From SIU Mental Status Examination:"
Qualitative descriptions: Type and intensity of emotions, whether of a sweeping character or primarily connected with definite topics and strivings. Attention is focused on the emotions of depression, elation, euphoria, anger, anxiety, fear, suspiciousness, resentment, on the absence of clearly experienced emotions, on apathy, and on lability of emotion. Under objective data one might seek answers to the following questions - questions which are usually unspoken. Is the patient composed, complacent? Is he irritable, angry, happy, elated or exalted? Is he boastful, self-satisfied or expansive? Is he suspicious, distant or aloof? On the other hand, is he indifferent, apathetic, dissociated, perplexed, fearful, anxious or tense?
"Other words from the same root are avalanche,
lapse, and lava."
Wow--I never knew that; avalanches and lava certainly are susceptible to change or instability, aren't they?
Well, better labile than affectless. Or should that be lack of affect for better scansion and assonance?
Dear jheem: Flatness of affect is often seen in one type of
schizophrenia, and so is bad news. And lability of affect is
easier to treat. I don't know current terminology.
I also like the word affect, because it puts the lie to the prescription that effect is a always a noun and affect likewise a verb. Affect as a noun goes back aways before modern psychology. Flatness of affect has often been called 'cool' in the vernacular, starting with James Dean's performance in Rebel Without a Cause. It is currently super popular with teenaged males.
Dear jheem: One of the earliest sites of "cool" was in an
Italian dukedom on the east coast of Italy. I can't remember the name, and it's not on the only map of Italy I can find. It was finally destroyed by treachery of César Borgia. PBS had a couple programs about it, calling it the
most civilized state that ever existed. They had tournaments
of sword fighting in which the highest awards went to the
contestants who won with least display of exertion.
Tuscany? Florence? Cesare and Lucrezia were the children of Rodrigo de Borja (of Spain originally) aka Pope Alexander VI. Cesare had a French title. Fun family.
Dear jheem: I said on the east coast of Italy,on the Adriatic, perhaps halfway between the latitude of Rome and
that of Venice. Maps are one thing I find disappointing on the Internet.
not quite what you're looking for, I expect, but maybe you can find something here:
http://document.itwg.com/idxmap.aspI just googled
map: Italy...
How you pronounce that J?
Like a voiceless velar fricative, or what the Germans used to call an Achlaut as distinguished from the Ichlaut. But at the time, there were some who pronounced {x} and {j} as a voiceless palatoalveolar fricative like the {sh} in ship /'SIp/. Cf. Quixote in French Quichotte. English sherry from Xerez.
Sorry, didn't read too carefully. All I know on the east coast is Rimini, Ancona, or Bari. (I guess Venezia is to far north; and what about Trieste?) Too many Albanian pirates on that side of the boot for this Ligurian. (Anything south of La Spezia is kinda vague.)
From encyclopedia about Cesare Borgia:
Cesare also seized (1502) Piombino, Elba, Camerino, and the duchy of Urbino
Arthur C. Clarke did use the word, but he made it plain that
Urbino had the most "urbane" culture in history, in his
estimation.
So, you were looking for the province of Ancona in the Marches (eastern-central Italy). The Medici were also for a brief period the Dukes of Urbino.
All I could remember about Ancona, was that there is the
Rubicon, a boundary forbidden to provincial governors with
armies, so that Caesar became an outlaw by crossing it with his army.