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Despite its status as archival source, the public correspondence of Machiavelli has rarely been studied by historians. This essay offers an analysis of this source from the viewpoint of the history of political communication. Usually focussing on the means of transmission, studies on political communication generally fail to address the question of the ontological status of public opinion and its relationship to truth: it is precisely this point that concerns us first of all. We then propose to study communication practices in a defined historical and historiographical context, namely, the construction of the state in modern Italy, understood as both territorial control and conflict management. Machiavelli’s correspondence captures the practical dimension of doxa in a twofold context: that of diplomatic mission, which requires the construction and transmission of truth, and the government of the territory, which requires constant attention both to current rumours and the changing moods of the subject populations.

This paper focuses on a 'legendary' ritual that took place in the 19th century near the church of San Salvatore in Albosaggia, a small village in Valtellina, an Alpine valley in northern Italy. The rite in question comprised the immersion of human skulls in order to attract and repel rainwater according to the needs of the moment. The ritual is analyzed through the recovery and problematization of a heterogeneous corpus of sources attesting to its historicity. A hypothesis is then proposed on the connections between water, the dead and the feminine that underpin them. Thus, the study proposes the adoption of the term 'eco-ritual' to encapsulate this phenomenon. In doing so, a culturally distinctive form of female agency is displayed: the symbolic power to influence the water cycle, which is at the same time an ontological and economic vivifying force.

Keywords: eco-rituale, eco-ritual, éco-rituel, female agency, agence féminine, agenzia femminile, Italy, Italie, Italia, Alpes, Alpi, Alps, matricoltura, matriculture, matriculture

In late medieval Flemish chronicles, sexual violence is frequently depicted as a consequence of war. Chroniclers distinguished between rape as a crime of passion and rape by armed coercion, reflecting broader societal perceptions of sexual violence. These accounts often served to demonize enemies, portraying them as morally corrupt, but they also reveal anxieties about leadership failures and moral transgressions within one’s own ranks that led to plundering, harassment, and ravishment. Both Burgundian and urban chroniclers engaged with this discourse: some highlighted ducal anti-rape policies to reinforce Burgundian legitimacy, while others exposed the contradictions between official prohibitions and the realities of war. Additionally, the portrayal of sexual violence intersects with the concept of moral injury, as chroniclers—both explicitly and implicitly—documented the violation of deeply held ideals about just warfare. As such, chroniclers constructed selective memories of sexual violence during warfare and revolts.

Keywords: Chronicles, Chroniques, Flanders, Flandres, Burgundian Dukes, Ducs de Bourgogne, Sexual Violence, Violence sexuelle, Injustice morale, Moral Injury, Urban Revolt, Révolte urbaine, War, Guerre

Embodied knowledge is a rising concept in many fields of knowledge, and it is crucial to the field of educational sciences. This article aims to contribute to its historicization by examining the case of fight books. It takes its starting point in the coincidence suggested by Pamela Smith, between today’s notion of embodied knowledge and the pre-modern notion of art. While Smith focused on the productive arts, it is important to recognize that the pre-modern notion of art encompasses a broad spectrum, beyond craft. As such it includes fencing and the arts of combat. The article will take as case studies the three oldest known European fight books: The Liber de Arte Dimicatoria (Leeds, Royal Armouries, MS I.33); Fiore de’i Liberi’s Fior di Battaglia, and the manuscript Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Cod. Hs. 3227a. The following question will guide the inquiry: What are the specific means by which Late medieval fencing, as embodied knowledge, is communicated through books?

Keywords: Cod. Hs. 3227a, Cod. Hs. 3227a, Cod. Hs. 3227a, embodied knowledge, savoir incarné, conocimiento encarnado, escrime, fencing, esgrima, Fiore de’i Liberi, Fiore de’i Liberi, Fiore de’i Liberi, late medieval, histoire médiévale, baja Edad Media, MS I.33, MS I.33, MS I.33

The depositional record in the Maritimes Basin falls entirely within the Late Devonian to Permian span of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA). Basin paleolatitudes range from 25–27°S in the middle Tournaisian to equatorial by the end of the Carboniferous. Evidence for glaciation reaching below 10° in latitude is recorded in uppermost Carboniferous to lowermost Permian rocks of the western USA. Sedimentologic evidence for cold-climate sedimentation within the Maritimes Basin is documented in Nova Scotia for the first time by glacially faceted and striated clasts in upper Tournaisian diamictites, which are coeval with glacial diamictites recently described in western Newfoundland. Marine fossils in immediately underlying upper Tournaisian rocks and coeval thick evaporites drilled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence suggest deposition under warm arid conditions. Other Maritimes Basin evaporites were typically deposited during isotopically predicted warm (and arid) climate excursions except for the middle Tournaisian Gautreau Formation, in which glauberite salts indicate seasonal freezing. Late Carboniferous coals were deposited globally during the coldest times of the LPIA and Maritimes Basin coals may record the same paleoclimatic setting. Mississippian volcanism in the Maritimes Basin shows linkages with warm paleotemperature excursions in the isotope record and the associated retreat of ice sheets, as well as sea-level rise within the LPIA. Mississippian rocks in the Maritimes Basin record warm climatic conditions that are consistent with the basin’s low-latitude position, but they also record cold-climate settings that have been overlooked due to a long-standing low-latitude “paleotropical” climate bias.