Search Results (4)

Citrus fruit, the most abundant global fruit, is primarily concentrated in China. Mulching techniques have demonstrated a favorable effect on the soil’s hydrothermal environment, resulting in enhanced plant growth, yield, and quality. Nevertheless, the impact of mulching on the soil microbiome and fruit quality of Beni Madonna tangor (Citrus nanko × C. amakusa) remains unknown. This study aimed to examine the impact of different mulching techniques, namely traditional flat planting (CK), reflective film mulching (RM), black film mulching (BM), corn stalk mulching (CS), green film mulching (GM), and transparent plastic film mulching (TM), on the bacterial diversity, composition, cooccurrence networks, and bulk soil assembly during the ripening stage of Beni Madonna tangor. The various treatments employed in this study exhibited distinct impacts on fruit quality and soil temperature and humidity. Through comprehensively evaluating fruit quality and soil properties, it was found that RM treatment had the best effect, while CK treatment was the worst. The mulching results in a significant decrease in the Shannon indexcompared to the control group. Specifically, mulching with RM, CS, and GM led to a significant increase in Chloroflexi abundance (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the interaction complexity between bacteria was found to be lower under GM and TM treatments compared to the other mulching treatments. At the genus level, Chloroflexi exhibited a positive correlation with total soluble solid (TSS) and Vitamin C (Vc) contents, however, GP13 showed a converse result. It was determined that Chloroflexi, with a high abundance of RM, promoted an improvement in soil and fruit quality. Ultimately, it can be concluded that various mulching techniques yield distinct impacts on both the soil bacterial composition and citrus quality, with these effects being intricately linked to the core biota’s functionalities within each treatment. Full article

Devotional artworks represent a valuable form of art, as they are evidence of religious worship and the demo-ethno-anthropological, as well as historical-artistic, heritage of a community, which is why they definitely belong to the cultural identity of a geographic area. The Madonna della Croce wall painting is an example of devotional art preserved today in the homonymous church in Triggiano (Bari, Italy). The presented study concerns the characterization of pigments used in the painting. The identification of pictorial materials had the aim of providing a contribution to knowledge about the painting, the history of restorations, and other historical events, and to increase the information about the Apulian painting to better reconstruct the social, cultural, and economic contexts of the region. Through a non-invasive and fast methodological approach, including portable digital microscopy, colorimetry, fibre optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS), and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF); 42 points considered on coloured areas were analysed in situ, and results on pigment identification were achieved. According to the local wall painting tradition, red and yellow ochres, green earth, vine black, massicot, and lead-tin yellow were found. Furthermore, both indigo-woad dye and a mixture of vine black and yellow ochre to obtain a blueish colour on the Virgin’s mantle were highlighted. Full article

This research aimed to characterise pigments used to decorate a polychrome earthenware bas-relief of the 15th century entitled “Madonna with Child, Saint Catherine of Siena, and a Carthusian Prior”, attributed to Giovanni Antonio Amadeo (Pavia, 1447–Milan, 1522) and owned by the Sforzesco Castle Museum of Milan. The artwork underwent a cleaning procedure whose aims were the removal of the dark coating that obscured its surface and restoration work that could bring back its original features. Before the cleaning, six microsamples were collected and analysed using optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDXS), and Fourier-transform infrared microspectroscopy in ATR mode (ATR-FTIR), providing the restorers with decisive information on the materials underlying the coating. After the cleaning, the terracotta appeared vibrantly coloured, mainly with bright red, blue, green, black, and white tones. Then, some in situ, non-destructive, spectroscopic measurements were performed by a portable Raman spectrometer on some of the areas that could not otherwise have been sampled. The analyses revealed the presence of natural pigments, including lead white, azurite, yellow ochre, carbon black, calcite, cinnabar, and gypsum. For Madonna’s mantle, cobalt and Prussian blue were employed. Furthermore, the presence of barium sulphate was widely evidenced on the bas-relief. Albeit cobalt blue is of synthetic origin, its presence is compatible with the 15th-century palette, whereas Prussian blue and barium sulphate could be imputed to a previous restoration. Finally, the use of true gold for the background of the earthenware attests to the artwork’s importance and value. Full article

This review summarizes existing scholarship in order to theorize how Abrahamic religions and Hinduism were influenced by African beliefs, in order to illuminate the contributions that African beliefs have had on other world religions. The review begins with a brief historical overview of the origins of indigenous ideologies, followed by a review of classical theories of religion and a summary of contemporary religious trends, with particular attention on African beliefs. The Black Madonna, with origins in Africa, is a prominent example of how African beliefs have been integrated into other faiths in ways that are often obscured from view. The Black Madonna is compared with the characteristics and symbolism of the traditional fair-skinned Virgin Mary. It is estimated that there are hundreds of depictions of the Black Madonna, yet her identity as truly black is generally minimized. This review contributes a theoretical rationale for the lack of recognition and acceptance of the Madonna as black, contextualizing this within a feminist theoretical viewpoint and analyzing the connection to African folklore and traditional religious beliefs. The theoretical framework articulated in this paper contributes an elucidation of the ways that indigenous African religions have affected other world religions. Acknowledging this influence challenges the simplistic notion of reified distinctions between Western and non-Western religions. Full article