Firenze University Press: E-Journals
Not a member yet
14016 research outputs found
Sort by
La grotta genitrice: dal mito classico allo zoo di pietra
Get PDFBased on Giorgio Vasari and on a certain amount of documentary evidence, we can confidently state that Niccolò Tribolo was the artist responsible for designing and beginning the construction of the grotto. Devised to celebrate Cosimo I and Eleonora, with an allusion to the myth of Egeria and Numa Pompilius, Tribolo’s design may well have already included the presence of animals, possibly to accompany an Orpheus. A statue of Orpheus was certainly present in the 17th century, and I propose to identify it here with a late 16th century marble work now standing in the Boboli Garden. After Tribolo’s death, building work largely continued to comply with his design thanks to his assistants, led by Davide Fortini, with the addition of Vasari and of Bartolomeo Ammannati. In 1565, however, the iconographical programme changed, with the introduction of bronze birds by Giambologna and Ammannati assisted, according to hitherto unpublished documentary evidence, by Giovan Battista Del Tadda; while the stone animals, carved chiefly by experts who trained with Tribolo, such as Francesco Ferrucci Del Tadda and Antonio Lorenzi, did not appear on the scene until 1580-95
Philosophie et libre pensée = Philosophy and free thought. XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Textes réunis par Lorenzo Bianchi, Nicole Gengoux et Gianni Paganini
Get PDFDroit naturel et droit à la vie. Beccaria lecteur de Hobbes
Get PDFAlthough in the section A chi legge he suggested otherwise, Beccaria owes much to Hobbes. This is evinced by three theses advanced in Dei delitti e delle pene: human beings are by nature unsociable; there is no natural law prior to the establishment of the civil society; natural rights derive from our inborn tendency to self-preservation. From these assumptions, however, Beccaria draws three conclusions that contradict Hobbes: even the most fundamental rights, being guaranteed only by the civil law, are in fact created by it; sovereignty, which is intrinsically limited, is legitimate only insofar as it acknowledges the right to live; the death penalty is illegitimate because it brings men back to the state of permanent war they meant to overcome
Crime, punishment, and law in eighteenth-century British encyclopedias
Get PDFIn the second half of 18th-century Europe, the notions – and the administration – of law and justice underwent dramatic and fundamental epistemological changes. Crime and punishment were gradually reconceptualised and redefined. The general aim of the present study is to provide an overview of selected contents included in 18th-century British dictionaries of arts and sciences: a survey on the words connected to crime and punishment, and the function of reference works in the dissemination of traditional vs. innovative contents. The detailed aim is at least twofold: to analyse the notions and terms of crime, punishment, corporal punishment as judicial torture, and their relationship with law and justice, and to verify the inclusion of Beccaria’s work and his ideas in encyclopedic entries after 1767
On the Idea of a ‘Method’ in Moral Philosophy
Get PDFThe paper discusses the two meanings that ‘method’ is often assumed to have in moral philosophy: the epistemic meaning, according to which a method is a procedure to reach moral knowledge, and the normative meaning, according to which it is a criterion of right and wrong in actions. The origin of these two, clearly connected meanings can be traced to Sidgwick’s work The Methods of Ethics. It is argued that Sidgwick’s seminal idea of a “reflective equilibrium” is a valuable and lasting contribution to the debate on moral epistemology; however, Sidgwick’s characterisation of the different normative options is biased against non consequentialist approaches by its concentration on “methods”, rather than on theories and “ultimate reasons”. This consequentialist bias still lingers in contemporary ethics
L’architettura è arte
Get PDFIt was Étienne-Louis Boullée who, during the Enlightenment, brought architecture back into the system of the arts. The vindication of its status as a form of art is based on its aims: composition, character and construction are incorporated into a rational theory that keeps them firmly united, against any positivism, reason and sentiment, intellect and emotion
Intuizioni linguistiche e filosofia sperimentale: metodi a confronto
