1.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
2.
Botany
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Botany, also called plant science, plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specialises in this field, the term botany comes from the Ancient Greek word βοτάνη meaning pasture, grass, or fodder, βοτάνη is in turn derived from βόσκειν, to feed or to graze. Nowadays, botanists study approximately 410,000 species of plants of which some 391,000 species are vascular plants. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to monasteries, contained plants of medical importance and they were forerunners of the first botanical gardens attached to universities, founded from the 1540s onwards. One of the earliest was the Padua botanical garden and these gardens facilitated the academic study of plants. Efforts to catalogue and describe their collections were the beginnings of plant taxonomy, in the last two decades of the 20th century, botanists exploited the techniques of molecular genetic analysis, including genomics and proteomics and DNA sequences to classify plants more accurately. Modern botany is a broad, multidisciplinary subject with inputs from most other areas of science, dominant themes in 21st century plant science are molecular genetics and epigenetics, which are the mechanisms and control of gene expression during differentiation of plant cells and tissues. Botany originated as herbalism, the study and use of plants for their medicinal properties, many records of the Holocene period date early botanical knowledge as far back as 10,000 years ago. This early unrecorded knowledge of plants was discovered in ancient sites of human occupation within Tennessee, the early recorded history of botany includes many ancient writings and plant classifications. Examples of early works have been found in ancient texts from India dating back to before 1100 BC, in archaic Avestan writings. His major works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, constitute the most important contributions to science until the Middle Ages. De Materia Medica was widely read for more than 1,500 years, important contributions from the medieval Muslim world include Ibn Wahshiyyas Nabatean Agriculture, Abū Ḥanīfa Dīnawarīs the Book of Plants, and Ibn Bassals The Classification of Soils. In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, and Ibn al-Baitar wrote on botany in a systematic and scientific manner and these gardens continued the practical value of earlier physic gardens, often associated with monasteries, in which plants were cultivated for medical use. They supported the growth of botany as an academic subject, lectures were given about the plants grown in the gardens and their medical uses demonstrated. Botanical gardens came much later to northern Europe, the first in England was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden in 1621, throughout this period, botany remained firmly subordinate to medicine. German physician Leonhart Fuchs was one of the three German fathers of botany, along with theologian Otto Brunfels and physician Hieronymus Bock, Fuchs and Brunfels broke away from the tradition of copying earlier works to make original observations of their own. Bock created his own system of plant classification, physician Valerius Cordus authored a botanically and pharmacologically important herbal Historia Plantarum in 1544 and a pharmacopoeia of lasting importance, the Dispensatorium in 1546. Naturalist Conrad von Gesner and herbalist John Gerard published herbals covering the medicinal uses of plants, naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi was considered the father of natural history, which included the study of plants
3.
Herbarium
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A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The term can refer to the building or room where the specimens are housed. The specimens in a herbarium are used as reference material in describing plant taxa. The same term is used in mycology to describe an equivalent collection of preserved fungi. A xylarium is a herbarium specialising in specimens of wood, the term hortorium has occasionally been applied to a herbarium specialising in preserving material of horticultural origin. During the drying process the specimens are retained within their flimsies at all times to minimise damage, for some plants it may prove helpful to allow the fresh specimen to wilt slightly before being arranged for the press. The sheet is placed in a protective case. As a precaution against insect attack, the plant is frozen or poisoned. Certain groups of plants are soft, bulky, or otherwise not amenable to drying and mounting on sheets, for these plants, other methods of preparation and storage may be used. For example, conifer cones and palm fronds may be stored in labelled boxes, representative flowers or fruits may be pickled in formaldehyde to preserve their three-dimensional structure. Small specimens, such as mosses and lichens, are often air-dried and packaged in paper envelopes. No matter the method of preservation, detailed information on where and when the plant was collected, habitat, color, and the name of the collector is usually included. The value of a herbarium is much enhanced by the possession of “types”, that is and it is also rich in types of Australian plants from the collections of Sir Joseph Banks and Robert Brown, and contains in addition many valuable modern collections. Most herbaria utilize a system of organizing their specimens into herbarium cases. Specimen sheets are stacked in groups by the species to which they belong, groups of species folders are then placed together into larger, heavier folders by genus. The genus folders are then sorted by taxonomic family according to the standard selected for use by the herbarium. Locating a specimen filed in the herbarium requires knowing the nomenclature and it also requires familiarity with possible name changes that have occurred since the specimen was collected, since the specimen may be filed under an older name. Modern herbaria often maintain electronic databases of their collections, many herbaria have initiatives to digitize specimens to produce a virtual herbarium
4.
