Historical mortars dating from OSL signals of fine grain fraction enriched in quartz

In the last years the mortar dating through Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) techniques has become a viable support for chronological estimations (date of construction or restoration episodes) of historical buildings. However, the dating of mortar has still open issues mainly regarding the assessment of the bleaching degree of quartz, the analysis of the OSL processes for this type of samples and the need to do appropriate tests for the most correct evaluation of the equivalent dose. This paper discusses the results obtained by OSL dating (blue diode stimulation) on the polymineral fine grain phase, enriched in quartz, extracted from lime mortar samples collected from different sites. Thermal transfer effects, through the behaviour of Equivalent Dose (ED) and recovery tests, degree and time of bleaching were studied. For each mortar sample the adjacent brick was collected; in some cases, sampling of the bricks bracketing a mortar layer was a possibility, thus obtaining a direct comparison with the standard thermoluminescence (TL) dating on the bricks. The results obtained show, for this set of samples, the possibility of dating the mortars through the use of the fine grain fraction provided of a suitable chemical-physical preparation procedure and the verification of the bleaching conditions.     

Exploring Nonlinear Spatial Dependence in the Tails

In many instances it is of interest to measure the degree of similarity between neighboring regions. Spatial autocorrelation measures are the most popular means of doing it. However, such measures only capture a global linear relationship between regions, whereas in many circumstances a more general instrument is required. For instance, in economic poverty analysis or environmental applications (and in other cases where we are interested in extreme events and threshold exceedances) we should be more interested in the spatial pattern in the tails of the joint distributions. In this article we introduce some exploratory tool that focuses on the bivariate joint tails behavior to detect a pattern of spatial regularities. The method will be illustrated with reference to simulated environmental data.     

L’intelligence mathématique, l’infini et les machines

On évoquera très informellement l’énoncé de quelques résultats récents d’incomplétude des formalismes. Les preuves de ces théorèmes, très importants pour toute l’épistémologie contemporaine des mathématiques, utilisent une variété d’outils conceptuels qui vont démonstrativement au-delà des axiomatisations finitaires. Ces outils ne requièrent aucune ontologie mathématique, mais constituent des constructions humaines particulièrement solides, des formes d’intelligence de l’infini et de l’espace enracinées dans différentes formes de connaissance. On parlera également, mais très brièvement, tant de l’intelligence mathématique du Bon Dieu que de l’intelligence mathématique des ordinateurs digitaux.     

Selinunte (Sicily) and its productive context: the clayey raw materials applied in a long-lived ceramic production (seventh to third century BCE)

The westernmost of the Greek-Sicilian towns, Selinunte, founded in western Sicily during the second half of the seventh century BCE, gives amazing evidences of a historic activity of ceramic production (seventh to third century BCE). The present study aims to identify the raw materials available in the vicinity of the archaeological site of Selinunte, which were possibly used by the ancient potters, and to characterise them by means of petrographic and chemical techniques. A sampling campaign of clays and sands for tempering was undertaken in the archaeological site and the adjacent area. Moreover, locally produced archaeological bricks and tiles were considered helpful for comparison regarding the definition of local ceramic macro- and micro-fabrics and were analysed as well. The comparison between textural, mineralogical and chemical data allowed us to highlight a good similarity between the clayey materials available in the area and the local ancient bricks and tiles. Their compositional resemblance suggests the hypothesis of a systematic use of the studied clays for ceramic productions from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period. The preliminary archaeometric results obtained so far could enhance the distinction between local manufactures and imports and may well lead to the identification of ceramic artefacts produced by the Archaic-Hellenistic workshops of Selinunte at various consumption sites.     

The Enlightenment and the church in the work of Franco Venturi: the fertile legacy of a civil religion

The first part of this essay examines the reasons why the relationship between Enlightenment and religion was central to Franco Venturi's studies on the eighteenth century. In part this came from his own strong secular convictions and from the tradition of secular utopian thought in which Venturi came to intellectual maturity in Turin in the first half of the century, but whose origins lay in the eighteenth century. The essay then explores how these interests guided Venturi's choice to themes and topics, and how his understanding of the relationship changed in the course of his life and writings. The second part of the essay considers Venturi's legacy specifically in relation to this central theme, and discusses the works of subsequent scholars (including the author) whose work has most directly taken up and developed Venturi's own concern to explore the origins of different forms of secular religion in the age of the Enlightenment.     

The politics of metaphysics: Adorno and Bloch on utopia and immortality

The hypothesis underlying this article is that any narrative of the emergence of modernity—as the one developed by Blumenberg, for example—that leaves behind the eschatological component is incomplete, since it removes from the tradition of modernity a great deal of the Protestant religious experience which shows deep obsession with the thought of the end of the world. Through a confrontation between Adorno and Bloch, the article argues that the notions of utopia and human liberation imply logically the idea of immortality.

For Adorno and Bloch the dream of immortality is the dream of matter; both of them believe that the act of human transcendence must cling on to the bodily stuff out of which we are made. Yet, whereas Bloch postulates the positive existence of a transcendent space, Adorno eschews any ontological commitment. The article argues in favour of Adorno's negative approach, showing that, after Auschwitz, what both philosophers take as the truth‐content of theology cannot be automatically transferred into dialectical materialism.