The tyranny of Richard III

To Tudor historians Richard III was a quintessence of tyranny. This belief was derived from the informed opinion of many who had experienced his brief reign. To them a tyrant was one who came to the throne without right or who governed against the interests of the political nation. There can be little doubt that Richard usurped the throne: it is also the case that in one important respect his government alienated a significant section of the nobility and gentry. Following the revolts of late 1483 Richard systematically placed trusted northern adherents in control of the unreliable and hostile southern counties. This action transgressed the unwritten law that the rule of the counties lay in the hands of their native élites. Its highhandedness was recognized by the author of the Croyland continuation and its pattern can be reconstructed from the record of grants from the Crown during the reign. Not only does the settlement of 1483-4 provide dramatic evidence in support of the Tudor tradition, but its circumstances also suggest an explanation for the continuing controversy surrounding Richard's reign. What was thereby tyranny in the south was good lordship to the loyal north. It is conceivable that the conflicting interpretations of the last Plantagenet spring from this regional division.     

The election of the tenth President of the Italian Republic

Abstract

The election on the first ballot of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to the Presidency of the Republic came as a surprise. This article explores how it occurred by analysing the criteria usually employed to screen the candidates for President and the misplaced efforts by the secretary of the Partito popolare to win the office for a candidate of his party. An assessment of the powers of the President, in particular those concerning the appointment of the Prime Minister and the dissolution of parliament, is offered with reference to the experience of outgoing President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro. The success of Walter Veltroni, secretary of the Leftist Democrats, and of Gianfranco Fini, leader of the National Alliance, in persuading the opposition to vote for Ciampi is related to their interest in reigniting a process for the reform of the political system and the construction of a majoritarian and bipolar democracy. President Ciampi may prove to be very helpful in this difficult task, but most of the initiative and responsibility lie with party leaders and members of parliament.     

The power of words: the changing role of the Italian head of state during the Second Republic

Many authors use the metaphor of an accordion to describe the enlargement of the constitutional functions of the Italian head of state: because of the weakness of the political parties the president is able to ‘open and play the accordion’ according to his own interpretation of his institutional powers. While useful, this metaphor does not take into account the structural changes that have occurred over the last 30 years, as well as the informal powers that recent presidents have resorted to, which were the most important factors in the metamorphosis of the presidential figure. Structural changes include the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the First Republic and the mediatisation and personalisation of politics and party structure. Informal powers include those of ‘esternazione’ (a term that roughly means ‘to render public personal statements without previous consultation with the cabinet’) and of moral suasion. By analysing the development of these two powers, this article aims to describe the changing role of the head of state during the Second Republic. It also defines a typology of presidential moral suasion, which is proposed as a useful tool to analyse presidential style and strategy in influencing law-making. The analysis of the innovative use of communicative powers by the last two presidents, Ciampi and Napolitano, shows how the transformation of the Italian presidency can probably be considered permanent.     

The limits of cultural nationalism: Italian Switzerland from a risorgimento perspective*

ABSTRACT. This article critiques the ‘cultural turn’ in Italian Risorgimento historiography by examining Italian Switzerland, and specifically Ticino. This area paradoxically aided and abetted Italian patriots, especially Giuseppe Mazzini, yet rejected becoming part of the Italian national project. This paradox is heightened by the fact that the vast majority of the Italian nationalist literary canon, as identified by Alberto Maria Banti, was republished in Ticino. The paradox is explained in terms of the conflict between long‐standing traditions of local autonomy and the idea of any form of uniform or centralised control, as originally represented by the Cisalpine Republic and then by both versions (Napoleonic and Piedmontese) of the Kingdom of Italy. However, I also use Banti's cultural concepts to demonstrate the creation of a powerful counter‐myth of Italian Swiss nationalism in the character of William Tell.     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.     

The care of women's health and beauty: an experience shared by medieval Jewish and Christian women

In this article I intend to elucidate the extent to which medieval western Jewish and Christian women shared customs, knowledge and practices regarding health care, a sphere which has been historically considered as part of women's daily domestic tasks. My study aims to identify female agency in medical care, as well as women's interaction across religious lines, by analysing elusive sources, such as medical literature on women's health care, and by collating the information they provide with data obtained from other textual and visual records. By searching specific evidence of the dialogues that must have occurred between Christian and Jewish women in transmitting their knowledge and experiences, I put forward the idea (developed from earlier work by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet) that medical texts with no clear attribution can be used as sources to reconstruct women's authoritative knowledge.     

