Mezzanine

Mezzanine (pronounced mez-uh-neen)

(1) In architecture, a low story between two other stories of greater height in a building, especially when the low story and the one beneath it form part of one composition; an entresol (in general use referred to as “mezzanine” or “mezzanine floor”, most historically between the ground and first levels because so many were added to take advantage of the high ceilings often found in these voids.  A mezzanine is an intermediate floor (occasionally called a “sub-storey” or “demi-storey”) which does not extend over the whole floor-space below and can thus be visualized a kind of (usually large) large balcony overlooking the floor below; many were atop “grand” staircases which were often the focal point of ground floors.

(2) By extension (and used loosely), an apartment, room, restaurant etc on such an intermediate floor.

(3) In theatre (and other performance spaces) design, the lowest balcony or forward part of such a balcony (North American use and known sometimes as the “dress circle”), the seats there usually sold either at a premium or a discount against the “orchestra” seats depending on the structure.

(4) In theatre design, a space under the stage, from which contrivances such as traps are worked (obsolete).

(5) In financial markets, an intermediate stage in a financial process, known variously as “mezzanine funding”, “mezzanine capital”, or “mezzanine debt” (“mezz” the shorthand of traders).

(6) In interior design, an additional layer of flooring, laid over a floor either to raise the height, conceal imperfections or afford protection from water penetration (the latter common in server rooms & farms).

(7) As “mezzanine window”, a a small window at the height of a mezzanine floor or an attic.

(8) In computer hardware, as mezzanine board, the gender-neutral replacement term for the earlier daughter boards (which plugged into motherboards (now the gender neutral system board)

(9) In figurative use, any intermediate or ancillary stage or device (rare except in engineering (engineering) where it’s used to describe things fulfilling an intermediate or secondary function.  Curiously, software engineers & coders seem not to use the term, possibly to avoid confusion with the hardware devices.

1705–1715: From the French mezzanine & its etymon the Italian mezzanino (a low story between two higher ones in a building), from mezzano (middle (adjective) & go-between (noun)) the construct being mezzan(o) (in either sense of “middle”), from the Latin mediānus (median; of the middle) + -ino (the diminutive suffix).  Mezzano was from the Latin adjective mediānus (central, middle), from medius (mid, middle), ultimately from a construct of the primitive Indo-European root médyos or médhyo (middle)) + -ānus (the suffix meaning “of or pertaining to”).  The word was almost exclusive to architects before the early twentieth century when it came to be used on New York’s Broadway to mean “lowest balcony in a theater”, presumably because the use of something so Italianesque might justify charging a premium for the ticket.  The Italian mediānus was an element also in words like mediator (an agent who interposes between two parties), medium (that size between big & small) and medieval (a creation of Modern English from the New Latin medium aevum (the middle age, thus pertaining to or suggestive of the Middle Ages), the construct being medi(ānus) (the middle) + aev(um) (age) + -al (the Latin adjectival suffix appended to various words (often nouns) to make an adjective).  Mezzanine is a noun & adjective and mezzanining & mezzanined are verbs; the noun plural is mezzanines.  Because mezzanine was a particular specification in architecture, historically, adjectives like mezzaninesque or mezzaninish would have been absurd but given the fertile imaginations of those engineering new financial products, they may yet come into vogue.

419 Venice Way, Venice Beach, Los Angeles where during 2011 Lindsay Lohan lived (in the house to the right; the semi-mirrored construction sometimes called a “pigeon pair”) next door to former special friend Samantha Ronson who inhabited the one to the left (417).  The four bedroom (3½ bathrooms) house included a floating stairway leading to a mezzanine which the property’s agent described as “ideal for a studio or office”.

419 Venice Way: Ground level showing the floating staircase to the mezzanine (left) and the mezzanine (right).

In casual use, many refer to smaller mezzanines as balconies but architects note the latter tend to be installed on a building’s exterior while a mezzanine is inherently an indoor feature.  While the motifs of ether can be used either inside or out, by convention the indoor/outdoor convention of use dictates the choice of nomenclature.  A mezzanine is an intermediate level which is built with a partial floor which doesn’t fully cover the floor and historically many were added between the ground and first levels to take advantage of the high ceilings often found in these voids, many featuring the so-called “grand staircases” which were often the focal point of ground floors.  By contrast, a balcony is an elevated platform typically attached to the upper exterior of a building to provide a space onto which people may sit or stand for a variety of purposes.

