The Swiss community in Genoa from the Old Regime to the late nineteenth century

Abstract

Drawing on extensive and original archival research, this article is the first to reconstruct the origins and historical development of the Swiss community of Genoa from the sixteenth to the late nineteenth century. During these four centuries, the Swiss were constant and significant agents of the Genoese economy and society. The Swiss presence in the city dates back to the mid 1500s, when Swiss soldiers were the predominant component of the army of the Republic. In the 1700s the Swiss community broadened its economic scope and varied its social configuration. It consisted of both a well-established Protestant, élite of merchant-bankers and textile entrepreneurs and a lower layer of craftsmen, confectioners, street vendors and servants. By the end of the 1700s the Swiss élite was such a thriving and well-integrated group that in 1799 Genoa was selected to be the seat of the first Swiss consulate of the Italian peninsula, the second in Europe after Bordeaux (1798). From the Restoration (1815) to Italian Unification (1861), the Swiss merchant-bankers and textile industrialists continued to be active promoters of the city's economic and trading system. In the decades after Unification (1861–80s), Swiss capital investments moved into new economic sectors (steam-shipping and maritime insurance) that contributed to the modernization of the Genoese and Italian merchant fleet. During the nineteenth century the Swiss community created its own social spaces and identity within the city – a church, a cemetery, a school, and a charitable foundation. As in many other northern Italian cities, the consolidation of the community's external image did not weaken the Swiss élite's integration with the local Genoese upper class.     

“A Chronicle of a Death Foretold”: Urban Expansion and Land Consumption in Rome,Italy

The article analyses the long-term changes in the spatial distribution and density of the urban settlements in Rome (Italy), a compact Mediterranean city recently undergoing low- and medium-density expansion. Eight density classes were considered: no buildings, <0.5 buildings per hectare, 0.5–1.0, 1–2, 2–3, 3–5, 5–10, >10 buildings per hectare. Non-urbanized land amounted to 89% of the investigated area in 1919 and fell to 30% in 2001. Building density increased over time suggesting that both concentration and diffusion processes occurred in the study area. During 1919–2001, the building density was stable in only 37% of the investigated land. In that period, the largest part of the area (47%) underwent a low increase in building density, while 12% of the area passed from a low-density to a high-density class. Settlement density decreased rapidly with the distance from the city centre in 1919 and 1945, while a marked increase was observed in areas progressively further away from Rome since 1961. In recent years, land consumption was partly determined by the planning strategies adopted by Rome's municipality with the aim of producing a more balanced and polycentric region. More effective policies preserving the quality of the environment and promoting the sustainable development of peri-urban Mediterranean regions are needed.     

Strontium isotope ratios in fossil teeth from South Africa: assessing laser ablation MC-ICP-MS analysis and the extent of diagenesis

This study tests the precision and accuracy of laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) for measuring strontium isotope ratios (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) in fossil teeth from Swartkrans and Sterkfontein in South Africa, and explores the extent of diagenesis in these specimens. Compared to solution MC-ICP-MS or thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) methods, LA-MC-ICP-MS can be faster and less expensive, but has lower precision and accuracy. We found that ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios in fossil rodent teeth measured by LA-MC-ICP-MS were offset from solution values by a mean of 0.0005 ± 0.0010 (2σ). Because of the very wide spread of biologically available ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios (∼0.710 to ∼0.790) in the region, LA-MC-ICP-MS is more than sufficient for assessing the geographic origins of the fossil rodents. The concentration of strontium in modern and fossil enamel from the area is statistically indistinguishable, as is the range of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios in modern rodents and fossil rodents from Swartkrans. Thus, there is little evidence of diagenetic Sr in the fossil enamel. In contrast, the fossil dentine may contain up to ∼50% diagenetic strontium, although many dentine ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratios are still far removed from the background cave value of 0.729. We propose that LA-MC-ICP-MS will also be of use for investigating the geographic origins of other, non-rodent fossil teeth from the Sterkfontein and Swartkrans collections, and may prove of similar utility at other suitable sites.     

Characterization of elemental and firing-dependent properties of Phlegrean ceramics by non-destructive ED-XRF and NMR techniques

A combination of energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (ED-XRF) and 2D proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) relaxometry was employed for the characterization of two groups of similar ceramic fragments from the high-medieval production of the Phlegrean area (Miseno and Cuma, Southern Italy). Both methods are based on the use of non-destructive and portable instruments. This approach allows to correlate complementary microstructural features of ceramics, both dependent and independent of the firing technique.     

