For fi ve half-days the annual Historical Studies Seminar will bring together a highly motivated group of young and experienced scholars, who will report on and discuss a topic in their fi eld as well as boost and test their knowledge with enquiries in new areas. The general title quote – as a common denominator for the various title of the different papers – is from Goldoni. In fact the Baruffe chiozzotte (“Chioggia Scuffl es”) begins with a group of chattering knitting women, waiting for a fi shing boat to come in and wondering what the weather is going to be like. Naturally the hope is for a favourable wind to run before.
This incisive one-liner from Goldoni plunges us into a situation – that of the anxiously awaited return of fi shermen, experienced by wives, mothers, sisters and lovers – conditioned by the climate. It is the premise for a research project that will range from considering the bora (cold north-east wind) in the literature of Trieste to the scirocco (warm south wind) in the Venetian lagoon, from big freezes to heatwaves, ice to drought, and from the more intuitive reactions to meteorological phenomena to the fi rst attempts to understand them through the systematic collection of data to be used in subsequent interpretations. This is a way of introducing climate studies and meteorological research with their predictable repetitive patterns or their dynamic trends, including departures and exceptions.