WWF Italy

Gaetano Mosca is one of the twentieth century’s main exponents of Italian political thought and more specifically one of the greatest and most prestigious proponents of elitist theory. The verses that follow are from a conference on the mafia that he held in Turin in 1900. In coherence with his overall pessimistic approach to democracy, he writes that the logics and mechanisms of the representative system cause the ancient collusion between lord and mafioso. Their complacent intentions are thus pervasive and almost inviolable for the public authorities. Yet this is not the only merit of Mosca’s analysis. He insists on the requirement that the compromise between mafia, legal power and political institutions be based on quiet living, lingering over this point with acumen. The love of quiet living is, in fact, quintessential to the “mafia spirit.” However, Mosca’s dedicated attention to the mafia spirit does not imply a slippage down what has come to be recognised as the very slippery and unhappy slope of treating the mafia as a “mentality.” The mafia spirit or mentality is merely the cultural and moral reservoir that real mafiosi capitalise on to increase their influence.

Several members of the Italian Communist Party compiled the minority report. It broke the silence on political compliance with the mafia and openly accused several politicians, administrators and businesspeople of involvement in mafia-related activities. The following extract from the report provides a typically La Torreian classist interpretation of the mafia. It traces a history of the development of the ruling class through different modes of production. It focuses on its relationship to the rule of law and formal power institutions, which belies the fact that the mafia has always sought relationships with these powers. In fact, this relationship to power to some extent defines it. But what the report reminds us is that the relationship is two-sided: Just at the mafia seeks links with democratic institutions, so do formal representatives of the state lean on the mafia to provide territorial control. The report is also important from a purely technical and penal perspective in that it contains the conceptual ingredients that would lead to the passage of Law 416bis, the law that criminalises association with and to the mafia. What is now known as the Rognoni-La Torre law is one of the key milestones in Italian anti-mafia legislation.

Giovanni Falcone (Palermo 1939–Capaci 1992) is probably the most internationally renowned anti-mafia character. He was the protagonist of what some Italians call “our own 9/11”: the Capaci Massacre, when the mafia detonated a bomb with the force of 500 kilograms of TNT on the highway near the town of Capaci, killing Falcone, his wife and his escorts. It was a punishment for his investigative success, for bringing Cosa Nostra to its knees by using the instruments of the law, and a true media event that would forever change the public perception of the mafia. The text that follows is a transcription of an intervention that Falcone made during a conference on Italian organised crime in Mexico City in 1990. In plain and simple language, this text outlines the basic organisational characteristics of the three largest mafia groups in Italy: the ’Ndrangheta, the Camorra and Cosa Nostra. Falcone also explains their ties to Cosa Nostra in North America and delineates several characteristics of transnational organised crime, which demonstrate just how far ahead of his time he was. The final section includes some questions and answers that emerged during the conference, on issues such as comparability with Mexican legislation and the compatibility between mafia and political terrorism.

Words Are Stones is a short book written in the middle of the 1950s by Carlo Levi (Turin 1902–Rome 1975), one that remains one of the landmarks in the history of the mafia and anti-mafia literature. The book was written in post–World War II Sicily, when the agrarian reform had already proved to be a fraud that worked by allocating the poorest and driest land to poor farmers and preserved the privileges of the landowners and their gabellotti. Those were the years in which the new mafia order was born in a violent and turbulent manner, and the old order died in a similarly violent and turbulent manner. The mafia killed the last trade union leaders in the great slaughter of the 1940s and 1950s, a bloodbath unknown in any other democracy. One of the last leaders to be killed was Salvatore Carnevale, the (dead) protagonist of the pages that follow. These pages condense some of the driest and most powerful notes on the relationship between mafia and violence, on the relevance of the mafia to the principles of legality and on justice and the agrarian world.

The new scenario in which we are living, both scientifically and socially, is undoubtedly dominated by social media and strong competition. As much as surgical techniques are advancing and increasing the level of complexity, the patient’s desires and expectations are continuously and similarly growing, too. This is probably, although partially, the result of the new universal trend of sharing surgical results (as well as surgical “spots” and “nuances”) on social networks so that the surgeon’s material is becoming public and available to everyone.