河南焦作化电集团西晋墓发掘简报

2003年10月焦作市文物工作队发现一座西晋墓(2003JHM1),清理出武士俑、牛车、角兽、马、灶、井、多子槅、俑等文物23件(套)。根据墓葬形制与随葬品判断此墓时代为西晋中期。     

Invisible power,visible dispossession: The witchcraft of a subterranean pipeline

There has been a lack of attention to the role of la sorcellerie (witchcraft) and the occult in geographical work on extraction, power and resistance, despite the ways in which these epistemologies inform conceptions of power, wealth and violence. In two towns along the Chad–Cameroon Oil Pipeline, epistemologies of la sorcellerie frame understandings and critiques of the invisible actors and processes that effect the pipeline's uneven distributions of violence, wealth and risk. Far from expunging the experience(s) of extraction by erasing the pipeline's visible traces on the landscape, the oil consortium's infrastructural and discursive erasures serve to situate the pipeline within a knowledge system that associates invisible actors and materials with evil, wrongdoing, suspicion and distrust. This article addresses (i) how the production of dispersed extractive landscapes reinforce epistemologies of witchcraft by alienating the people who live within them from networks of power in ways that provoke a mistrust and jealousy that is absorbed within families and communities and (ii) the socio-political significance of this epistemological structuring of the pipeline as a logic of resistance against hydrocarbon capitalism.     

科学发展观的形成背景与历史地位--兼与赵凌云、张连辉先生商榷

科学发展观是当代中国富有创造性的发展理论,是新中国成立以来的第四代发展观.马克思主义发展观、苏联发展观和当代国外发展观,是新中国成立以来的发展观演变特别是科学发展观提出的理论背景.科学发展观在发展目标上具有全面性,在发展方式上具有统筹性,在发展目的上具有人本性.     

建国初期社会救助体系的构建与评析--以1949～1953年的广州市为个案

建国初期,中共在广州构建了一个过渡性的社会救助体系,在短短的4年内,广州市通过它救助了大量的失业者和城市贫民,基本上遏制了由于新旧转轨带来的社会危机,为新政权即将展开的社会主义各项建设奠定了基础.在救助理念和救助过程上,它体现了以往社会救助的一些特点,同时也反映了我党的诸多特色,诸如鲜明的意识形态性、广泛的群众参与性和严格的组织纪律性,隐隐约约闪烁着以统一调配为主要特征的计划时代社会政策的影子.     

‘Attaque and Break Through a Phalanx of Corruption . . . the Court Party!’ The Scottish Representative Peers' Election and the Opposition, 1733–5: Three New Division Lists of the House of Lords of 1735*

In the early 1730s, Archibald Campbell, the earl of Ilay, gained a dominant position in Scotland, and Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister, entrusted him with the distribution of patronage there. Ilay took full advantage of this power, and controlled the votes of the financially weak Scottish peers in the election of 16 representative peers. The excise crisis of 1733–4, however, changed the political scene in Scotland. Although they had been chosen as supporters of the court party, some of the Squadrone Volante members (the duke of Montrose and the marquess of Tweeddale) and two courtiers (the earls of Marchmont and Stair) raised a standard of revolt against Walpole and Ilay. The Scottish opposition co‐operated with the English country party (‘the Patriots’) and such Scottish tories as the duke of Hamilton. In the 1734 peers' election they launched a challenge to the ministry, but the opposition was crushed by a bankrolled election campaign organised by the court party. Although the English and Scottish opposition petitioned in the house of lords to criticize the ‘undue practices’ of Walpole and Ilay at the election, the ministry was backed up by English and Scottish courtiers and bishops, and overwhelmed the opposition. Three new division lists related to the aftermath of the Scottish election shed much light upon the party alignment of the upper House in the middle of the 1730s.     

一位明代翰林官员的工作履历——《徐显卿宦迹图》图像简析

收藏在故宫博物院的《徐显卿宦迹图》记录了明万历年间吏部右侍郎徐显卿的宦迹。图册中有关明代宫廷典制的描绘以及徐显卿的题记为历史研究提供了形象生动的资料。此外,本文还以图册为例,对明清时代宦迹图的源流、艺术形式等作了简要分析。     

圆明园新证——乾隆朝圆明园全图的发现与研究

故宫博物院图书馆藏1704号圆明园地盘图是迄今仅见的唯一一张完整记录乾隆朝圆明园盛况的绝世孤本,也是现存圆明园图档中绘制年代最早、使用时间最长、表现内容最丰富、记载变化最全面的国宝级珍贵档案。该图极有可能是清代著名样式雷家族的第三代传人——雷声澂执掌清宫样式房楠木作事务之时,于乾隆四十四年(1779)前后绘制的圆明园本部平面。此后该图一直作为档案图纸使用达半个多世纪之久,几乎囊括了一部全盛时期圆明园的变迁史,是研究圆明园在乾隆、嘉庆、道光三朝发展变化的最权威、最完整的档案记录。