Myth and the New Science: Vico, Tiepolo, and the Language of the Optimates
The ideas of the Neapolitan philosopher Giovanni Battista Vico attracted little attention during his lifetime, except in Venice, where his works found an enthusiastic audience. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's early ceiling fresco in the Palazzo Sandi (1725–26) offers a unique example of how contemporary Venetian intellectuals read Vico's work. It appears that Tiepolo's patrons based the iconography of their salone on Vico's Universal Law (1720–22) and first New Science (1725) to illustrate the main tenets of the myth of Venice, a political fiction that legitimized the class structure of the republic and the absolute legislative and judicial authority of its aristocracy.
Beings of nature and reason: mythological masculinities in early 18th-century French art and visual culture
Statement of Originality Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Introduction 11 Chapter One Of Myth and Men 27 Chapter Two In the Likeness of Bacchus 62 Chapter Three Venus and a Satyr 97 Chapter Four Pan and Syrinx 141 Chapter Five Marsyas Flayed by the Order of Apollo 175 Conclusion 212 Catalogue of Images 227 Bibliography 300
A peptide muscarinic toxin from the Green Mamba venom shows agonist-like action in an inhibitory avoidance learning task.
A peptide, muscarinic toxin 2 (MTX2), isolated from Dendroaspis angusticeps venom was previously shown to displace the specific binding of [3H]pirenzepine, a muscarinic M1 receptor ligand, from rat brain synaptosomal membranes. We have tested MTX2 for muscarinic agonist or antagonist actions in an inhibitory avoidance task in rats. Infusion of the muscarinic receptor antagonist scopolamine into the hippocampus of rats immediately after the training period produced amnesia, whereas the muscarinic agonist oxotremorine increased retention. When MTX2 was injected into the hippocampus of rats after the inhibitory avoidance task, it caused memory facilitation, which could be suppressed by the concomitant infusion of scopolamine. Hence, in this test, MTX2 showed muscarinic receptor agonist-like actions, which are probably mediated by the M1 subtype of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors.