The vague, the viral, the parasitic: Piranesi's metropolis

In mid-18th century Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s etchings systematically document the old and new monuments, decrepit buildings and broken down infrastructures of a Rome that continues to inhabit and reinvent its past. His views of Rome offer a devastating account of the blurring of distinctions and articulations that time, use and neglect have imposed on the old differentiations of the urban and the rural, the public and the private, the monumental and the domestic in the 18th century city. Rome becomes for Piranesi the laboratory for a questioning of architecture that places his work well beyond the debate on style and on the origin that dominated the architectural discourse of his time. This paper suggests that Piranesi’s images anticipate the dispersion and sprawl of the city of today, in which the ‘vague’, the ‘viral’ and the ‘parasitic’ become modes of inhabitation and of transient negotiated definition. In the Antichità di Roma, ancient buildings are represented not only in their large scale and magnificence, but also in their decay and reversal to a state of naturalness. These works, together with the acute observations of the Vedute di Roma, provide the materials that are then dislocated, manipulated, cloned and endlessly mutated by Piranesi in the synthesis of the Campo Marzio dell’Antica Roma, in which the historical city is almost entirely dissolved and replaced by an extraordinary congestion of fragments. When they are re-examined on the grounds of contemporary architectural and urban theory, the sites of Piranesi's views reveal anticipations of phenomena that affect the metropolis of today. Political, social and economic conditions have changed dramatically, but the questions asked of architecture in and by these sites challenge the definition of an architecture of style, forms and boundaries - in the 18th century as well as in the 21st -in favour of an architecture of change.

Un episodio en la recepción cultural dieciochesca de lo exótico: la llegada del elefante a Madrid en 1773

At the end of 1773 an Indian elephant, brought for the royal ménagerie at Aranjuez, was shown in the streets of Madrid. The resulting public fascination provoked by the intrusion of this exotic animal can be traced through poems (Tomás de Iriarte), short plays (Ramón de la Cruz), articles in the periodical press, popular and scientific prints representing the animal, and even in the costumbrista pastels of Lorenzo Tiepolo. The mythic and premodern knowledge of animal nature collides in a debate with the new scientific observation. In the final decades of the 18th century, the image of the captive elephant acquired in Europe a new symbolic meaning linked with the political fight against slavery. All these very different elements converge in Goya's Disparate de bestia.

"Cómo pintar el aire". Fundamentos científicos de la perspectiva atmosférica

La perspectiva aérea o atmosférica es juzgada por los pintores como parte esencial de la pintura, una vez establecidos los presupuestos geométricos de la representación naturalista mediante la perspectiva lineal. Leonardo da Vinci fue el primer autor en definir la perspectiva aérea o atmosférica, conocidos ya a través de L. B. Alberti los fundamentos geométricos de la perspectiva lineal en el tratado De Pictura (1435). Doscientos años después, tras la influyente publicación del Optics de Newton, contextualizadas bajo el espíritu racionalista del siglo XVIII, el artículo estudia las recomendaciones que desde la ciencia y los científicos (específicamente a través de tres figuras relevantes: Brook Taylor, J. H. Lambert y Gaspard Monge) se dan a los pintores con la pretensión de arbitrar una medición exacta del color, en confrontación con el tradicional empirismo del mundo artístico. Este tema puede considerarse un capítulo de gran interés en la larga historia de la pintura y la representación de los fenómenos atmosféricos, cuyos antecedentes teóricos tienen su inicio en el Débat sur le Coloris de la Académie Française del siglo XVII y sus resultados, conducirán hacia el nacimiento de la moderna Teoría del color, en respuesta a una cuestión tan compleja sobre cómo pintar el aire.

'Marie Salle'

This dictionary entry, which highlights the choreographer's significance to the historical study of music, is placed in a very high profile and reputable online resource.

