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Policy in “Lockdown”: the Algerine Government of Arab Ahmed Between Plague and Enemies of the Faith (1572-74)

In 1572, Sultan Selim II appointed Arab Ahmed as the new governor of the Ottoman province of Algiers. His main task was to defend the sultan’s territories from the enemies of the Islamic faith, primarily the Spanish Monarchy. Nevertheless, having to face serious economic and social challenges owing to a local plague, he had no army or resources to rely on to protect his province. Therefore, while he was trying to implement health measures to prevent the spread of plague, Arab Ahmed entered into a series of diplomatic contacts with the Spaniards. Examining the correspondence between Algiers and Istanbul, as well as that of the Spanish diplomatic agents in Maghreb, the present study aims to assess the effects of the plague on the political choices made by the Ottoman governor of Algiers.

Keywords:  Early modern Mediterranean, Plague epidemics, Ottoman Algiers, Algerine health measures, Spanish-Algerine diplomacy.

Parole chiave: Mediterraneo della prima età moderna, Epidemie di peste, Algeri ottomana, Misure sanitarie algerine, Diplomazia ispano-algerina.

Medicine, Justice and Public Health in Early Modern Venice

This paper examines the relationship between medicine and justice in the management of public health during the Republic of Venice. It explores the emergency measures taken to combat outbreaks, which involved a partnership between medical experts and political authorities. However, this partnership extended beyond epidemics, requiring a complex interplay of authorities in administering social life. The Venetian Republic was a crucial setting for the development of modern health management, which prioritized social control and public order over prevention and care. The paper notes that this collaboration between medicine and justice extended to regulating deviant behaviors, such as violence and non-normative sexuality. Ultimately, medicine was subordinated to politics and the protection of the community.

Keywords:  Medicine, Justice, Public health, Venice, Social control.

Parole chiave: Medicina, Giustizia, Sanità, Venezia, Controllo sociale.

«For the Common Preservation». The Magistrate of Health of Livorno and the Great Plague of Marseille (1720)

The numerous transnational maritime connections of the free port of Livorno could turn into an element of biological and economic danger every time the threat of contagious diseases spreading via sea trade loomed. This was the case when the plague struck the population of Marseille in the summer of 1720. The main purpose of my paper is to study the response by the Magistrate of Health of Livorno to the challenges posed by such an unforeseen emergency. This significant case study will therefore provide new insights into the development of standardised public health practices in a thriving eighteenth-century free port and, no less important, it will show the interrelatedness of health policy and commercial rivalries in the Mediterranean.

Keywords:  Free ports, Public health, Mediterranean sea, Marseille, Livorno.

Parole chiave: Porti franchi, Sanità pubblica, Mediterraneo, Marsiglia, Livorno.

The Magistrate of Health of Genoa during the Plague in the Mediterranean. Between Prevention and the Circulation of Information (1816-1823)

Between 1816 and 1823, a serious plague epidemic struck a large area of the Mediterranean basin, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people. During this severe emergency, the health offices of the main European ports put in place a control and prevention effort, with the aim of preventing, mainly through the exchange of information, the plague’s massive spread on the northern shore of the Mediterranean. This article considers the role of Magistrate of Health of Genoa in this preventive action. Analysis of documents preserved in the Archivio di Stato of Genoa cast light on the relationship between the Genoese institution and the offices of other European cities, and the modes of information gathering from plague-affected territories.

Keywords:  Magistrate of Health of Genoa, Plague, Prevention, Public health, Information exchange.

Parole chiave: Magistrato di Sanità di Genova, Peste, Prevenzione, Salute pubblica, Scambio di informazioni.

Searching for the Vaccine. Logistics and Health Diplomacy against Smallpox in Restoration Italy

In Restoration Italy, producing, conserving, and distributing the smallpox vaccine represented one of the main challenges to overcome when public authorities intended to set up vaccination campaigns. By investigating the circulation of practical medical knowledge and the vaccine itself between the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, this article demonstrates that vaccination campaigns were not merely a matter of internal health policies. Instead, they depended on international networks involving governments, prominent physicians, and consuls, and represented crucial occasions for both mutual cooperation and political/diplomatic pressure.

Keywords:  Smallpox, Vaccination, 19th-Century Italy, Practical knowledge, Health diplomacy.

Parole chiave: Vaiolo, Vaccinazione, Italia nel XIX secolo, Sapere pratico, Diplomazia sanitaria.

Offices, Officers and Notary Class in the Principality of Taranto at the Time of the Transition from the Orsini to the Aragon

Starting from the available documentation originating mainly from the Archives of the Prince of Taranto (now part of the archival collection of the Regia Camera della Sommaria of the State Archives of Naples), the present paper aims at retracing the careers of Orsinian officials after Giovanni Antonio Orsini del Balzo’s death in November 1463. The death of the powerful lord and the ensuing devolution of the Principality to the Aragonese Crown brought about a series of transformations not only in the judicial and institutional organization of the territory, but also in its administrative structure, feudal geography and social fabric. Particular attention will be devoted to administrative careers which usually required notary skills, to the criteria for selecting officials serving first the prince and then the king, and to their social origins, in an attempt to highlight elements of inconsistency and breaking points throughout such a delicate phase of transition.

