Balkan workshops. Considering the sub-grouping classification, these firearms areclassified as follows: two fiintlock pistols belonging to Elbasan type (Central Albania), a Shkodra type flintlock pistol(Northern Albania), eight Peć flintlock kubure (Metohija) and two Foča flintlock kubure (Eastern Herzegovina).With a view to the age determination of the 13 exponents of the Banat Museum collection, they are datedbetween the mid 18th century (the Albanian pistols) and the mid 19th century (one of the flintlock pistol – namelythe Foča type).Considering the origin of the pistols’ components and the manner in which these became part of theaforementioned collection, things are not by far as simple as they seem to be at first sight. Most of the items thatare currently part of firearms collection the Banat Museum collection entered the institution’s inventory in thepre-war period, being a part of the old museum’s collection (the inventory of the Museum Society of History andArcheology – SMIA of Banat). In respect to the pre-war period, the Banat Museum of Timişoara archive keepsboth the SMIA inventory book and the old archive of the society, but the problem regarding the identificationof the components derives from the lack of clear correspondence between the old documents of the MuseumSociety and the present evidences from the Banat Museum of Timişoara, which were last reconstructed duringthe post-war period. Considering that most of the items that are part of the firearms collection had no pre-warinventory number and the lack of the interwar records (at least until to this date), the identification of both theitems and donors can be made only based on descriptions in the donation documents (The Historical Archiveof the Banat Museum in Timişoara). In this case, regarding the flintlock Balkan pistols, the identification of thedonors is practically impossible within the context in which the archive documents offer important informationsconnected to the donor and the historical context, but the effective descriptions of the components are most ofthe time too brief.However, after a careful analysis of the SMIA evidences, there was found that most of the Balkan origin itemsderive from the Bosnian area, representing donations of former Austro-Hungarian military participants to thefights for Bosnian pacification in 1878. Related to the Balkan pistols, considering the data provided by the firstinventory register of the Banat Museum, we can suggest the hypothesis according to which the 13 items are typicalto the Balkan workshops and especially contemporary to the yataghans and arnautka rifles, derive from Bosnia,being war captures which have been subsequently donated the museum. Since no data is available until this date,this will remain only a possible hypothesis.Instead of conclusions, we should mention the fact that during the 18th–19th centuries, numerous copies afterthe North–Italian pistols have been made in the Balkan Peninsula (especially Peć) or the western pistols have beenenhanced by being decorated in a Balkan manner (having added a wide silver plate on barrels, silver incrustationon grips etc.). The Balkan area was also known for its artisan workshops which manufactured the so-called „pistolsfor the poor”. All these items are also found in the Banat Museum’s collection, and they make a special group offirearms, which will be assessed in a future study.

Anders Toftgaard: “Perhaps even this distress it will some day be a joy to recall”. On Giacomo Castelvetro’s manuscripts in The Royal Library, Copenhagen. In exile from his beloved Modena, Giacomo Castelvetro (1546–1616) travelled in a Europe marked by Reformation, counter-Reformation and wars of religion. He transmitted the best of Italian Renaissance culture to the court of James VI and Queen Anna of Denmark in Edinburgh, to the court of Christian IV in Copenhagen and to Shakespeare’s London, while he incessantly collected manuscripts on Italian literature and European contemporary history. Giacomo Castelvetro lived in Denmark from August 1594 to 11 October 1595. Various manuscripts and books which belonged to Giacomo Castelvetro in his lifetime, are now kept in the Royal Library in Copenhagen. Some of them might have been in Denmark ever since Castelvetro left Denmark in 1595. Nevertheless, Giacomo Castelvetro has never been noticed by Danish scholars studying the cultural context in which he lived. The purpose of this article is to point to Castelvetro’s presence in Denmark in