Rhinoplasty is considered as one of the most technically challenging aesthetic procedures due to the fact of intricate structural nasal components, which comprise both shape and function, adding to that the critical nose location on the face: central and prominent [1]. Revision is a more complex and demanding procedure, which often represents a final opportunity to correct both functional and aesthetic issues after previous nasal surgeries. The use of rib cartilage in these procedures has become a game-changer, offering unparalleled structural support and versatility. This chapter delves into the finesse required in performing revision rhinoplasty with rib cartilage, exploring its challenges, benefits, and the meticulous skills it demands.

The fifth chapter focuses on a European project research results highlighting European students’ perception of the ability to integrate digital technologies into organizational and training processes identifying seven kinds of students. The increase in the use of online training connected to the pandemic emergency has highlighted, as never before, that Higher Education Institutions have to deal with the digital revolution, promoted by the European Community since 1998 from the so-called Bologna Process. This chapter illustrates the results of the students’ survey of the “Empower Competences for Online Learning in Higher Education” (ECOLHE) project. The project aimed to investigate the transformation processes and of developing practices of higher education’s digital teaching and learning in several European countries. The research project was based on the hypothesis that the availability of technological infrastructures does not grant an efficient and effective use of ICTs by students since the type of student, the university (traditional/online), and the level of national digital development are key factors in dealing with technological infrastructure.

Mild-to-moderate blepharoptosis can be aesthetically displeasing for patients, particularly in cases involving a single eyelid. However, certain patients are reluctant to undergo surgical intervention. Botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT-A) injection offers a potential solution in such cases. Patients meeting the following inclusion criteria were included in the study: mild-to-moderate eyelid ptosis of different etiologies (excluding myasthenic disorders), robust activity of the orbicularis oculi muscle, proficiency in Italian language, standardized pre- and postoperative photo-documentation, and signed consent for study participation. A 32-33 Gauge 4-mm needle was employed to inject the BoNT-A in the pretarsal orbicularis muscle. Standardized videos and photos were obtained before the treatment, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 24 weeks post-treatment. Outcomes were evaluated by measuring changes in the margin reflex distance-1 (MRD-1) and assessing patient point of view through two subjective questionnaires. Forty-nine patients were enrolled, 39 females and 10 males, aged between 30 and 88 years old. We observed a significant increase in the MRD-1 after 2 weeks and after 4 weeks compared to the baseline (p < 0.0001), with a mean elevation of the eyelid of 0.71 mm and 0.67 mm respectively. Patients ceased to require furrowing of the frontalis muscle to compensate for the eyelid elevation dysfunction. After 24 weeks, the BoNT-A effect diminished, and the treated eyelid returned to its baseline position. 67.4% of patients reported an improvement with only mild inconvenience in their blepharoptosis, and 16.3% of patients reported a complete improvement. 85.7% of patients expressed the desire to undergo the treatment again. BoNT-A has demonstrated effectiveness in temporarily managing mild-to-moderate blepharoptosis and may represent a viable option for addressing minor eyelids asymmetries. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

The documents of the Central Archive of Ebla systematically cover forty-one or forty-two years for some administrative sectors, while those concerning primary production are only preserved at random. Monthly documents register the expenditures of the textile production by the Administration. A series of annual documents concerns the incomes of unwrought metals, objects in metal, and clothing, while another one concerns the expenditures of metals in the form of plates and in many kinds of objects. Hundreds of undatable documents, moreover, register particular incomes or expenditures of these goods. The rate between silver and gold was for many years 5 : 1 (reduced later to 3: 1, and even to 2.5 : 1). It is therefore possible (in the limits of this documentation) to determine on the one hand the incomes of metals through the deliveries of the ministers and other officials, together with those of the tributary cities, and on the other the amounts of the expended metals year after year. The deliveries from the city-states under the hegemony of Ebla prove that all these metals came from the eastern Taurus Mountains. The rate between silver and refined copper was 1 : 30; with unrefined copper 1 : 37,5; with bronze 1 : 7; and with tin 1 : 1.

It is June 16, 1952. On the steps of the university surrounded by police cordons, Caccioppoli gives a tough, worried speech. Two hundred students listen to him. He speak in favour of peace, but above all against the arrival in Naples of the new commander of the NATO forces in Europe, General Matthew B. Ridgway, the “plague man” accused of having used bacteriological weapons in Korea. And not only this. He launches invectives against the US marines lodged in a hotel opposite. His speech causes an uproar. At the end of the day, as he heads home, he is stopped by police officers. They take him to the police station, where they detain him for over 2 hours. He is accused of having organized the demonstration and stirring up the students.

