Glory,Passions and Money in Alberti’s Della famiglia: A Humanist Reflects on the Foundations of Society

Abstract

The article examines Alberti’s dialogue Della famiglia (“On the Family”) as a reflection on the foundations of ethics and politics from the perspective of humanist discourse. The polyphonic work presents and critically examines several views. The authorial voice of the text rehearses the traditional philosophical view the humanists inherited, according to which humans are sociable by nature. However, some of the interlocutors reject this convenient view, implying that it cannot be squared with the humanist critique of the premises of mainstream classical and medieval philosophy. Another line of argumentation in the dialogue attempts to harness the key humanist notion of gloria as the basis of human association, according to which humans self-interestedly seek fame and glory but to gain them they must promote the common good. But also this position is contested in the dialogue, with some arguing that the agonistic competition for glory produces envy and resentment rather than a civic spirit and as such threatens social cohesion. Finally, Della famiglia also explores the implications of the radical possibility that men and women are asocial creatures, by casting them as selfish economic actors who are only interested in making material gains.     

Quasi-Static Testing of RC Infilled Frames and Confined Stone-Concrete Bearing Walls

This article presents an experimental investigation of the seismic performance of gravity load-designed RC infilled frames and confined bearing walls of limestone masonry backed with plain concrete. Five infilled frames and two bearing walls were constructed at one-third scale and tested using reversed cyclic lateral loading and constant axial loads. Effects of openings, axial loading, and infill interface conditions were examined using quasi-static experimentation. The two structural systems exhibited similar lateral resistance and energy dissipation capacities with higher global displacement ductility for the infilled frames. Hysteretic behavior of the infilled frame models exhibited pinching of the hysteretic loops accompanied by extensive degradation of stiffness whereas loops of the bearing walls were free of pinching. Test results confirmed the beneficial effect of axial loading on lateral resistance, energy dissipation, and ductility of the bearing walls. Higher axial loading resulted in a substantial decrease in ductility with no significant effect on lateral resistance of the infilled frames. Openings within the infill panel reduced significantly the lateral resistance of infilled frames. Using dowels at the infill panel interfaces with the base block and bounding columns enhanced the maximum load-carrying capacity of infilled frames without impairing their ductility.     

Geoarchaeological tsunami deposits at Palaikastro (Crete) and the Late Minoan IA eruption of Santorini

The explosive eruption at Santorini in the Aegean Sea during the second millennium BCE was the largest Holocene volcanic upheaval in the Eastern Mediterranean region. The eruption was disastrous for the Minoan settlements at Santorini, but the effect on human society in the neighbouring islands and regions is still clouded in uncertainty. Tsunami generation was suggested, but comparatively little evidence was found. The lack of firm tsunami traces is particularly puzzling in Crete with its coastal settlements of the Late Minoan IA period, during which the Santorini eruption occurred. Here, we report the discovery of extensive geoarchaeological tsunami deposits at Palaikastro in north-eastern Crete. These deposits are characterized by a mixture of geological materials, including volcanic Santorini ash, and archaeological settlement debris. Various tsunami signatures were identified: (1) erosional contact with the underlying strata, (2) volcanic ash intraclasts in the lower part of the deposit, (3) reworked building stone material in the lower part of the deposit, (4) individual marine shells, (5) marine micro-fauna, (6) imbrication of rounded beach pebbles, settlement debris, ceramic sherds and even bones, (7) multi-modal chaotic composition. Late Minoan human settlement activities at Palaikastro provided architectural and stratigraphic frameworks in space and time that recorded and preserved tsunami evidence as geoarchaeological deposits. Such stratigraphic resolution and preservation may not occur in the natural landscape. Volcanic ash transported by wind from Santorini south-east to Crete preceded the tsunami. Geological, archaeological and radiocarbon dating criteria all converge, indicating that the tsunami deposits are coeval with the Minoan Santorini eruption. Field evidence suggests that tsunami waves at Palaikastro were at least 9 m high. Inverse tsunami modeling was attempted, based on these newly discovered tsunamigenic deposits. The initial wave in the generation region at Santorini that best fits the stratigraphic data is a wave with +35 to −15 m initial amplitude and a crest length of about 15 km.     

Book reviews

Abraham Ben‐Zvi, Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Origins of the American‐Israeli Alliance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. Pp. 218, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0 23111 262 9 HB, 0 23111 263 7 PB.

