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.     

"Del grasso di Lorenzo un'ampolletta": Relics and Representations in the Quest for Forgiveness in Renaissance Rome

Giuliano Dati's poem Gli stazoni & perdonanze che sono la Quaresima e l'Octava della Pasqua di Resurrexo in Roma che sono a cinquantaquattro chiese (1492–1493) is a guide to the stations and indulgences of Rome. The first part of the paper examines relics and guides and their role in lay piety. The second part looks at the way in which the Confraternity of the Gonfalone used some of the key Holy Week stations, and subsequently abandoned them in 1490 for the Colosseum where it performed its Easter plays, composed by the same Giuliano Dati and others.     

The Fate of Academic Freedom in the Age of High Liberalism: The Case of Charles Beard

In the early years of the Cold War, the American historical community fought vigorously over the reputation of Charles Beard. Midwestern progressives defended his legacy, while postwar liberals denounced Beard as an isolationist whose scholarship had not prepared the United States to fight either German fascism or Soviet communism. This essay explores the attack on Beard, its implications for academic freedom, and its role in silencing critics of the Cold War.     

古罗马等级制度中的显贵

早在19世纪,德国古典学大师蒙森就发现,在古罗马社会的政治生活中存在着一个特权等级——显贵(mbilis,或nobilitas),他们控制着执政官、元老院等权力机构,大权在握,地位显赫。20世纪初,另一位德国学格尔泽的研究表明,绝大多数罗马显贵都出身于执政官家族,     

Exile and the Demos: Leo Strauss in America

This article explores the political, as opposed to the philosophical, impact of Leo Strauss’s exile in America on his thought. After a consideration of anti-Semitism and the importance Strauss attached to being a Jew, I argue that the fact that in America he no longer wrote in his Muttersprache but in English was central to his becoming a political theorist rather than a philosopher. Whereas as a philosopher he was unable to speak to the demos, as a political theorist what he needed was a group of “rhetors” who would carry a particular message to the demos.