Cesare Cremonini's non-theological cosmology: a contribution to Padua's secular culture in times of wars of religion.

This essay deals with the cultural-political motivations behind the cosmological conceptions of the Padua Aristotelian Cesare Cremonini (1550-1631). A defender of the interests of the university against Jesuit teachings, and one of the philosophers who was most frequently scrutinized by the Inquisition, he was an important actor in Venetian cultural politics during the years of European religious conflict that culminated in the Thirty Years War. In those years, he was officially titled 'protector' of the multi-confessional German Nation of Artists, one of the largest groups of foreign students at the University of Padua, and had to act as mediator in cases of conflict. His efforts to keep teaching free from religious concerns is reflected by his commitment to pursue philosophical and cosmological inquiries without engaging in revealed theology. In particular, his strict adherence to Aristotelian cosmology proved to be at odds with central Christian dogmas as it relinquished, among other concepts, the ideas of Creation and divine Providence. I argue that this position of Cremonini's fostered a tolerant and universalistic attitude in line with a secular programme that could enable cross-confessional coexistence in a cosmopolitan institution like Padua.

Hydrogeological Knowledge from Below: Water Expertise as a Republican Common in Early-Modern Venice.

This essay looks at early-modern Venice hydroculture as a case of episteme from below. The forms of water knowledge it developed were multilayered and collective in their essence and solidly rested on a social experiential basis that was rooted in labour (especially fishing) and practices (especially water surveying and engineering). In accordance with the city's republican esprit (and correspondent political values), its episteme emerged as the encounter and negotiation between various institutions and groups: the fishermen of San Niccolò in Venice, the practitioners of the water magistrature and political authorities. This essay explores the institutional settings of this water culture, seen as an instance of bottom-up epistemic construction. It especially addresses three historical instances: firstly, a seventeenth century program to map public waters in order to block their alienation for private fish farming; secondly, water officers' interviews with fishermen aimed to assess the state of the lagoon hydromorphology and, thirdly, fishing regulations. Venice communitarian and circular forms of knowledge production are here contrasted to an opposite paradigm, which was embodied by the Galileian mathematician and Rome courtier, Benedetto Castelli. His interactions with the Republic of Venice on water management and his approach to hydraulic problems are revealing of an elitist and abstract understanding of scientific knowledge that guided political decisions from above without taking in any consideration the opinions of the 'vulgar'. While his science was the expression of a top-down political epistemology, Venetian water knowledge was more egalitarian. It left room for exchange, inclusiveness and bottom-up codification; it valued the gathering of different experiences (including the fishermen's practical knowledge of their waters) and rested on a concrete and systemic (organicist) understanding of natural-anthropic processes.

On the nomenclatural status of some species of Haplotaxidae (Clitellata) from Guinea.

Our attention was recently drawn to a problem of homonymy with Villiersia d'Orbigny, 1837, a nudibranch genus, posed by Villiersia Omodeo, 1987, an oligochaete genus of the family Haplotaxidae described from the Segea cave near Kindia, Guinea (Omodeo 1987). Examination of this case of homonymy has revived an old nomenclatural issue that dates back to 1958 when several taxa of the family Haplotaxidae were first proposed in a work on the oligochaete fauna of Mount Nimba (West Africa) (Omodeo 1958). A re-examination of the nomenclatural history of these taxa shows that subsequent nomenclatural interpretations made by some were unjustified, leading to a confusing situation. The taxa concerned, as currently accepted (Reynolds Wetzel 2020), are the following:.

Green light to an integrative view of Microscolex phosphoreus (Dugès, 1837) (Annelida: Clitellata: Acanthodrilidae).

The small synanthropic and peregrine earthworm Microscolex phosphoreus (Dugès, 1837) is reported for the first time from Siberia. Morphological and DNA barcode (COI) analyses of this and widely separate samples worldwide demonstrate that, as currently identified, M. phosphoreus is a heterogeneous taxon, with divergent lineages occurring often in the same locality and hardly providing geographically structured genetic signals. The combined morphological and genetic evidence suggests that at least four of the found clades should be reclassified as separate species, both morphologically and genetically distinct from each other. However, as the specimen number was limited and only the COI gene was studied for the genetic work, we hesitate in formally describing new species. There would also be the problem of assigning the available names to specific lineages. Our findings encourage careful external and anatomical examination and using reliable characters such as the interchaetal distances and spermathecal morphology for correct identification and for deeper evaluation of cryptic diversity in this interesting bioluminescent worm.