“My morganatic brother, my brother-in-law”: thus Caccioppoli, without ever naming him, indicates the man for whom his wife has left him. He does it with the subtle irony always mixed with mockery that is one of his main characteristics.

A note from the ministry informs the rector that “following the incident Caccioppoli was seen again in the company of Mancuso Sara, which leads to the belief that his return to service would not fail to result in problems. It is worth remembering that Mancuso lived for many years in France and is believed to be the lover of the well-known former deputy Labriola.”

In the middle of the night the editor-in-chief Giovanni Ansaldo dons his trilby, takes his stick and leaves Il Mattino. On the stairs he comes to the incredibly varied world of the Angiporto Galleria, where his newspaper has not only been based since the time of Edoardo Scarfoglio, but whose first floors are crowded with the Naples editorial offices of l’Unità, followed by those of La Voce, Paese Sera, Tempo and the Ansa news agency. He encounters comrades Mario Sansone, Fausto De Luca, Ruggero Guarini, Renzo Lapiccirella, the beautiful Francesca Spada and sometimes even Caccioppoli, on one of his visits to the communist newspaper. Usually, the professor brings a bottle of Stock Medicinal, a brandy in vogue at the time, to hand it round in the editorial office. Characters who often border on folklore come up and go down. In addition to journalists from different and opposing papers, “capable of ignoring each other to the point of insolence”, there is a coming and going of printers, proofreaders, secretaries, visitors illustrious and otherwise, plus the flamboyant young ladies who work at the Buonanno boarding house, a renowned and popular brothel. When he passes them, Ansaldo responds to their smile by chivalrously tipping his hat.

Towards the end of the 1950s many of Caccioppoli’s friends, regular guests at Palazzo Cellammare, drinking companions, privileged interlocutors of his torrential conversations, or even simple acquaintances with whom he exchanged a few words, have now left. Naples empties. Journalists, writers, artists. Antonio Ghirelli, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, but also Tommaso Giglio and Franco Rosi leave the city. Anna Maria Ortese and Giorgio Bassani have already left some time before. Then Pasquale Prunas, Ruggero Guarini. Everyone leaves, some to Rome and some to Milan. There is something that drives them out. A need to free themselves, similar to that which animates teenagers who want to leave the parental home. To step away from that caring love with which Naples envelops them and which irremediably leads them to a sort of infantile regression, to find their raison d’être elsewhere.

None of the two photographs lying on Caccioppoli’s desk are of “grandfather” Bakunin. They are portraits of two beardless faces. The still childish face of the mathematician Évariste Galois, who died at the age of 20, and one who resembles a girl, a very young Arthur Rimbaud. I wonder why he arranged them on full display like this. What message does Renato want to send to anyone who enters his living room? The impression of many visitors on seeing those two old images is the immediate identification of the houseowner with them. But it’s not that simple. What are, I wonder, the actual points in common that the professor shares with the two French teenagers, rebellious geniuses, present like domestic Lares in his apartment in Palazzo Cellammare?

To look for other traces of Renato I don’t stray far from Naples. I just need to reach the Sorrento peninsula, where the Caccioppolis come from. Not only Joseph, but also his father Domenico, like him a surgeon of renowned skill. From Vico Equense where they were born, I move to Capo di Sorrento. Once again visiting a house that holds within its walls echoes of a meeting that remained memorable. The one between Renato Caccioppoli and André Gide.

“If he digs and digs,” Renato explains to Renzo Lapiccirella, a friend and deputy editor-in-chief of l’Unità, (“one of the purest Marxists in Naples” as Anna Maria Ortese defines him), “in the end, what does he who has eyes to see discover, over and above the confines of disorder? He discovers fragments of harmony, of perfection. And he gives them to us. This is what geniuses do, be they mathematicians, musicians or poets.”

He is standing, wrapped in a raincoat held at the waist by a sloppily knotted belt. A newspaper is sticking out from his pocket, l'Unità or Paese Sera. He is leaning against one of the white and gold consoles in the foyer of the San Carlo, crowded with the usual mix of people from high society and refined connoisseurs. It’s October, concert season.