The new issue of Popolazione e Storia – Vol. 2 (26/2025) – edited by Alessio Fornasin (University of Udine) and Francesco Scalone (University of Bologna), is available online here.
This issue arises from the PRIN 2022 project “Weather and Climate Vulnerability in Italian Demographic History “and aims to contribute to the debate on the relationship between meteorological shocks, demographic vulnerability and demographic behaviour in historical populations. The project aims to identify individuals, socio-economic groups and territories most exposed to the impact of meteorological variability, considering the effects of short- to medium-term fluctuations on a range of demographic outcomes.
This section includes a contribution by Lorenzo Del Panta entitled Climate variations at the origin of the great plague pandemics (6th and 14th centuries AD): a brief bibliographical review and a study by Francesco Scalone, Edoardo Redivo and Cristina Munno entitled The environmental components of an urban epidemic: cholera in Bologna in 1855.
The second thematic section examines the relationship between seasonality, meteorological variability and reproductive behaviour. Firstly, the seasonality of births implies the existence of relationships between biological mechanisms, environmental constraints and socio-economic organisation.
This section includes contributions by Nidia Batic, Matteo Manfredini, Alessio Fornasin and Marco Breschi (The influence of temperature on the seasonality of conceptions in Tuscany during the Restoration) and by Francesco Scalone, Francesca Tosi, Rosella Rettaroli and Nadia Barbieri (Climate and the seasonality of births in pre-industrial Bologna. A comparison between the city and the countryside. 1729–1860).
At the end of this special issue, there is a concluding note entitled A brief note on the construction of a FAIR database for historical demography, written by Francesca Tosi, Mario Marino and Simone Di Giovanni.