Logistical mobility reduces subsistence risk in hunting economies

Increasing carnivory is frequently cited as one of the key trajectories in the course of hominin evolution, yet the ethnographic record demonstrates that hunting is a high-variance, risky strategy necessitating a fundamental re-organisation of the foraging pattern. Hunter-gatherers rely on intra-band sharing of hunted resources as well as inter-band insurance mechanisms to mitigate against the risk of resource failure. It is suggested that logistical mobility functions to increase encounter rates with both prey and representatives of neighbouring groups, and is thus a fundamental part of the hunting adaptation. Implementation of an ideal gas model of encounter rate demonstrates that, when logistical mobility is regarded as a basic group fission pattern, it increases encounter rates for all groups relying on greater than 34% hunting. This equates to a shift in the optimal hunting percentage, as defined by encounter rates, from 24% under residential mobility to 35% under a logistical mobility strategy. These results are discussed in relation to fission–fusion social systems in primates and social carnivores, with a view to highlighting the specific aspects in which these differ from human foraging strategies.     

How was Howard's war possible? Winning the war of position over Iraq

While a range of accounts have engaged with the important question of why Australia participated in military intervention in Iraq, few analyses have addressed the crucial question of how this participation was possible. Employing critical constructivist insights regarding security as a site of contestation and negotiation, this article focuses on the ways in which the Howard Government was able to legitimise Australian involvement in war in Iraq without a significant loss of political legitimacy. We argue that Howard was able to ‘win’ the ‘war of position’ over Iraq through persuasively linking intervention to resonant Australian values, and through marginalising alternatives to war and the actors articulating them.     

Multi-technique characterization of dyes in ancient Kaitag textiles from Caucasus

Kaitag textiles, named after the Kaitag district of Southwest Daghestan, Russia, where it is being manufactured, are a unique embroidered textile art form. They were used by families on special occasions such as the birth, marriage or death of one of their members and were thus passed down from generation to generation as family heirlooms. Today, only a few hundred of these precious antique specimens can still be found, and surviving examples are mostly from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In this article, an extensive work for the scientific analysis of Kaitag textiles is presented as the logical continuance and updating of the investigations performed by thin layer chromatography almost two decades ago. A multi-technique approach involving the combined use of micro-invasive and nondestructive techniques suitable for in situ analyses was used, aiming to identify the colourants of Kaitag textiles and the inks employed for the underlying drawing. Analyses were performed by high-performance liquid chromatography, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray analysis, as well as visible reflectance spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence. In addition, infrared reflectography and ultraviolet fluorescence were employed to visualise underlying drawings and possible restorations. Corrosion phenomena observed in brown- and black-dyed areas were also investigated.     

Change and variability in Plio-Pleistocene climates: modelling the hominin response

Research into the links between climatic change and hominin evolution has generated numerous hypotheses. In recent years, methodological refinement of, and increased research effort directed towards, reliable proxies for palaeoclimatic change have provided a growing body of data with which to test such hypotheses. Whilst many archaeologists are aware of these data, few are cognizant of the wealth of techniques developed by theoretical biologists over the last half-century to explicitly address the evolutionary consequences of adaptation to temporally heterogeneous environments. The current paper expands and adapts one such technique for use with empirical data, and applies it to a global palaeoclimatic record spanning the last five million years, in order to discern the potential impact of environmental heterogeneity on hominin evolution during this period. Of particular interest are the contributions of climatic change, associated with directional selection, and climatic variability, associated with selection for phenotypic plasticity. At this macro-scale, results suggest an early peak in selection for plasticity at approximately 2–2.7 mya, combined with three major shifts in directional selection at approximately 3.3–3.4, 1.4–1.5, and 0.5–0.6 mya. These results are employed to relate the fossil and archaeological records to a number of environmental hypotheses of human evolution. In particular, it is argued that the origins of the genus Homo and the spread of Oldowan technology are associated not with a major turnover pulse, but with a period of selection for phenotypic plasticity.     

Was Fichte a Remonstrant?

On reading Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation (1806–7), one is struck by the numerous references to religion it contains. The religious aspect of Fichte's writing is interesting in itself as it touches upon wider issues of theology and political thought, but it is also surprising given that Fichte had been labeled an atheist. The purpose of this article is to explore the ‘religious’ aspect of the Addresses looking specifically at the relationship between Fichte's work and the idea of ‘a chosen people.’ I argue that though not restricted to Reformed theology or even to the Christian faith, the idea of a chosen people can be found in Fichte's work but that it cannot be understood in a Lutheran nor Calvinistic manner but rather through the teachings of Jacob Arminius and the Remonstrants.     

Disciplining Memory: Heritage Tourism and the Temporalisation of the Built Environment in Rural France

This article presents an ethnographic case study of the relationship between the development of heritage tourism, and the role of material culture in memory practices in rural Southern France. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in the village of Monadières, it provides an analysis of how artefacts in the locality's built environment have been renovated and revalued in a climate of historical change. This was the consequence of varied acts of commemoration by both independent individuals and the local council in which heritage tourism development was not necessarily the end‐goal. Nevertheless, these acts were implicated in the council's ‘disciplinary programme’ to produce a local infrastructure for heritage tourism. The article therefore explores how this industry co‐habits with and colonises modern memory practices at a micro‐level. To this end it adapts analytical tools from the anthropology of time, which enable an integrative analysis of these differing ‘temporalisations’ of the past.