Secularisation,anticlericalism and cremation within Italian cemeteries of the nineteenth century

This article examines the monumental cemeteries of nineteenth-century Italy with regard to their role as platforms for the tensions between Church and state. In that burial grounds were publically owned yet administered by the clergy, they represented a space where conflicts between secular and clerical powers might be played out – conflicts that reached a peak in the final decades of the Ottocento following the annexation of the Papal State to unified Italy. Particular attention is given to the adoption of cremation as a practice that was advocated by anticlerical, liberal and radical factions in opposition to the Catholic Church. That opposition was manifested in the design and layout of Italian burial grounds and in construction of new crematoria.     

Between cosmopolitanism and nationhood: Italian opera in the early nineteenth century

The revival of interest in music evident in recent historiography has led to an investigation of the specifically transnational nature of musical languages and practices. This article explores the possibility of re-reading in a transnational perspective the classical theme of the relationship between the Risorgimento and opera. It focuses on two different points of view: on the one hand, the construction of the librettos as a delicate balance between European romantic narratives and dramatic themes evoking nationalistic sentiments; on the other, the fact that ideas and practices of the theatre as a vehicle of political mobilisation developed in a broad international context where Mazzini and many other nationalists found inspiration in multinational political experiences and discourses. The article concludes by saying that the meanings of terms such as cosmopolitanism and nationalism need to be carefully weighed when we look at nineteenth-century opera production. Only in the closing decades of the century did genuine competition between national traditions arise, which led in Italy to a veritable ‘obsession’ with ‘Italianness’ in music.     

The context of migration: the example of Ireland in the nineteenth century

"A classic case where out-migration interacted with many other geographical phenomena is provided by rural Ireland in the nineteenth century. The apparent turning point was the Great Famine of the 1840s, but the areas with the greatest suffering from starvation did not necessarily show the greatest population decline, suggesting that other forces were active. Considerable economic and social changes were already taking place before the Famine: fertility was being reduced, later marriage was becoming established and considerable emigration was already taking place. Immediately after the Famine those areas which had been hardest hit often reverted to pre-Famine conditions and did not show strong population decline until the 1870s. The Famine was a most serious event, but the modernization of Irish rural life, which linked emigration with changes in family structure, agriculture and population numbers, was more important in bringing about geographical change."     

Philhellenism in Italy: political friendship and the Italian volunteers in the Mediterranean in the nineteenth century

Italy offers a particularly important vantage point for understanding the force of philhellenism in nineteenth-century Europe. Tracing the contribution of Italians to the struggles for Greek independence from the war of 1820?-?21 to the war between Greece and Turkey in 1897, this article shows how Italian support for the philhellenist cause illustrates the internationalist context of Risorgimento nationalism. After Unification the philhellenist cause offered the opportunity to continue the tradition of volunteers enlisting to fight against tyranny and oppression abroad. This culminated in the volunteer expedition to fight with the Greeks against the Turks in 1897 led by Ricciotti Garibaldi - son of the hero of Italian Unification. But that expedition also marked the end of the nineteenth-century international volunteer movement. In Italy many socialists and nationalists were opposed to it, in part because it was seen as a diversion from political struggles that needed to be fought at home and in part because the project of the nation in arms was less and less realistic in the context of late nineteenth-century geopolitics. But at its height, the international volunteer movement - to which Italy made a major contribution - was an act of political idealism that drew on appeals to the unity of Greco-Latin civilization.     

Cerebral localization in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century: emphasizing the work of Aletta Jacobs

This paper gives an overview of the ideas on cerebral localization as they were formulated in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. In general, it appears that, given the discussions in France, Germany, and Britain, surprisingly little was written and hardly any serious research was performed. Special attention is given to the dissertation on the localization of sensory-motor functions by Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929), known for her social and political activities to improve the position of women. Although it was not a particularly thorough study, it was the only one that seriously and empirically addressed the topic of localization.     

Of Other Spaces: Women's colleges at the turn of the nineteenth century in the UK

This article explores the first British university-associated women's colleges at the turn of the nineteenth century. Drawing on Foucault, the article looks into the dualistic opposition between private and public, as well as women's attempts to transcend this dichotomy. In theorising women's colleges as Foucauldian heterotopias, spaces in the interstices of power relations and dominant social structures, the author focuses on the interplay of contradicting discourses and strong power relations within these women's colleges. In this light, the author considers the ways women resisted, negotiated, but also compromised in their attempt to shape their lives and invent new ways of being in the world.     

Lost primacy: crime in Italy at the end of the twentieth century

This article attempts to answer four questions. First: has Italy today, or has it had in the last thirty years, rates of theft, robbery and homicide that are higher than those in other western European countries? Second: have crime statistics in Italy followed the same pattern as in other European countries in the same period? Third: have crime statistics become more or less comparable in the western European countries in this period? Fourth: what factors have determined changes in crime rates in Italy in recent decades?     

Archaeo-environmental study of the Almas river: mining pollution and the Cerrado biome in the end of the nineteenth century in Mid-Western,Brazil

This article proposes to understand the environmental impacts of a gold mining exploration in the Cerrado biome or Brazilian Savanna at the end of the nineteenth century in Mid-Western, Brazil. Firstly, the Cerrado biome is described according to perceptions about the ecological characteristics, ecological researches conducted, and mainly according to the ecosystem of the Pireneus mountains our area of research. Secondly, the historical mining impacts of nineteenth century are presented through reflections on the mining techniques of gold exploration, and through the environmental consequences of metal concentration in the area. Finally, the eco-archaeological study of the soil samples from the Almas river area in Mid-Western Brazil is demonstrated, as well as, the interpretation about the emergency of historical pollution patterns.     

Looking beyond home shores: Dutch tolerance at the end of the seventeenth century

The Dutch history of the golden century, a formula which had effectively imposed this interpretative paradigm well beyond the seventeenth century, has been analysed in a more conscientious manner by more recent historiography. This has tempered the hagiographic reading and confirmed the fact that, in the second half of the century, the question of tolerance had become primarily a political conquest and a value shared by other nations. A supernational, European value, but which had also begun to cross the Atlantic several decades earlier. It is interesting to explore how writers facing each other across the two shores of the Channel, on one side observed and interpreted and on the other side presented themselves, offering to foreign eyes the concept of tolerance that had been consolidated in the Netherlands. In the appendix to the essay, besides sinignifcative images, is transcribed the rare and meaningful pamphlet titled ‘A LETTER from HOLLAND, touching Liberty of Conscience, &c.’     

An element of thought: phosphorus and mental philosophy in the nineteenth century

Georges Cabanis (1757-1808), through his writings on the relation of the physical and moral, or psychological, aspects of man, left a legacy that made the study of mental activity a part of physiology. His views on the importance of phosphorus to the function of the brain thrust that element into a prominent stream of research that involved many investigators in several countries. Although that particular stream eventually dried up, its influence remained: by the beginning of the twentieth century basic medical science had become well set on studies of the mind-body relationship.     

自由主义与加拿大宪政改革

在19世纪上半期加拿大建立责任政府的过程中,自由主义观念起了重要的促进作用.这不仅表现在自由主义思想对加拿大殖民地人政治意识觉醒的推动上,更表现在英国社会与政坛对英帝国与移民殖民地关系认识的改变上.由于美国独立的教训,维护帝国统一和防止殖民地与母国分离,曾是英国人心中一个不解的结.因此,旧观念支配下的英国统治集团,几乎一致地拒绝了达勒姆关于授予殖民地责任政府的建议.随着英国自身现代政党制度的确立和自由贸易的实现,新的自由主义帝国观开始形成,并直接推动了加拿大的宪政改革.