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The volume presents a wide-ranging investigation of the ways in which Petrarch's legacy informed the relationship between visual and literary portraits in sixteenth-century Italy. Petrarch's vast literary production influenced the intellectual framework in which new models of representation and self-representation developed during the Renaissance. His two sonnets on Laura's portrait by Simone Martini and his ambivalent fascination with the illusionary power of portraiture in his Latin texts - such as the Secretum, the Familiares and De remediis utriusque fortune - constituted the theoretical reference for artists and writers alike. In a century dominated by the rhetorical comparison between art and literature (ut pictura poësis) and by the paragone debate, the interplay between Petrarch's oeuvre, Petrarchism and portraiture shaped the discourse on the relationship between the sitters' physical image and their inner life. The volume brings together diverse interdisciplinary contributions that explore the subject through a rich body of literary and visual sources.

The article examines three collections of rhymes dedicated to members of the House of Farnese and printed in the second half of the sixteenth century: Bernardo Cappello’s Rime (1560), Pietro Massolo’s Rime morali (1583), and the Parte seconda (1594) of Muzio Sforza’s Rime. By focusing simultaneously on paratexts and on the connections between encomiastic poetry and moral poetry, the analysis reveals for each work the distinctive interweaving of eulogy, narrative, and moral discourse activated by paratextual elements – be they rubrics, thematic headings, or indexes. L’articolo si concentra su tre raccolte di rime dedicate a membri della casa Farnese e stampate nella seconda metà del Cinquecento: le Rime (1560) di Bernardo Cappello, le Rime morali (1583) di Pietro Massolo e la Parte seconda (1594) delle Rime di Muzio Sforza. Per ciascuna delle opere esaminate l’analisi si sofferma simultaneamente sui paratesti e sui legami tra poesia encomiastica e poesia morale, mettendo in luce lo specifico intreccio di elogio, narrazione e discorso morale attivato dagli elementi paratestuali, siano essi rubriche, didascalie di tipo tematico o indici.

The article focuses on the role and handling of lyric 'subject matter' (materia or soggetto) in the tradition of commentaries devoted to Petrarch's Rerum vulgariurn fragmenta and Triumphi in the Renaissance, with a specific focus on paratexts in editions printed between 1475 and 1610. In particular, after an introduction on possible theme-oriented approaches to the study of these exegetical materials, three paratextual components are examined and discussed in detail: tables of contents (tavole); marginal notabilia and other kinds of tables or indexes; argomenti (concise summaries of the subject or occasion of the relevant poems). For each element, the analysis considers its physical placement in the book, its possible interactions with the other two components, its relationship to the subject matter of the relevant texts, and its role in other exegetical contexts.

Despite significant research efforts aimed at understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of psychiatric disorders, the diagnosis and the evaluation of treatment of these disorders are still based solely on relatively subjective assessment of symptoms. Therefore, biological markers which could improve the current classification of psychiatry disorders, and in perspective stratify patients on a biological basis into more homogeneous clinically distinct subgroups, are highly needed. In order to identify novel candidate biological markers for major depression and schizophrenia, we have applied a focused proteomic approach using plasma samples from a large case-control collection. Patients were diagnosed according to DSM criteria using structured interviews and a number of additional clinical variables and demographic information were assessed. Plasma samples from 245 depressed patients, 229 schizophrenic patients and 254 controls were submitted to multi analyte profiling allowing the evaluation of up to 79 proteins, including a series of cytokines, chemokines and neurotrophins previously suggested to be involved in the pathophysiology of depression and schizophrenia. Univariate data analysis showed more significant p-values than would be expected by chance and highlighted several proteins belonging to pathways or mechanisms previously suspected to be involved in the pathophysiology of major depression or schizophrenia, such as insulin and MMP-9 for depression, and BDNF, EGF and a number of chemokines for schizophrenia. Multivariate analysis was carried out to improve the differentiation of cases from controls and identify the most informative panel of markers. The results illustrate the potential of plasma biomarker profiling for psychiatric disorders, when conducted in large collections. The study highlighted a set of analytes as candidate biomarker signatures for depression and schizophrenia, warranting further investigation in independent collections.

The antiparkinsonian ropinirole and pramipexole are D3 receptor- (D3R-) preferring dopaminergic (DA) agonists used as adjunctive therapeutics for the treatment resistant depression (TRD). While the exact antidepressant mechanism of action remains uncertain, a role for D3R in the restoration of impaired neuroplasticity occurring in TRD has been proposed. Since D3R agonists are highly expressed on DA neurons in humans, we studied the effect of ropinirole and pramipexole on structural plasticity using a translational model of human-inducible pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Two hiPSC clones from healthy donors were differentiated into midbrain DA neurons. Ropinirole and pramipexole produced dose-dependent increases of dendritic arborization and soma size after 3 days of culture, effects antagonized by the selective D3R antagonists SB277011-A and S33084 and by the mTOR pathway kinase inhibitors LY294002 and rapamycin. All treatments were also effective in attenuating the D3R-dependent increase of p70S6-kinase phosphorylation. Immunoneutralisation of BDNF, inhibition of TrkB receptors, and blockade of MEK-ERK signaling likewise prevented ropinirole-induced structural plasticity, suggesting a critical interaction between BDNF and D3R signaling pathways. The highly similar profiles of data acquired with DA neurons derived from two hiPSC clones underpin their reliability for characterization of pharmacological agents acting via dopaminergic mechanisms.