O bairro teatral: recreio da vida portuense

Tese de doutoramento, Estudos Artísticos (Estudos de Teatro), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, 2014

The Pindaric poetry of Cruz e Silva and the Neoclassical revival among Lusitanian national heroes

António Dinis da Cruz e Silva, member of Arcádia Lusitana, the literary academy he helped to found, introduced the Pindaric ode to the Portuguese literature of the neoclassical period (18th century). This poet imitates the triadic form and the mythological nature of Pindar’s encomiastic poetry, in order to celebrate the deeds of reputed historical figures from the national context, such as sailors, captains, politicians, and even the king himself. As in Pindar’s poetry, the mythological excursus holds an important part in Cruz e Silva’s Pindaric poetry. Winners of athletic games are acclaimed through allusion to the ancient heroes. Likewise, the heroes of the Portuguese history see themselves turned into immortals, since their deeds are reported as comparatively greater than those of Homeric warriors. Among the 44 Cruz e Silva’s Pindaric odes, 18 rewrite the myth of the Trojan War, from its beginnings with Eris (Odes I-II) to its outcome with the imperishable fame of the most conspicuous Homeric fighters (Ode XLII). These 18 compositions (re)tell, in a neoclassical style, the main scenes and themes of the Iliad and Odyssey, alluding directly to their heroes’ deeds. Achilles’ wrath and Hector’s death are topics repeatedly brought up in Cruz e Silva’s Pindaric poetry as models of courage and patriotism for national heroes. This chapter offers a discussion of Cruz e Silva’s neoclassical representation of the Trojan War. To this effect, an interdisciplinary approach is adopted, showing how the Portuguese poet handles the mythological material from Homer and Pindar. In this way, he initiated in 18th-century Portuguese literature a new literary genre, the Pindaric ode. By dealing with Poetry and History, Cruz e Silva perpetuated the life and fame of national heroes long after their deaths.

Transmitting Chinese Medicine: Changing Perceptions of Body, Pathology, and Treatment in Late Imperial China

Historians of Chinese medicine acknowledge the plurality of Chinese medicine along both synchronic and diachronic dimensions. Yet, there remains a tendency to think of tradition as being defined by some unchanging features. The Chinese medical body is a case in point. This is assumed to have been formalised by the late Han dynasty around a system of internal organs, conduits, collaterals, and associated body structures. Although criticism was voiced from time to time, this body and the micro/ macrocosmic cosmological resonances that underpin it are seen to persist until the present day. I challenge this view by attending to attempts by physicians in China and Japan in the period from the mid 16th to the late 18th century to reimagine this body. Working within the domain of cold damage therapeutics and combining philological scholarship, empirical observations, and new hermeneutic strategies these physicians worked their way towards a new territorial understanding of the body and of medicine as warfare that required an intimate familiarity with the body’s topography. In late imperial China this new view of the body and medicine was gradually re-absorbed into the mainstream. In Japan, however, it led to a break with this orthodoxy that in the Republican era became influential in China once more. I argue that attending further to the innovations of this period—commonly portrayed as one of decline—from a transnational perspective may help to go beyond the modern insistence to frame East Asian medicines as traditional.

Alcipe, Nathercia e Tirse: Considerações sobre as luzes no feminino no Portugal de setecentos

O presente artigo desenvolve-se em torno de três damas esclarecidas da sociedade portuguesa de setecentos: D. Leonor de Almeida (1750-1839), ou Alcipe; D. Catarina de Lencastre (1749-1824), ou Nathercia; e D. Teresa de Mello Breyner (1739-1798?), ou Tirse. Sabendo que o século XVIII foi um período marcado por mudança e controvérsia, pela emergência de novos paradigmas, pelo reequacionamento de estruturas mentais e tradições seculares – ainda que em Portugal se experimentasse uma certa resistência às teorias filosóficas emergentes – a questão que lançamos e procuramos analisar é: qual o reflexo destas transformações no universo feminino? Assim, partindo dos três exemplos referidos e a eles tornando, pretendemos problematizar três questões centrais no discurso iluminista – educação, leituras e viagens – observando como estas matérias, assaz discutidas e teorizadas ao longo do século XVIII, se repercutiram na formação feminina em solo português e, por outro lado, analisar o modesto mas expressivo papel que as referidas damas assumiram na propagação da cultura das luzes em Portugal.

