Archaeology, Merriment, and Murder: The First Cortile of the Palazzo Vecchio and its Transformations in the Late Florentine Republic
The relationship between trecento and quattrocento architecture is usually seen as a simplistic paragone of stylistic antithesis generally derogatory to the former period. A reconstruction of the original cortile wing of the Palazzo Vecchio, which was remodeled in the Renaissance, permits the deconstruction of this view, at least with respect to key aspects of one major building. New archaeological evidence, together with historical data and the analysis of two picaresque literary texts, yields a detailed picture of the complex early project. The builders' remarkably precise and imaginative planning procedure is rediscovered, along with the exceptionally high functionalism of the original fabric. Life in the palace, real and symbolic, is reviewed, and the changing form of the cortile in the Renaissance is found to have been motivated principally not by aesthetics, but by Medicean politics.
Il governo della città-repubblica di Firenze del primo Quattrocento.Guidobaldo Guidi
cal and typological readings that are certainly called for in works like the Ameto and the Amorosa Visione, for him, as for Singleton, "The Decameron has no sovrasenso." "There is no doubt," he says, "that some of the characters are serious enough: Ghismonda certainly, and the scholar Rinieri, and no doubt in their way most of the seducers." For him the tales "are quite satisfying on the literal level"; they "need no gloss." All in all, this last chapter is a splendid introduction to Boccaccio's great work and a fitting finale to the volume. It deserves our heartiest welcome. Happily there are but few misprints, none of them likely to mislead, and apparently still fewer errors of fact, none serious. Pope John XXII, for example, began his reign in 1316, not in 1314 as we are told. Some of the titles referred to contain slips, e.g. Chaucer's Legend of Fair Women; and the Nymph Song ofFiesole—Bergin's own title for the Ninfale fiesolano—is generously attributed to a translator who called it by another name. These are such sviste as only zpignuolo would trouble to mention. PASADENA, CALIF. DanielJ. Donno
Microstructure of the solder-casting zone in bridges of dental gold alloys.
The composition and structure were studied in the cast and in the solder of bridges which had failed clinically. Both materials were gold alloys but with different contents of Pt, Ag and Zn. The metallographic investigation revealed defects mostly in the solder, situated in the subsurface layer. SEM studied of the fracture surface revealed large porosites and a structure of dense parallel lines--striations--, indicating that the material had failed from fatigue. The materials in the fractured bridges were identified by micro-probe measurements. It was stated that cast material and solder material used together, were of different composition.