the period around Christian IV’s accession and to describe two of his unique manuscripts in the collection of the Royal Library. The Royal Library in Copenhagen holds a copy of the first printed Italian translation of the Quran, L’Alcorano di Macometto, nel qual si contiene la dottrina, la vita, i costumi et le leggi sue published by Andrea Arrivabene in Venice in 1547. The title page bears the name of the owner: Giacº Castelvetri. The copy was already in the library’s collections at the time of the Danish King Frederic III, in the 1660’s. The three manuscripts from the Old Royal collection (GKS), GKS 2052 4º, GKS 2053 4º and GKS 2057 4º are written partly or entirely in the hand of Giacomo Castelvetro. Moreover, a number of letters written to Giacomo Castelvetro while he was still in Edinburgh are kept among letters addressed to Jonas Charisius, the learned secretary in the Foreign Chancellery and son in law of Petrus Severinus (shelf mark NKS (New Royal Collection) 1305 2º). These letters have been dealt with by Giuseppe Migliorato who also transcribed two of them. GKS 2052 4º The manuscript GKS 2052 4º (which is now accessible in a digital facsimile on the Royal Library’s website), contains a collection of Italian proverbs explained by Giacomo Castelvetro. It is dedicated to Niels Krag, who was ambassador of the Danish King to the Scottish court, and it is dated 6 August 1593. The title page shows the following beautifully written text: Il Significato D’Alquanti belli & vari proverbi dell’Italica Favella, gia fatto da G. C. M. & hoggi riscritto, & donato,in segno di perpetua amicitia, all ecc.te.D. di legge, Il S.r. Nicolò Crachio Ambas.re. del Ser.mo Re di Dania a questa Corona, & Sig.r mio sempre osser.mo Forsan & haec olim meminisse iuvabit Nella Citta d’Edimborgo A VI d’Agosto 1593 The manuscript consists of 96 leaves. On the last page of the manuscript the title is repeated with a little variation in the colophon: Qui finisce il Significato D’alquanti proverbi italiani, hoggi rescritto a requisitione del S.r. Nicolo Crachio eccelente Dottore delle civili leggi &c. Since the author was concealed under the initials G.C.M., the manuscript has never before been described and never attributed to Giacomo Castelvetro. However, in the margin of the title page, a 16th century hand has added: ”Giacomo Castelvetri modonese”, and the entire manuscript is written in Giacomo Castelvetro’s characteristic hand. The motto ”Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit” is from Vergil’s Aeneid (I, 203); and in the Loeb edition it is rendered “Perhaps even this distress it will some day be a joy to recall”. The motto appears on all of the manuscripts that Giacomo Castelvetro copied in Copenhagen. The manuscript was evidently offered to Professor Niels Krag (ca. 1550–1602), who was in Edinburgh in 1593, from May to August, as an ambassador of the Danish King. On the 1st of August, he was knighted by James VI for his brave behaviour when Bothwell entered the King’s chamber in the end of July. The Danish Public Record Office holds Niels Krag’s official diary from the journey, signed by Sten Bilde and Niels Krag. It clearly states that they left Edinburgh on August 6th, the day in which Niels Krag was given the manuscript. Evidently, Castelvetro was one of the many persons celebrating the ambassadors at their departure. The manuscript is bound in parchment with gilded edges, and a gilded frame and central arabesque on both front cover and end cover. There are 417 entries in the collection of proverbs, and in the explanations Giacomo Castelvetro often uses other proverbs and phrases. The explanations are most vivid, when Castelvetro explains the use of a proverb by a tale in the tradition of the Italian novella or by an experience from his own life. The historical persons mentioned are the main characters of the sixteenth century’s religious drama, such as Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth, James VI, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and his son, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, Gaspard de Coligny and the Guise family, Mary Stuart, Don Antonio, King of Portugal, the Earl of Bothwell and Cosimo de’ Medici. The Catholic Church is referred to as “Setta papesca”, and Luther is referred to as “il grande, e pio Lutero” (f. 49v). Giovanni Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarca are referred to various times, along with Antonio Cornazzano (ca. 1430–1483/84), the author