A consagração dos naturais

“One cannot analyse a legal concept outside the economic and socio-cultural context in which it was applied” – such is the longstanding thesis of António Manuel Hespanha. I argue that Hespanha’s line of argument relative to legal concepts is also applicable, mutatis mutandis, to legal agents: the magistrates, advocates, notaries, solicitors and clerks who lived and exercised their professions in a given time and place. The question, then, is how to understand the actions of these individuals in particular contexts – more specifically in late 18th century and 19th century Goa. The main goal of the present thesis was to comprehend how westernized and Catholic Goan elite of Brahman and Chardó origin who provided the majority of Goan legal agents used Portuguese law to their own advantage. It can be divided into five key points. The first one is the importance of the Constitutional liberalism regime (with all the juridical, judicial, administrative and political changes that it has brought, namely the parliamentary representation) and its relations with the perismo – a local political and ideological tendency nurtured by Goan native Catholic elite. It was explored in the chapter 2 of this thesis. The second key point is the repeated attempts made by Goan native Catholic elite to implement the jury system in local courts. It was studied in the chapter 3. Chapter 4 aims to understand the participation of the native Catholic elite in the codification process of the uses and traditions of the indigenous peoples in New Conquests territory. The fourth key point is the involvement of those elites not only in the conflict of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions but also in the succession of the Royal House of Sunda. It was analyzed in the chapter 5. The functions of an advocate could be delegated to someone who, though lacking a law degree, possessed sufficient knowledge to perform this role satisfactorily. Those who held a special licence to practice law were known as provisionários (from provisão, or licence, as opposed to the letrados, or lettered). In the Goa of the second half of the 18th century and the 19th century, such provisionários were abundant, the vast majority coming from the native Catholic elite. The characteristics of those provisionários, the role played by the Portuguese letrados in Goa and the difficult relations between both groups were studied in the chapter 6.

Scottish Rite (Masonic Order) French Language Collection, 1787-1825, 1907, n.d.

The origins of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry can be traced to France around 1754, when a Chapter of Claremont was founded in Paris. Initially this chapter had seven degrees, but by 1758 there were twenty-five degrees, known as the Rite of Perfection. In 1761, Stephen Morin was appointed to introduce the Rite into the New World. He began with Kingston, Jamaica and San Domingo. Further establishments were made in New Orleans, LA(1763); Albany, NY (1767); Philadelphia, PA (1782); and Charleston, SC (1783). In order to improve the disorganized state of the degrees in Europe, “Grand Constitutions” were enacted in 1786. These Constitutions formally brought into existence the “Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite”. None of the degrees of the Scottish Rite would seem to have origins in Scotland. “Scottish” is translated from the French word “Ecossais”, which is found in some of the French titles of some of the degrees of the Rite of Perfection. It is possible that the Scottish connection is a result of the involvement of a Scotsman, Andrew Michael Ramsey, who may have devised some of the degrees.

Le conte de fées parodique français du XVIIIe siècle : un discours antimerveilleux

À première vue inoffensif, le conte de fées parodique français du XVIIIe siècle dissimule, sous le couvert de la féérie, un discours anticontesque et antiromanesque. Qu'ils soient explicites ou non, ces propos prennent généralement forme dans les métalepses émises tant par les narrateurs que par les narrataires dans le texte lui-même ou dans le péritexte auctorial. L'élaboration d'une typologie, à partir de dix contes publiés entre 1730 et 1754, offre une vue d'ensemble de ce phénomène narratif épars et ouvre la voie à une analyse transversale des discours tenus dans ce trope. Loin d'être innocent, le contenu des métalepses contesques laisse poindre une nouvelle poétique du conte et du roman qui s'éloigne progressivement de l'idéal classique régissant toujours ces deux genres au XVIIIe siècle.

Histoire, Révolution et esthétique : le temps et ses représentations dans le Tableau de Paris et le Nouveau Paris de Louis Sébastien Mercier

Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), sous la direction de M. Michel Delon.

Tensions tectoniques du projet d'architecture : études comparatives de concours canadiens et brésiliens (1967-2005)

