Articles about 'Italy'

The identification of an eleventh-century Islamic astrolabe bearing both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions makes it one of the oldest examples ever discovered and one of only a handful known in the world. The astronomical instrument was adapted, translated and corrected for centuries by Muslim, Jewish and Christian users in Spain, North Africa and Italy.

Art historians have created a new app which allows users to roam around one of Florence’s oldest and most important churches, San Pier Maggiore, 240 years after it was demolished.

Rustic figurines of a resigned-looking Virgin clutching her child may have no obvious literary or artistic merit to us today. But understanding what they meant to the spiritual lives of their owners can offer a glimpse of the human hopes and fears that people have, for centuries, invested in inanimate objects.

Hailed as “one of the most important artists in any medium”, the award-winning and Oscar-nominated Italian documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi is coming to Cambridge this month as filmmaker-in-residence at Cambridge University’s Centre for Film and Screen.

The trappings of violence were embedded into the culture of 16th century Europe. Victoria Bartels, a PhD candidate in the Faculty of History, has conducted research in a Florentine archive to show how, even at a time when the bearing of arms was prohibited, men negotiated ways to sport their daggers and swords in public.

With the autumn 2014 fashion shows in full swing, all eyes are on the top designers. In 16th-century Italy, the latest looks didn't always go down well with the authorities. Historian Giulia Galastro is researching the sumptuary laws regulating the level of opulence that could be paraded in public – and how the dandies of the day neatly side-stepped the rules.  

Belton House boasts one of the most extensive libraries among National Trust properties, representing 350 years of book collecting. Dr Abigail Brundin and Dr Dunstan Roberts have curated an exhibition of Italian literature at Belton, showcasing material that has rarely been seen by the public. 

Cambridge archaeologists are illuminating some of the oldest graphic art of the past, by applying some of the most advanced graphic technology of the present.

Some of the world’s oldest engravings of the human form – prehistoric rock art from the Italian Alps – have been brought to life by the latest digital technology at Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

A Butler Day at St John’s College tomorrow (12 January) celebrates the many trips to Italy undertaken by the polymath Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon. The event comprises an exhibition and talks which are open to the public and free of charge.