of Proverbi in facetie, while Brunetto Latini, Giovanni Villani, Ovid and Vergil each are mentioned once. Many of the explanations are frivolous, and quite a few of them involve priests and monks. The origin of the phrase “Meglio è tardi, che non mai” (52v, “better late than never”) is explained by a story about a monk who experienced sex for the first time at the age of 44. In contrast to some of the texts to be found in the manuscript GKS 2057 4º the texts in GKS 2052 4º, are not misogynist, rather the opposite. Castelvetro’s collection of proverbs is a hitherto unknown work. It contains only a tenth of the number of proverbs listed in Gardine of recreation (1591) by John Florio (1553?–1625), but by contrast these explanations can be used, on the one hand, as a means to an anthropological investigation of the past and on the other hand they give us precious information about the life of Giacomo Castelvetro. For instance he cites a work of his, “Il ragionamento del Viandante” (f. 82r), which he hopes to see printed one day. It most probably never was printed. GKS 2057 4º The manuscript GKS 2057 4º gathers a number of quires in very different sizes. The 458 folios in modern foliation plus end sheets are bound in blue marbled paper (covering a previous binding in parchment) which would seem to be from the 17th century. The content spans from notes to readyforprint-manuscripts. The manuscript contains text by poets from Ludovico Castelvetro’s generation, poems by poets from Modena, texts tied to the reformation and a lot of satirical and polemical material. Just like some of Giacomo Castelvetro’s manuscripts which are now in the possession of Trinity College Library and the British Library it has “been bound up in the greatest disorder” (cf. Butler 1950, p. 23, n. 75). Far from everything is written in the hand of Giacomo Castelvetro, but everything is tied to him apart from one quire (ff. 184–192) written in French in (or after) 1639. The first part contains ”Annotationi sopra i sonetti del Bembo” by Ludovico Castelvetro, (which has already been studied by Alberto Roncaccia), a didactic poem in terza rima about rhetoric, “de’ precetti delle partitioni oratorie” by “Filippo Valentino Modonese” , “rescritto in Basilea a XI di Febraio 1580 per Giacº Castelvetri” and the Ars poetica by Horace translated in Italian. These texts are followed by satirical letters by Nicolò Franco (“alle puttane” and “alla lucerna” with their responses), by La Zaffetta, a sadistic, satirical poem about a Venetian courtisane who is punished by her lover by means of a gang rape by thirty one men, and by Il Manganello (f. 123–148r), an anonymous, misogynistic work. The manuscript also contains a dialogue which would seem to have been written by Giacomo Castelvetro, “Un’amichevole ragionamento di due veri amici, che sentono il contrario d’uno terzo loro amico”, some religious considerations written shortly after Ludovico’s death, ”essempio d’uno pio sermone et d’una Christiana lettera” and an Italian translation of parts of Erasmus’ Colloquia (the dedication to Frobenius and the two dialogues ”De votis temere susceptis” and ”De captandis sacerdotiis” under the title Dimestichi ragionamenti di Desiderio Erasmo Roterodamo, ff. 377r–380r), and an Italian translation of the psalms number 1, 19, 30, 51, 91. The dominating part is, however, Italian poetry. There is encomiastic poetry dedicated to Trifon Gabriele and Sperone Speroni and poetry written by poets such as Torquato Tasso, Bernardo Tasso, Giulio Coccapani, Ridolfo Arlotti, Francesco Ambrosio/ Ambrogio, Gabriele Falloppia, Alessandro Melani and Gasparo Bernuzzi Parmigiano. Some of the quires are part of a planned edition of poets from Castelvetro’s home town, Modena. On the covers of the quires we find the following handwritten notes: f. 276r: Volume secondo delle poesie de poeti modonesi f. 335v: VII vol. Delle opere de poeti modonesi f. 336v; 3º vol. Dell’opere de poeti modonesi f. 353: X volume dell’opre de poeti modonesi In the last part of the manuscript there is a long discourse by Sperone Speroni, “Oratione del Sr. Sperone, fatta in morte della S.ra Giulia Varana Duchessa d’Urbino”, followed by a discourse on the soul by Paulus Manutius. Finally, among the satirical texts we find quotes (in Latin) from the Psalms used as lines by different members of the French court in a humoristic dialogue, and a selection of graffiti from the walls of Padua during the conflict between the city council and the