Botanical garden
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A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden dedicated to the collection, cultivation and display of a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names. Visitor services at a botanical garden might include tours, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances, over the years, botanical gardens, as cultural and scientific organisations, have responded to the interests of botany and horticulture. The role of major botanical gardens worldwide has been considered so similar as to fall within textbook definitions. The following definition was produced by staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium of Cornell University in 1976, each botanical garden naturally develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, location, extent, available funds, and the terms of its charter. It may include greenhouses, test grounds, an herbarium, an arboretum and it maintains a scientific as well as a plant-growing staff, and publication is one of its major modes of expression. This broad outline is then expanded, The botanic garden may be an independent institution, if a department of an educational institution, it may be related to a teaching program. In any case, it exists for scientific ends and is not to be restricted or diverted by other demands. It is not merely a landscaped or ornamental garden, although it may be artistic, the essential element is the intention of the enterprise, which is the acquisition and dissemination of botanical knowledge. Worldwide, there are now about 1800 botanical gardens and arboreta in about 150 countries of which about 550 are in Europe,200 in North America, and an increasing number in East Asia. These gardens attract about 150 million visitors a year, so it is surprising that many people gained their first exciting introduction to the wonders of the plant world in a botanical garden. Historically, botanical gardens exchanged plants through the publication of seed lists and this was a means of transferring both plants and information between botanical gardens. This system continues today, although the possibility of genetic piracy, the International Association of Botanic Gardens was formed in 1954 as a worldwide organisation affiliated to the International Union of Biological Sciences. In the United States, there is the American Public Gardens Association, the history of botanical gardens is closely linked to the history of botany itself. Then, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the trend was towards a combination of specialist, the idea of scientific gardens used specifically for the study of plants dates back to antiquity. In about 2800 BCE, the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung sent collectors to distant regions searching for plants with economic or medicinal value. Early medieval gardens in Islamic Spain resembled botanic gardens of the future and this was later taken over by garden chronicler Ibn Bassal until the Christian conquest in 1085 CE. Ibn Bassal then founded a garden in Seville, most of its plants being collected on an expedition that included Morocco, Persia, Sicily. The medical school of Montpelier was also founded by Spanish Arab physicians, and by 1250 CE, it included a physic garden, but the site was not given botanic garden status until 1593
5.
Civil law notary
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Civil-law notaries are limited to areas of private law, that is, domestic law which regulates the relationships between individuals and in which the State is not directly concerned. Ordinarily, they have no authority to appear in court on their clients behalf, their role is limited to drafting, authenticating, and registering certain types of transactional or legal instruments. In some countries, such as the Netherlands, France or Italy, among others, they also retain and keep a copy of their instruments—in the form of memoranda—in notarial protocols. Notaries generally hold undergraduate degrees in law and graduate degrees in notarial law. Notarial law involves expertise in a spectrum of private law including family law, estate and testamentary law, conveyancing and property law, the law of agency. Any such practice is usually regulated, and most countries parcel out areas into notarial districts with a set number of notary positions. This has the effect of making notarial appointments very limited, as a lawyer, a civil-law notary draws up and executes legal instruments called notarial instruments. Traditionally, notarial instruments trigger a præsumptio veritatis et solemnitatis entailing two consequences—regularity and probativity, first, being an official act, a presumption of regularity attaches to the instrument, meaning all prescribed formalities have been carried out, including the reading over of the instrument. Second, an instrument is self-authenticating and probative, i. e. it constitutes full proof of the agreement it contains, as against the parties, their heirs. It also means the notarys firsthand narrations of fact are conclusively presumed true and correct, whereas secondhand narrations are merely assertio notarii which are rebuttably presumed valid. In either case, the appearer always walks away with an instrument that is self-executing, finally, notarial instruments have a fixed effective or signature date that cannot be ante- or postdated, or left blank and filled in after signing. Notarial instruments cannot be altered or overridden by prior or subsequent instruments under hand, in other words, for example, a notarial will could not be amended or superseded by a non-notarial codicil or will. An unexecuted minute is deemed proof of an instrument and considered the original. The minute is therefore the authenticum, or original instrument of writing, as distinguished from the self-executing copy, or instrumentum. This presumption stems from the fact that a notary is expected to verify the facts, assertions, or events mentioned in his act, thereby assuming liability for, a successfully improbated instrument is null and set aside. Nowadays, an instrument is prepared first as an unexecuted original called a minute. The minute is archived in the draftsman notarys protocol, the instruments particulars—appearer, fees, subject matter, witnesses, date, and so forth—are noted or minuted in a register or logbook. It is also the only copy that has fresh signatures and seals on it, the engrossed copy is issued directly to the appearer
6.