Keywords:  Notary class, Principality of Taranto, Officers, Social mobility.

Parole chiave: Ceto notarile, Principato di Taranto, Ufficiali, Mobilità sociale.

The Samurai of Christ. The Construction of a Jesuit Missionary Holiness

The article traces the career as martyr of the newly beatified Takayama Ukon, a Japanese daimyō converted to the Christian faith by Jesuit missionaries in the second half of the 16th century. An agent of Catholic proselytism among his subjects, Ukon already had a reputation for holiness when he died in exile in Manila in 1615. His trajectory appears to be an effective and instructive metaphor for a counter-reforming Catholicism capable, outside Europe, of devising strategies of accommodation to the local culture in order to spread in a society perceived as hostile and immune to the political influence of Europeans. It also provides an opportunity to reflect upon the process of constructing an alternative Jesuit missionary holiness through the valorization of a “martyrdom” without the effusion of blood – a martyr without martyrdom, in fact.

Keywords:  Holiness, Jesuit missions, Accommodation, Martyrdom.

Parole chiave: Santità, Missioni gesuite, Accomodatio, Martirio.

The Seductions of Superstitions. The Case of Duncan Campbell in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century England

This article investigates the future as an epistemological arena in a hitherto understudied work from the early eighteenth century, The Supernatural Philosopher. First printed for Edmund Curll in 1720 under an alternative title, then expanded in 1728, the text focuses on Duncan Campbell (c. 1680-1730), a deaf and mute soothsayer who was a popular attraction in London during the 1720s. The proclaimed ability to see the future makes Campbell’s case a vantage point to observe the negotiation of credibility and credulity in the Age of Reason. This article thematizes the connection between Campbell’s preternatural faculties, his claimed Scottish and Sami origins, and the relationship established by The Supernatural Philosopher with a number of literary sources and with a female public.

Keywords:  Duncan Campbell, Clairvoyance, Second sight, Future, Credibility.

Parole chiave: Duncan Campbell, Chiaroveggenza, Second Sight, Futuro, Credibilità.

Expansion of International Trade, Modernization, and Economic Growth in Pre-Unification Piedmont

The new international economic policy of the Sardinian states in the early 1850s adopted foreign trade as a driving force in the process of the kingdom’s economic and institutional modernization. A visible sign of the success of the Piedmontese “development model” during the Cavour decade was the rapid increase in the flow of exports of primary and semi-finished products. These exports propelled the growth of the economy, stimulating its structural transformation. Institutional changes, the acquisition from abroad of cultural, financial, and business organization models, and innovative business organizational practices were also important. Significant, too, was the huge influx of foreign capital which helped to expand the Sardinian balance of payments, as well as the growing importance of banking, insurance, and state-of-the-art specialized commercial organizations for the exchange of goods and capital.

Keywords:  Cavour decade, Sardinian States foreign trade, Economic modernization, Institutional changes.

Parole chiave: Decennio cavouriano, Commercio estero degli Stati sardi, Modernizzazione economica, Cambiamenti istituzionali.

The notion of «non-political classes» and its variant «non-political orders» have been playing a significant role in the modern historiography on the late Roman Republic and the early Principate. This paper discusses their emergence and development, seeks to probe their intrinsic validity and discusses their connections with ongoing debates on Roman political and social history.

Keywords:  Non-political classes, Roman Republic, Roman Principate, Ronald Syme, Arnaldo Momigliano.

Parole chiave: Classi non politiche, Roma in età repubblicana, Principato romano, Ronald Symes, Arnaldo Momigliano..

From “Modern Freedom” to “Organic Freedom.” Antonio Gramsci’s Theoretical-Political Approach

The aim of his essay is to show how Antonio Gramsci’s political thought was able to overcome the traditional dichotomy between the freedom of the ancients and the freedom of the moderns, between positive and negative freedom, as well as the oppositions between public and private, collective and individual, State and civil society, and so on. From his early writings, in fact, Gramsci did not consider socialism as the negation of liberalism, but as its dialectical overcoming/inversion (Aufhebung). In his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci defined this new concept of freedom as “organic,” to indicate that the modern individual can accomplish it only within a collective organisation.

Keywords:  Antonio Gramsci, Liberalism, Freedom, Socialism, Equality.

Parole chiave: Antonio Gramsci, Liberalismo, Libertà, Socialismo, Uguaglianza.

For a Social History of the Inquisitorial Institution

This article reflects on the book by Dennj Solera, La società dell’Inquisizione. Uomini, tribunali e pratiche del Sant’Uffizio romano, Roma, Carocci, 2021.

Keywords:  Inquisition, Heresy, Society, Discipline, Conflict, Violence.

Parole chiave: Inquisizione, Eresia, Società, Disciplina, Conflitto, Violenza.