students in 1580. On fol. 383v there is a ”Memoriale d’alcuni epitafi ridiculosi”, and in the very last part of the manuscript there is a certain number of pasquinate. When Castelvetro was arrested in Venice in 1611, the ambassador Dudley Carleton described Castelvetro’s utter luck in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, stating that if he, Carleton, had not been able to remove the most compromising texts from his dwelling, Giacomo Castelvetro would inevitably have lost his life: “It was my good fortune to recover his books and papers a little before the Officers of the Inquisition went to his lodging to seize them, for I caused them to be brought unto me upon the first news of his apprehension, under cover of some writings of mine which he had in his hands. And this indeed was the poore man’s safetie, for if they had made themselves masters of that Magazine, wherein was store and provision of all sorts of pasquins, libels, relations, layde up for many years together against their master the Pope, nothing could have saved him” Parts of GKS 2057 4º fit well into this description of Castelvetro’s papers. A proper and detailed description of the manuscript can now be found in Fund og Forskning Online. Provenance GKS 2052 4ºon the one side, and on the other side, GKS 2053 4º and GKS 2057 4º have entered The Royal Library by two different routes. None of the three manuscripts are found in the oldest list of manuscripts in the Royal Library, called Schumacher’s list, dating from 1665. All three of them are included in Jon Erichsen’s “View over the old Manuscript Collection” published in 1786, so they must have entered the collections between 1660 and 1786. Both GKS 2053 4º and GKS 2057 4º have entered The Royal Library from Christian Reitzer’s library in 1721. In the handwritten catalogue of Reitzer’s library (The Royal Library’s archive, E 15, vol. 1, a catalogue with very detailed entries), they bear the numbers 5744 and 5748. If one were to proceed, one would have to identify the library from which these two manuscripts have entered Reitzer’s library. On the spine of GKS 2053 4º there is a label saying “Castelvetro / sopra Dante vol 326” and on f. 2r the same number is repeated: “v. 326”. On the spine of GKS 2057 4º, there is a label saying “Poesie italiane, vol. 241”, and on the end sheet the same number is repeated: “v. 241”. These two manuscripts would thus seem to have belonged to the same former library. Many of the Royal Library’s manuscripts with relazioni derive from Christian Reitzer’s library, and a wide range of Italian manuscripts which have entered the Royal Library through Reitzer’s library have a similar numbering on spine and title page. Comparing these numbers with library catalogues from the 17th century, one might be able to identify the library from which these manuscripts entered Reitzer’s library, and I hope to be able to proceed in this direction. Conclusion Giacomo Castelvetro was not a major Italian Renaissance writer, but a nephew of one of the lesser-known writers in Italian literature, Ludovico Castelvetro. He delivered yet another Italian contribution to the history of Christian IV, and his presence could be seen as a sign of a budding Italianism in Denmark in the era of Christian IV. The collection of Italian proverbs that he offered to Niels Krag, makes him a predecessor of the Frenchman Daniel Matras (1598–1689), who as a teacher of French and Italian at the Academy in Sorø in 1633 published a parallel edition of French, Danish, Italian and German proverbs. The two manuscripts that are being dealt with in this article are two very different manuscripts. GKS 2052 4º is a perfectly completed work that was hitherto unknown and now joins the short list of known completed works by Giacomo Castelvetro. GKS 2057 4º is a collection of variegated texts that have attracted Giacomo Castelvetro for many different reasons. Together the two manuscripts testify to the varied use of manuscripts in Renaissance Italy and Europe. A typical formulation of Giacomo Castelvetro’s is “Riscritto”. He copies texts in order to give them a new life in a new context. Giacomo Castelvetro is in the word’s finest sense a disseminator of Italian humanism and European Renaissance culture. He disseminated it in a geographical sense, by his teaching in Northern Europe, and in a temporal sense through his preservation of texts for posterity under the motto: “Perhaps even this distress it will some day be a joy to recall”.