Medicine
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Medicine is the science and practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. The word medicine is derived from Latin medicus, meaning a physician, Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Medicine has existed for thousands of years, during most of which it was an art frequently having connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of local culture. For example, a man would apply herbs and say prayers for healing, or an ancient philosopher. In recent centuries, since the advent of modern science, most medicine has become a combination of art, while stitching technique for sutures is an art learned through practice, the knowledge of what happens at the cellular and molecular level in the tissues being stitched arises through science. Prescientific forms of medicine are now known as medicine and folk medicine. They remain commonly used with or instead of medicine and are thus called alternative medicine. For example, evidence on the effectiveness of acupuncture is variable and inconsistent for any condition, in contrast, treatments outside the bounds of safety and efficacy are termed quackery. Medical availability and clinical practice varies across the world due to differences in culture. In modern clinical practice, physicians personally assess patients in order to diagnose, treat, the doctor-patient relationship typically begins an interaction with an examination of the patients medical history and medical record, followed by a medical interview and a physical examination. Basic diagnostic medical devices are typically used, after examination for signs and interviewing for symptoms, the doctor may order medical tests, take a biopsy, or prescribe pharmaceutical drugs or other therapies. Differential diagnosis methods help to rule out conditions based on the information provided, during the encounter, properly informing the patient of all relevant facts is an important part of the relationship and the development of trust. The medical encounter is then documented in the record, which is a legal document in many jurisdictions. Follow-ups may be shorter but follow the general procedure. The diagnosis and treatment may take only a few minutes or a few weeks depending upon the complexity of the issue, the components of the medical interview and encounter are, Chief complaint, the reason for the current medical visit. They are in the patients own words and are recorded along with the duration of each one, also called chief concern or presenting complaint. History of present illness, the order of events of symptoms. Distinguishable from history of illness, often called past medical history
7.
Pisa
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Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its tower, the city of over 90,834 residents contains more than 20 other historic churches, several medieval palaces. Much of the architecture was financed from its history as one of the Italian maritime republics. The origin of the name, Pisa, is a mystery, while the origin of the city had remained unknown for centuries, the Pelasgi, the Greeks, the Etruscans, and the Ligurians had variously been proposed as founders of the city. Archaeological remains from the 5th century BC confirmed the existence of a city at the sea, trading with Greeks, the presence of an Etruscan necropolis, discovered during excavations in the Arena Garibaldi in 1991, confirmed its Etruscan origins. Ancient Roman authors referred to Pisa as an old city, strabo referred Pisas origins to the mythical Nestor, king of Pylos, after the fall of Troy. Virgil, in his Aeneid, states that Pisa was already a center by the times described. The Virgilian commentator Servius wrote that the Teuti, or Pelops, the maritime role of Pisa should have been already prominent if the ancient authorities ascribed to it the invention of the naval ram. Pisa took advantage of being the port along the western coast from Genoa to Ostia. Pisa served as a base for Roman naval expeditions against Ligurians, Gauls, in 180 BC, it became a Roman colony under Roman law, as Portus Pisanus. In 89 BC, Portus Pisanus became a municipium, Emperor Augustus fortified the colony into an important port and changed the name in Colonia Iulia obsequens. It is supposed that Pisa was founded on the shore, however, due to the alluvial sediments from the Arno and the Serchio, whose mouth lies about 11 kilometres north of the Arnos, the shore moved west. Strabo states that the city was 4.0 kilometres away from the coast, currently, it is located 9.7 kilometres from the coast. However it was a city, with ships sailing up the Arno. In the 90s AD, a complex was built in the city. During the later years of the Roman Empire, Pisa did not decline as much as the cities of Italy, probably thanks to the complexity of its river system. After Charlemagne had defeated the Lombards under the command of Desiderius in 774, Pisa went through a crisis, politically it became part of the duchy of Lucca
8.