Kenneth W. Stein, Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin, and the Quest for Arab‐Israeli Peace. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. Pp. xix + 324, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 041592 154 6 HB.

Antonio Donno (ed.), Ombre di guerra fredda. Gli Stati Uniti nel Medio Oriente durante gli anni di Eisenhower, 1953–1961. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1998. Pp. 754, bibliography, notes. ISBN 8 88114 584 7 HB.

Raanan Rein, In the Shadow of the Holocaust and the Inquisition: Israel's Relations with Francoist Spain. Trans. Martha Grenzebach. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1997. Pp. 278, Notes, sources, bibliography, index. ISBN 0 71464 796 9 HB, 0 71464 351 3 PB.

Alan Dowty, The Jewish State: A Century Later. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 2001. Pp. xiv + 337, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0 52020 941 9 PB.

Daniel Gavron, The Kibbutz: Awakening from Utopia. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Pp xvi + 295, glossary, selected bibliography, index. ISBN 0 84769 526 3 HB.

Nahum Karlinsky, Citrus Blossoms: Jewish Entrepreneurship in Palestine, 1890–1939. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2000. Pp. 1 + 315, bibliography, indices. ISBN 9 65493 089 7 HB.

Yaacov N. Goldstein, From Fighters to Soldiers: How the Israeli Defense Forces Began. Brighton, UK, and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 1998. Pp. ix + 302, forward by Yoav Gelber, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 1 90221 001 8 HB, 1 90221 002 6 PB.     

Monitoring and Medicalising Male Sexuality in Semi‐Colonial Egypt

This article examines the ways Egyptians monitored male sexuality in Ottoman and semi‐colonial Egypt. An exploration of the legislative proposals and press debates about marriage, prostitution and venereal disease reveals that the state attempted to medicalise the sexuality of Egyptian men to create ‘healthy’, disciplined men who would later marry and form fit families to serve as the foundation for a strong postcolonial nation. In their attempts to medicalise male sexuality, reformers delineated the normative heterosexuality of the ‘healthy’ male colonial subject for the emerging nation. This article explores the sexual practices of male colonial subjects to demonstrate how Egyptian notions of sexual diseases were gendered.     

Extending the SAND Spatial Database System for the Visualization of Three-Dimensional Scientific Data

The three-dimensional extension of the SAND ( Spatial and Nonspatial Data ) spatial database system is described as is its use for data found in scientific visualization applications. The focus is on surface data. Some of the principal operations supported by SAND involve locating spatial objects in the order of their distance from other spatial objects in an incremental manner so that the number of objects that are needed is not known a priori. These techniques are shown to be useful in enabling users to visualize the results of certain proximity queries without having to execute algorithms to completion as is the case when performing a nearest-neighbor query where a Voronoi diagram (i.e., Thiessen polygon) would be computed as a preprocessing step before any attempt to respond to the query could be made. This is achieved by making use of operations such as the spatial join and the distance semijoin. Examples of the utility of such operations is demonstrated in the context of posing meteorological queries to a spatial database with a visualization component.     

From dialogue to polylogue: Exploring the Israeli and Palestinian past in the present

Resumen Este artículo trata sobre un proyecto centrado en el pasado contencioso en Israel y Palestina. Frente a un escenario de incesantes conflictos, los participantes árabes y los judíos descubrieron sus compromisos mutuos, con distintos puntos de vista, en las comunidades en las que trabajaron. Partiendo de esta base común los participantes exploraron las áreas en las que coinciden o discrepan. No obstante, el espíritu predominante del proyecto era el de la colaboración. Un ejemplo de ese espíritu fue el éxito del esfuerzo de los participantes del proyecto por proteger un antiguo asentamiento que iba a ser destruido por la construcción de un muro de seguridad, a través del West Bank, por Israel.

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Résumé Cet article traite d'un projet au sujet du passé de discorde entre l'lsra?l et la Palestine. Avec pour arrière-plan un conflit incessant, les participants arabes et juifs ont découvert qu'ils étaient mutuellement impliqués dans les communautés dans lesquelles ils travaillaient. Dans le context de ce point commun, les participants on exploré les zones d'accord et de désaccord. La mentalité prédominante dans ce projet a été une de coopération. Le symbole de cet esprit de coopération a été le succès de l'effort des participants du projet pour sauver un ancien établissement menacé de destruction certaine lors de la construction du mur de sécurité par l'lsra?l à travers la West Bank.