The dissemination of the intellectual lexicon in Europe occurred thanks to the development of universities and the vulgarisation of knowledge. The LEXLlull project aims to analyse the origin and relationship between these two phenomena through the extraordinary production of the Catalan writer Ramon Llull (1232-1316), who was in contact with the academic world of his time and aspired to spread the epistemological system he had created (i.e. the Art) to all strata of society. The project envisages the creation of a multilingual (Catalan, Latin, French and Occitan) online dictionary based on the works and translations that circulated when the author was alive, and a monographic study of the scientific vocabulary used in the different languages in relation to the study centres he frequented and the different audiences he addressed. In this way, it is possible to obtain a synchronic source of the medieval European scientific lexicon in the main Romance languages and to understand how laymen could acquire this knowledge.

Archaeological sites are by and large palimpsests of coarse-grained chronological resolution, with many episodes of (re-)occupation where often undifferentiated blocks of time are used as units for temporal reckoning. The methodological advances provided by cementochronological approaches can provide powerful means of temporalising and refining our understanding of annual scheduling of site occupation. Cementochronology examines alternating incremental translucent and opaque bands that are laid down throughout life in tooth cementum as physiological responses to seasonal rhythms. Counting pairs of bands on thin sections under polarized transmitted light provides accurate age estimates. The outermost band represents the season-at-death, which is used to infer seasonality of site occupation. This method is particularly relevant for prehistoric periods when seasonal scheduling of lifeways was of paramount importance. The CUSP project uses the most recent methodological breakthroughs in the study of Tooth Cementum Annulation (TCA) to establish (1) a robust protocol for the study of TCA in red deer, which is often found at prehistoric sites as hunted game; and (2) infer seasonality of occupation of archaeological sites in the chosen case study by determining season-at-death in both red deer and humans. Age-at-death estimates will be made for the analyzed samples too, enabling the applicant to build mortality profiles important for estimates of past human population demography and red deer hunting strategies. The case study are Mesolithic sites in the Danube Gorges region of the Balkans where CUSP will test the hypothesis about possible sedentary occupation of this region in the Mesolithic. The applicant has worked extensively on the archaeological sequences in this region and is best placed to examine this question by receiving training-through-research during the outgoing phase at New York U. He will transfer the acquired knowledge to Sapienza U. of Rome.

“You are lying in your throat!” “Your father was a water carrier!” “You shouldn’t be talking to good women!” “Rotten prattler!” In Late medieval Italian cities, these and many other expressions were illegal. A citizen found uttering these words against another citizen would be taken to court and, if found guilty, punished. Lists of such ‘injurious words’ (verba iniuriosa) are found in government measures (statutes, legislation of decrees and ordinances). Many more are preserved in collections of criminal trial records (depositions, prosecutions, sentences and records of fines). SATYRANDO will be the first systematic investigation of the interconnections between this fascinating body of legal practices and thinking, and the Italian literary production of the time, a period generally referred to as the Late Middle Ages (mid-13th – end-15th century). In various ways jurisdiction over insult will illuminate the circumstances of production and reception of a variety of literary artefacts and theories. The action will change the way in which so-called the group of 'Playful Poets' are perceived and categorised in available scholarship – at school and university levels -, correcting the traditional notion that the use of aggressive, offensive language should be mainly interpreted as a rhetorical exercise or divertissment. By locating and describing those commentators, rhetoricians and poets who demonstrate an awareness of the legal risks involved in employing violent language, the action will also contribute to a better understanding of the development of the literary genre of satire and the history of concepts such as defamation, oppression of minorities (ie satire vs women and Jews in particular), freedom of speech, hate crimes and tolerance. An important part of SATYRANDO is to explore the broader impact of the reworked definition of satirical language by developing private and public dialogue with Italian and EU policy-makers, magistrates and satirists and cartoonists.

The extent to which earthquake phenomena can be accurately assessed ultimately depends on how well the underlying physical processes are understood. Earthquake physics is primarily controlled by fault frictional properties and fluid pressure, which have been widely tested in laboratory rock deformation experiments. During the last 50 years, these experiments have provided fundamental contributions to our understanding of earthquake physics. However, in most experiments, the fault is loaded toward earthquake-slip under constant effective normal stress or via an increase in effective normal stress, i.e., load-strengthening. Nonetheless, numerous natural faults are affected by a reduction in effective normal stress during tectonic loading, i.e., load-weakening, and this condition is dominant in induced earthquakes due to fluid-injections in modern energy production. Further, along mature fault zones characterized by a thick damage zone and fault core, load-weakening likely promotes fault dilation, instead of compaction, with strong implications for fault hydro-mechanical behaviour. With SHEAR, I propose to fill this knowledge gap via laboratory experiments designed specifically to investigate the influence of loading path, and in particular the load-weakening path in fault physics, taking advantage of a world-class deformation apparatus. Laboratory results will be integrated with acoustic techniques to shed light on the physical processes at play and inform microphysical models that, coupled with field studies, will allow for the upscaling of experiments and provide a broader comprehensive picture of tectonic faulting. For the SHEAR action, the experience I acquired during my Post-Doc at EPFL (Switzerland) will be fundamental. The vibrant research environment in Sapienza will give me the possibility to acquire new scientific and transferable skills, ensuring me a competitive scientific profile to successfully apply for positions in academia, public and private sectors.