Pedanius Dioscorides
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He was employed as a medic in the Roman army. The name Pedanius is Roman, suggesting that an aristocrat of that name sponsored him to become a Roman citizen, in the medieval period, De Materia Medica was circulated in Greek, as well as Latin and Arabic translation. While being reproduced in manuscript form through the centuries, it was supplemented with commentary and minor additions from Arabic. A number of illustrated manuscripts of De Materia Medica survive, the most famous of these is the lavishly illustrated Vienna Dioscurides, produced in Constantinople in 512/513 AD. Densely illustrated Arabic copies survive from the 12th and 13th centuries, De Materia Medica is the prime historical source of information about the medicines used by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures of antiquity. The work also records the Dacian and Thracian names for some plants, the Dioscorea genus of plants, which includes the yam, was named after him by Linnaeus. De Materia Medica, Being an Herbal with many other materials, Englished by Tess Anne Osbaldeston, year 2000. De Materia Medica, translated by Lily Y. Beck, Englished by John Goodyer A. D.1655, edited by R. T. De Materia medica, libri V Eiusdem de Venenis Libri duo, interprete Iano Antonio Saraceno Lugdunaeo, Medico, translated by Janus Antonius Saracenus. In Voltaires Candide, the characters injuries received at the hands of the Bulgarian army. Pedanius Dioscorides in, Health and Well Being, A Medieval Guide, hamilton, J. S. Scribonius Largus on the medical profession. Bulletin of the history of medicine, lazris, J. Stavros, V. Limage paradigmatique, des Schémas anatomiques dAristote au De materia medica de Dioscoride. Riddle, John M. Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine, the Arabic materia medica of Dioscorides. Québec, Canada, Les Éditions du sphinx, the Preface of Dioscorides Materia Medica, introduction, translation, and commentary. Transactions & studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Dioscurides Neapolitanus, Codex ex Vindobonensis Graecus 1. Medic, Catalogue des textes en ligne, Dioscoride/Dioscodirides, Pedanius, bibliothèque interuniversitaire de médecine et dodontologie, Université Paris Descartes. Diosc. de la materie medicinale, Lyon, French edition
9.
Orto botanico di Pisa
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The Orto botanico di Pisa, also known as the Orto Botanico dellUniversità di Pisa, is a botanical garden operated by the University of Pisa, and located at via Luca Ghini 5, Pisa, Italy. The garden was established in 1544 under Cosimo I de Medici as the first university botanical garden in Europe, in 1563 the garden was relocated from its original riverside location to one near the convent of Santa Marta, and in 1591 again moved to its third and current location. From these early times, the garden has contained a gallery of natural objects, a library and it also includes one of the earliest iron-framed hothouses built in Italy. Today the garden is divided into sections containing the school, gardens, ponds, greenhouses. Major collections include herb gardens and arboreta, as well as the old botany institute, built 1591–1595, list of botanical gardens in Italy University of Pisa website for the Orto botanico di Pisa Garbari F. et al. LOrto botanico di Pisa dal XVI al XX secolo, Pisa 1991
10.
Pietro Andrea Mattioli
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Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli was a doctor and naturalist born in Siena. Mattioli described the first case of cat allergy and his patient was so sensitive to cats that if he was sent into a room with a cat he reacted with agitation, sweating and pallor. A careful student of botany, he described 100 new plants, the first edition of Mattiolis work appeared in 1544 in Italian. There were several editions in Italian and translations into Latin, French, Czech. In addition, the woodcuts in Mattiolis work were of a high standard, a noteworthy inclusion is an early variety of tomato, the first documented example of the vegetable being grown and eaten in Europe. The plant genus Matthiola was named by Robert Brown in honor of Mattioli, pietro Andrea Mattioli was a renowned botanist and physician, and this is attested to by his published works. As Mattioli held a post in the Imperial Court as physician to Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, and the Emperor Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, this granted him immense influence. But some of his included the frequent testing of the effects of poisonous plants on prisoners in order to popularize his works--no doubt a common practice at the time. And Mattioli did not tolerate either rivals nor corrections, the naturalists and physicians who dared to disagree or correct him did so at their peril. The list of some of the most important men of the day that were admonished, rebuked, or pursued by the Inquisition contains Wieland, Anguillara, Gesner, Lusitanus and others. This caused the longterm domination of Mattiolis version of De Materia Medica throughout the continent, especially in northern Europe. This Materia Medica work had anonymous commentaries by Michael Servetus, and it is known as “Lyon printers tribute to Michael de Villanueva. ”1558, Petri Andreae Matthioli senensis, serenissimi Principis Ferdinandi Auchiducis Austriae &c. Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf 1598, Medici Caesarei et Ferdinandi Archiducis Austriae opera quae extant omnia
