The third regular issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum opens with three new scholarly articles and is dedicated to the memory of Professor Flavio Baroncelli (1944—2007), a friend of Iceland and a lively contributor to Italy’s philosophical life and public debate for many years.

A special section is included in this issue, which contains the Icelandic translation of a chapter selected from Baroncelli’s best-known book, Il razzismo é una gaffe. Eccessi e virtù del ‘politically correct’ [Racism is a faux pas. Excesses and virtues of political correctness; Rome: Donzelli, 1997]. The translator, Mr Egill Arnarson, is a former student of Professor Baroncelli’s and an admirer of his work. Mr Arnarson’s translation is as much a sign of gratitude and friendship as it is of intellectual fascination, and the chapter on stereotypes and truth was chosen as most representative of Baroncelli’s acumen and wit, known to his students and readers for blending together most insightful observations of ordinary human behaviour and the sincere concern for diminishing the presence of intolerance in public space.

Much of Baroncelli’s work as teacher and researcher orbited around the issues of tolerance and toleration, which he scrutinised both historically and theoretically, in the attempt to use philosophy as a tool for personal growth and social amelioration, rather than an obscure, elitist, and ivory-tower academic enterprise.

Baroncelli’s much-appreciated open-mindedness and curiosity are reflected by the other contributions published in this issue, which range from intimate commemorations of his ties with Iceland and the Icelandic scholarly community to novel research papers which their authors presented to or discussed with Baroncelli. We wish to thank most warmly the authors of these pieces for participating in our contribution to keeping the memory of Flavio Baroncelli alive, both as a scholar and as a remarkable man.

To the same end we highlight hereby a weblink to the richest collection of sources and information concerning Flavio Baroncelli, set up by the Department of Philosophy of the Università degli Studi di Genova: http://www.dif.unige.it/dot/baroncelli/

As regards the opening articles of this issue, they mirror once again the multidisciplinary character of our journal, dealing as they do, with very diverse subjects. Also, they show the wider international outlook of our publication, as requested by our readers: Dr Wendy Hamblet’s essay on ancient Greek thought comes from Canada, whilst Professor Gábor Hamza’s biography of Elemér Balogh, who taught Roman Law in Lithuania and Sweden, comes from Hungary. For her part, Dr Valeria Quirico’s contribution follows a more “standard” geographical pattern, as it reaches us from Turin, Italy, with a study of Garibaldi’s popularity in 19th-century Sweden.

In addition to the new articles, this issue of Nordicum-Mediterraneum carries a conference paper on the consequences for the populations of the Arctic region due to global warming, written by the esteemed Finnish poet and anthropologist Tero Mustonen. There also appears an interview with Professor Gianna Chiesa-Isnardi, indefatigable promoter of Scandinavian studies in contemporary Italy, and two short essays by Mr Ioannis Michaletos and Ms Emily Pearce, respectively, on ancient commercial relations between Greece and Northern Europe and a first-person account of fast-changing Albanian society today.

Finally, we publish once more a few book reviews, thanking both their authors and the books’ publishers, who chose our journal as a venue to make their new volumes known to the international scholarly community.

The Editors