The building designed by Sansovino in 1532 as the new Mint of Venice underwent a change in its intended use, becoming in 1900 the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. A spectroscopic study concerning the ...surface stone materials of the current reading room (previously a courtyard) was attempted since the transformation lead to heavy micro‐ and macroclimatic variations.
Many alterations were observed, such as blackening, cracking, incrustations, and mortars powdering. The employed techniques, such as Raman and Fourier Transform InfraRed‐Attenuated Total Reflectance spectroscopy, allowed identifying the substrate main components and their alteration phases, mainly sulfates and nitrates.
These data represent important information when approaching such a famous building because every further intervention must be based on accurate scientific results.
We report a Raman study of building materials sampled by the reading room of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana of Venice, originally realized as the Mint of Venice by J. Sansovino. Depending on the life phases of the site, a courtyard successively transformed into a reading room, different alteration processes occurred over time and Raman results, also supported by Fourier transform infrared spectra, allowed characterizing the sampled materials and identifying the alteration products.
In recent years recurrent bivalve mass mortalities considerably increased around the world, causing the collapse of natural and farmed populations. Venice Lagoon has historically represented one of ...the major production areas of the Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum in Europe. However, in the last 20 years a 75 % decrease in the annual production has been experienced. While climate change and anthropogenic interventions may have played a key role in natural and farmed stocks reductions, no studies investigated at multiple levels the environmental stressors affecting farmed Manila clam to date.
In this work we carried out a long-term monitoring campaign on Manila clam reared in four farming sites located at different distances from the southern Venice Lagoon inlet, integrating (meta)genomic approaches (i.e. RNA-seq; microbiota characterization), biometric measurements and chemical-physical parameters. Our study allowed to characterize the molecular mechanisms adopted by this species to cope with the different environmental conditions characterizing farming sites and to propose hypotheses to explain mortality events observed in recent years. Among the most important findings, the disruption of clam's immune response, the spread of Vibrio spp., and the up-regulation of molecular pathways involved in xenobiotic metabolism suggested major environmental stressors affecting clams farmed in sites placed close to Chioggia's inlet, where highest mortality was also observed.
Overall, our study provides knowledge-based tools for managing Manila clam farming on-growing areas. In addition, the collected data is a snapshot of the time immediately before the commissioning of MoSE, a system of mobile barriers aimed at protecting Venice from high tides, and will represent a baseline for future studies on the effects of MoSE on clams farming and more in general on the ecology of the Venice Lagoon.
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•In recent years recurrent bivalve mass mortalities considerably increased around the world.•Criticalities affecting clam stocks in different sites within the Venice lagoon have been characterized.•Microbiota and gene expression profiling allowed the identification of seasonal- and site-specific environmental stressors.•Identification of molecular mechanisms adopted by Manila clam to cope with stressors
This paper reports a pioneering study of an unknown historical drug formulation preserved in the
Spezieria
of
Santa Maria della Scala
in Rome, founded at the end of the seventeenth century by the ...Discalced Carmelites. Due to limited literature related to pharmaceutical remedies and drugs of the Early Modern Era (between the XV and XVIII centuries) and the complexity in their formulations, the study of these drugs represents a great challenge. The untargeted nature of the selected drug required a multi-analytical approach with complementary techniques to formulate a compositional hypothesis: FT-IR spectroscopy, gas chromatography-associated/mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) were successfully employed to identify different organic compounds. Systematic archaeobotanical research was performed as well, allowing us to acquire data related to the possible
genus
of plants from which these natural compounds derive and their geographical origin. The unknown drug formulation turned out to be a complex mixture used as an ointment with an anti-inflammatory purpose. It mainly contains a mixture of Venetian turpentine; a Pine resin (colophony) from the
Pinaceae
family; an exudate of a plant from South America, whose identified components are triterpenic compounds such as alpha- and beta-amyrins, betulin and lupeol; and saturated fatty acids which act as carriers and/or to reduce the viscosity of abovementioned exudates and resins. The study of historical drugs is important not only in order to know the practices handed down by the
speziali
in the past but also to reconstruct historical recipes, which can inspire new dermatological, cosmetic, hygienic and current healing products.
Graphical abstract
The present paper reports one of the first studies on the identification of natural resins and balsams in modern era drug formulations. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was ...applied to investigate the composition of ancient remedies and pharmaceutical formulations coming from the
Spezieria di Santa Maria della Scala
in Rome, founded at the end of the seventeenth century by the Discalced Carmelites. The obtained results highlight the presence of complex mixtures containing resinaceous and lipidic-based compounds. Thanks to the detection of characteristic markers, it was possible to identify several natural resins, such as guaiacum resin, ladano resin and scammony resin. Balsamic and aromatic compounds characteristic of essential oils were identified as well. In addition, an anti-inflammatory ointment, composed by mixing Venetian turpentine, a
Pinaceae
resin and a triterpene resin exudate of a plant from South America, was found among the analysed formulations. Combining the analytical results, the historical research and the botanical composition, it was possible to formulate compositional hypotheses of this historical medicine and provided some indications about their use in health. The study of historical drugs is not only important to know the practices handed down by apothecaries in the past, but also fundamental to reconstruct historical recipes that can inspire new dermatological, cosmetic, hygienic and current curative products.
Graphical abstract
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