Get PDFNell’ultimo decennio si è infittito il dibattito sul ruolo della filosofia sperimentale rispetto alla cosiddetta filosofia ‘in poltrona’ (‘armchair philosophy’). La discussione, che riguarda i metodi della filosofia analitica in generale, ha ricadute di grande interesse per la filosofia del linguaggio in particolare. In questo articolo presento un caso in cui una questione centrale nello studio dei termini espressivi – cioè se il contenuto offensivo delle espressioni denigratorie sopravviva o no nell’interazione con operatori semantici e in particolare con la negazione – è stata affrontata quasi contemporaneamente adottando metodi filosofici differenti: (i) in poltrona, (ii) attraverso l’applicazione di test linguistici e (iii) attraverso metodi sperimentali. I tre metodi – così diversi per tradizione e prospettive – offrono risultati convergenti. Casi come questi mostrano come una pluralità metodologica e un atteggiamento più ecumenico rispetto allo scontro tra filosofia sperimentale e filosofia ‘in poltrona’ non siano da temere ma anzi da perseguire
Descriptive osteology of an imperiled amphibian, the Luristan newt (Neurergus kaiseri, Amphibia: Salamandridae)
Get PDFOsteological structures are important biological features which provide valuable biological and ecological information. Luristan newt (Neurergus kaiseri), is an endemic salamander, inhabiting the southern part of Zagros Mountains of Iran. The current study was conducted to describe the osteological characteristics of the Luristan newt which might be important in understanding the evolutionary process of newt species. The skull of N. kaiseri has a dense structure, severely ossified elements and a low amount of cartilaginous elements, only in mobile facets. Vertebral number in the axial skeleton of the species equals 50. The cervical, abdominal and caudal parts of the vertebral column have two, 16 and 32 vertebrae, respectively. Each hand and foot consisted of four fingers, having three or four phalanxes. The metacarpal includes seven bones and the number of metatarsus bones is eight. Hands are connected to humur through ulnare and radius and then connected to scapulocoracoid. Each leg includes two bones (fibula and tibia) which are connected to femur. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone, while the distal part of the femur articulates with the tibia
Does color polymorphism affect the predation risk on Phalotris lemniscatus (Duméril, Bibron and Duméril, 1854) (Serpentes, Dipsadidae)?
Get PDFThe snake Phalotris lemniscatus is a polymorphic species regarding color, which varies between light shades with a yellow predominance (pale yellow-brown) to darker shades with a red predominance (red-dark). Pale yellow-brown individuals are more frequent in coastal populations while there is a tendency of increasing the frequency of red-dark morphs in inland areas. Considering the variation in substrate color along the species distribution (light/sandy on the coast to reddish and dark/argillaceous in inland areas), we raise the hypothesis that the predation rate of each morph would be lower in sites were its crypsis potential is higher. If correct, this hypothesis would reinforce the idea that the predation risk is one of the factors influencing the spatial structuring in morph frequency distributions in populations of P. lemniscatus. To test this hypothesis, we performed a field experiment using plasticine P. lemniscatus artificial models that represent two morphs: red-dark and pale yellow-brown. The models were distributed in three localities where the following substrate types predominate: light (Coastal Site), intermediary (Lowland Site) and reddish dark (Highland Site). Our predictions were corroborated only at the coastal site, where the less cryptic morph was the most preyed one. We verified that there is a regional variation in the predation risk on different morphs. Thus, the possibility that the selective pressure by predators is a relevant element in the structuring of the frequencies of different morph populations of this species cannot be completely excluded
Tonal calls as a bioacoustic novelty in two Atlantic Forest species of Physalaemus (Anura: Leptodactylidae)
Get PDFThe frog genus Physalaemus has almost 50 species with vocalizations that are mostly composed of a single note. This note tends to have a broad harmonic structure or a pulsed structure. The sister species P. lateristriga and P. olfersii have pulsed advertisement calls that have been described as a noisy and long-lasting warbling sound. We provide the first account of inclusion of tonal sounds as part of the vocal repertoire of these species. Pure tones can (1) be long and form the entire call; (2) form prefixes of variable length separated by silence from the advertisement call; (3) be brief and form the onset or the offset of the regular advertisement call. Tonal calls may be an evolutionary novelty and they are not known from other populations of P. olfersii and P. lateristriga. Identification of the mechanism of sound production and of the behavioural role of these unique calls may help elucidate the evolution of call complexity in frogs