The colour of the facades in Siena’s historical centre: I. Glazings (calcium oxalate films s.s.) and other finishes on the stone materials of the Cathedral’s main facade

This paper focuses on the long-debated topic of the so-called calcium oxalate films: their origin and meaning but also their age and original appearance. The restoration of the main facade of the Siena Cathedral provided a unique opportunity to this end, thanks to the possibility of an extensive and detailed sampling and (as rarely happens) a sufficiently accurate historical knowledge of the construction vicissitudes. This work, mainly based on a polarising microscopy study (coupled with X-ray diffraction and SEM-EDS analyses) of over a thousand thin and ultra-thin sections of 400 microsamples, demonstrates that the current relicts of films are the result of alteration and decay of ancient treatments. In most cases, these were linseed oil-based glazings (the use of this substance is confirmed by historical documents) and pigments. Their role was essentially aesthetic; their use dates the beginning of the fourteenth century and continued at least until the eighteenth century.

The Heath Government and British Defence Policy in Southeast Asia at the End of Empire (1970-71)

This article examines the rationale behind the Heath government's1970 decision to negotiate a Five Power Defence agreement withAustralia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia and to maintaina small British military contingent in Southeast Asia as a partof this new politico-military framework. It argues that whileits overriding foreign policy concern was to end Britain's problematicrelationship with the European Economic Community and to makemembership of this grouping the cornerstone of its foreign policy,the Heath government was careful not to cast Britain's post-imperialfuture in purely European terms. The successful negotiationof the Five Power Defence Arrangements in 1970–71 wasinstrumental in achieving this by ensuring that London wouldmaintain close links with key Commonwealth partners in the Asianregion. In what was not only an attempt to neutralize potentialdomestic opposition to Britain's entry into the EEC, but alsoa lingering reluctance to do away with the rhetoric of Britainas a leading power with extra-European interests, Heath waseager to show that by making a contribution to the stabilityof Southeast Asia, Britain still had a role to play outsideEurope.     

Knowledge and Information Networks in an Italian Wine Cluster

The aim of this article is to analyse the nature and extent of knowledge and information networks in an Italian wine cluster. Moreover, the relation between firms’ characteristics and the knowledge network structure is also explored. The empirical findings show that knowledge is unevenly distributed in clusters and that networks of knowledge and information differ a great deal in terms of their structure. In fact, knowledge flows are restricted to a tightly connected community of local producers, differing in terms of knowledge assets, innovation behaviour and overall economic performance with respect to the rest of the firms in the cluster.     

The space between: globalization,liminal spaces and personal relations in rural Costa Rica

Globalization facilitates the movement of people, goods, ideologies and even diseases across borders and into local communities. This article explores the liminal space created by tourism in the rural Costa Rican community of Monteverde as a site where the movement of people, especially Western women (women from the global North), intersects, contests and even reinforces existing heteropatriarchal ideologies. Theories from feminist geography and anthropology provide a lens for understanding and interpreting how Western women and local residents (both male and female) perceive, construct and interact with each other. We argue that ‘liminality’ or the sense of being ‘betwixt and between’ – physically, socially and ideologically – allows Western women a space to both challenge the hegemony of heteropatriarchal ideology and reconstitute it in their sexual relationships with local men. We also explore the implications that sexual relationships between Western women and local men have for local women. We stress the urgency to understand and articulate the nature of these sexual relationships in light of the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic.     

Beyond the German Model of Capitalism: Unorthodox Local Business Development in the Cologne Media Industry

On the basis of a media firm-survey and the measurement of in-town enterprise concentration, this paper explains the extraordinary sub-sectoral specialization and the spatial concentration towards radio and television in a German city: Cologne. A peculiar mix of institutional support, typical of German capitalism and unorthodox deviance from such arrangements is discovered in all matters of collective goods provision, including vocational training, enterprise financing, etc. Using a case study-approach, this article shows how the German model of capitalism can be rearranged for new markets on the local level, successfully overcoming institutional constraints by informal cooperation and institutional entrepreneurship.