Rickets in a High Social Class of Renaissance Italy: The Medici Children

Exploration of the Medici Chapels in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence revealed the burials of nine juvenile members of the Medici family (16th–17th centuries). The estimated children's skeletal ages ranged from newborns to 5‐year‐olds, showing a series of bone abnormalities, in particular diffuse periosteal new bone and bowing of long bones. The comparable pathological lesions, including porosity evident on the skull, orbital roofs, costocondral ribs and growth plates between metaphyses and epiphyses, enlargement of metaphyses and sternal rib ends, and long bone bending, are interpreted as the skeletal manifestation of rickets. The diagnosis of a metabolic disease linked to vitamin D deficiency would appear to be unexpected for children brought up at the court of a Renaissance elite class family like the Medici of Florence. Analysis of the historical and social background is particularly helpful to understand the causes of the onset of the disease in this aristocratic group. Documentary sources, supported by ¹³C and ¹⁵N bone collagen analysis, attest that weaning of these children took place when they were around 2 years old. With a prolonged breast‐feeding and a delay in introducing solid food in the diet, vitamin D deficiency is expected to rise considerably, in particular if the other main risk factor, namely inadequate sunlight exposition, is associated with this human milk‐based diet. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blaming the Medici: Footnotes, falsification, and the fate of the ‘English Model’ in eighteenth-century Italy

Franco Venturi famously emphasised the importance of the ‘English Model’ for Italian reformist culture in his Settecento riformatore. This essay contributes to the history of the development and evolution of the ‘English Model’ beginning with its influential appearance in Antonio Genovesi's 1757–1758 translation of John Cary's 1695 Essay on the State of England. The ‘English Model’ was not a stable concept and, in fact, one tradition inverted the model's meaning, rejecting the need for protectionism and instead embracing a providential faith in laissez-faire. This tradition began with an important, but falsified footnote in Carlo Denina's 1769–1770 Rivoluzioni d’Italia. In this note and the tradition that adopted it, Lorenzo de’ Medici's imagined English wool factories became the locus of this inversion, and, through a reading of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, blaming the Medici as agents of Italy's aberrant historical development became an alternative to blaming English economic imperialism in late eighteenth-century Italy. The narrative of Medici involvement in the decline of Italy was finally realigned with Genovesi's original intention under the auspice of Pope Pius VI in 1794.     

加拉帕戈斯 从火山到深海的世界尽头之旅

<正>锤头鲨,顾名思义,这种鲨鱼有着像锤子一样的脑袋,准确地说来,它们的脑袋长得如同一把榔头,而眼睛就长在头的左右两侧,距离非常远,看上去颇有几分怪异,不过也正是因为这样,锤头鲨才有了更为广阔的视野。锤头鲨的寿命通常有30～40岁。一般来说,锤头鲨的体长在4米左右,体重230公斤上下,生活在热带及温带海域。在今天,锤头鲨已经成为濒危动物,在加拉帕戈斯,你能够见到这些"水中巨头"的身影,其实还有赖于当地政府的保护,厄瓜多尔政府已经在加拉帕戈斯群岛的海洋保护区内为濒临灭绝的锤头鲨设立了禁猎区,让这些"水中巨头"可以有一片生存的净土。     

行摄西班牙 领略小而精致的别样风景

<正>西班牙,这个号称"出产阳光和海滩"的国家,是个享誉全球的旅游大国。截至2018年7月4日第42届世界遗产大会闭幕,西班牙共计拥有47项世界遗产,名列世界第3位。西班牙丰富的旅游资源,深厚的文化底蕴,以及热情的舞蹈,就像一个強大的磁场,吸引着世界游客频繁往来。建在云端的龙达小镇吃过早饭,我们从塞维利亚出发,前往西班牙安达卢西亚的龙达小镇参观。龙达小镇有3000多年的悠久历史。早在罗马帝国时代,一批旅人风尘仆仆地爬上这座750公尺的悬崖峭壁,发现这里地势险要,风景秀丽,河流丰沛,于是安营扎寨,建造出第一座房子。这白