Cette thèse entend contribuer à la compréhension du processus de conception architecturale par le biais du concept de tectonique, notion dont l’historicité confirme une certaine diversité de significations, mais qui suscite une réflexion fondamentale sur le rapport entre l’esthétique architecturale et les moyens constructifs. La connaissance technique de la construction, constituée principalement au 18ème siècle, permettra une nouvelle réflexion sur le rapport entre l’esthétique architecturale et les moyens constructifs. Au 19ème siècle, moment de l’apparition du concept de « tectonique » dans le contexte du débat sur la notion de style, l’indéniable contribution de l’architecte et théoricien Gottfried Semper reconnaît la complexité matérielle de l’édifice. La reprise du terme au 20ème siècle par l’historien et théoricien Kenneth Frampton va quant à elle déplacer le sens de la tectonique vers l’idée d’un « potentiel d’expression constructive ». Ces deux auteurs représentent deux grandes approches tectoniques convergeant sur la nécessité, pour toute théorie de l’architecture, d’encourager une réflexion critique de la construction. Cette thèse se développe en deux parties, l’une retraçant l’histoire et les enjeux de la tectonique, l’autre, de nature plus concrète, cherchant à tester l’actualité du concept à travers une série d’analyses tectoniques de projets modernes et contemporains. À la croisée de deux contextes géographiques différents, le Canada et le Brésil, le corpus de projets de concours que nous avons constitué considère la tectonique comme un phénomène transculturel. Nous formulons l’hypothèse d’une « tectonique du projet », c’est-à-dire d’un espace théorique dans lequel les questions relatives au bâtiment s’élaborent dans des « tensions » dialectiques. L’actualité des catégories semperiennes, dans lesquelles les différents « éléments » du bâtiment représentent différentes techniques de construction, est revisitée à partir de l’étude des projets de Patkau Architects (1986) et de MMBB Arquitetos (1990). Une tension entre les expressions symbolique et formelle issues du matériau brut est plus explicite dans l’étude des projets de Ramoisy Tremblay architectes (2002) et de Brasil Arquitetura (2005). La théorie de la transformation de matériau (Stoffwechseltheorie) de Semper est réexaminée parallèlement dans les projets d’Arthur Erickson et Geoffrey Massey (1967) et de Paulo Mendes da Rocha (1969). Dans l’ensemble de tensions tectoniques présentes tout au long de la conception, nous avons retenu plus particulièrement : le contact avec le sol, la recherche d’une homogénéité constructive, ou son opposé, la recherche d’une variété matérielle et, finalement la tension entre la dimension représentationnelle et la dimension technique de l’architecture. La modélisation du concept de tectonique, par un ensemble de tensions auxquelles les concepteurs doivent s’adresser en phase de projet, confirme que des questions en apparence simplement « techniques » concernent en fait tout autant le génie de l’invention que la connaissance historique des idées architecturales.

Immigration et alimentation à Montréal aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles : essai d’interprétation à partir d’analyses isotopiques sur des populations archéologiques

Afin d’étudier l’influence de la migration sur l’alimentation à Montréal aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, 64 individus de la collection du cimetière Notre-Dame, daté de 1691 à 1796, ont fait l’objet d’analyses ostéologiques et isotopiques. Les analyses isotopiques ont portées sur le carbone (d13C) et l’azote (d15N) du collagène des os, ainsi que sur le d13C et l’oxygène (d18O) du carbonate de l’apatite des os et des dents (prémolaires et troisièmes molaires). Le d18O des dents a permis de définir approximativement trois régions d’origine (région de Montréal, région enrichie en 18O (i.e. Acadie, Louisiane, Nouvelle-Angleterre, France, Antilles et Afrique) et région appauvrie en 18O (intérieur des terres et plus au nord) pour 58 individus, et sept possibles parcours migratoire (N=27). Plus de la moitié de l’échantillon est composé d’individus possiblement natifs de Montréal (55 %). De plus, les résultats indiquent que les gens étaient peu mobiles avant l’âge de 16 ans. Toutefois, 12 individus ont entrepris des déplacements entre 7 et 16 ans, majoritairement d’un environnement enrichi vers Montréal (N=5) ou de Montréal vers une région appauvrie (N=5). L’âge de recrutement des mousses sur les navires, la traite de la fourrure, la coupe du bois et possiblement aussi l’esclavage pourraient expliquer cette « jeune » migration. Sur le plan alimentaire, les végétaux de type C3, la viande nourrie aux ressources C3 et le poisson faisaient partie du menu montréalais. Les plantes C4 (majoritairement maïs mais aussi sucre de canne [rhum]) étaient consommées en quantité variable. La question de l’influence de la migration sur l’alimentation n’a pu être explorée en profondeur en raison de contraintes liées à la contamination du d18O du carbonate des os. La combinaison des données ostéologiques et isotopiques à la distribution spatiale des sépultures, a permis d’étudier un aspect de l’archéologie funéraire à l’échelle individuelle (identité possible), sans toutefois fournir de résultats probants, à l’échelle du cimetière et de son organisation globale.