Lobby (foyer) of Stamford Plaza Brisbane, Queensland, Australia with the “grand staircase” leading to the mezzanine.  Wedding photographers are especially fond of big staircases because they provide the ideal base for the train of a bride’s dress to fall in a photogenic way.

Penta Mezzanine’s conceptual diagram of mezzanine financing.

The idea of mezzanine financing emerged in the US early in the twentieth century and is a highly variable mechanism involving a hybrid mix of debt and equity, the use of mezzanine in this context reflecting its “middle or intermediate” position between senior debt and equity in the corporate structures.  Mezzanine was a niche in US capital markets until the early post-war years when un-met demand in the gap between conventional (secured) bank loans and equity investment was identified and in the buoyant trans-Atlantic economy of the era it proved ideally suited to the increasingly popular leveraged buyouts (LBOs) and mergers & acquisitions (M&A) because of the flexibility and the acceptance of subordinated forms of capital.  By later standards the use of mezzanine instruments was on a small scale but the techniques developed lad the basis for the boom in corporate financing which flared in the newly deregulated environment of the 1980s and 1990s when the volume LBOs & M&A activity was such that some institutions were able to devote entire divisions to service the market.

Mezzanine financing is now part of financial industry in just about every developed economy and provides a source of capital combines debt and equity, almost always at a higher cost than traditional arrangements so while not regarded as a “last resort” in the way that term in used in banking, the device exists to fill the shortfall (ie the bit “in the middle”) between need and what conventional sources decide is justified by the risk.  Demanding (1) a premium interest rate to provide capital which is subordinated to other debts in the case of liquidation or bankruptcy & (2) taking an equity position are the ways the risk-reward math can be made to work for both parties and mezzanine financing continues to exists because it fulfills a need, thus ensuring there is both supply & demand to sustain the model.

Reich

Reich (pronounced rahyk or rahykh (German))

(1) With reference to Germany or other Germanic agglomerations, empire; realm; nation.

(2) The German state, especially (as Third Reich) during the Nazi period.

1871: From the German Reich (kingdom, realm, state), from the Middle High German rīche, from the Old High German rīhhi (rich, mighty; realm), from the Proto-West Germanic rīkī, from the Proto-Germanic rīkijaz & rikja (rule), a derivative of rīks (king, ruler), from the Proto-Celtic rīxs and thus related to the Irish rí.  The influences were (1) the primitive Indo-European hereǵ- (to rule), from which is derived also the Latin rēx and (2) the primitive Indo-European root reg (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line", thus "to lead, rule".  Cognates include the Old Norse riki, the Danish rige & rig, the Dutch rike & rijk, the Old English rice & rich, the Old Frisian rike, the Icelandic ríkur, the Swedish rik, the Gothic reiki, the Don Ringe and the Plautdietsch rikj.

Reich was first used in English circa 1871 to describe the essentially Prussian creation that was the German Empire which was the first unification of the central European Germanic entities.  It was then described simply as “the Reich” with no suggestion of any sense of succession with the Holy Roman Empire.  “Third Reich” was an invention of Nazi propaganda to “invent” the idea of Hitler as the inheritor of the mantle of Charlemagne and Bismarck.  The word soon captured the imagination of the British Foreign Office, German “Reichism” coming to be viewed as much a threat as anything French had ever been.

The term Fourth Reich was popularized by Edwin Hartrich’s (1913-1995) book The Fourth and Richest Reich (MacMillan 1980), a critique both of the modern German state and its influence on the EEC / EC which would become the EU.  The term is still sometimes used by those criticizing the German state, the not so subtle implication being Berlin gradually achieving by other means the domination of Europe which the Third Reich attempted by military conquest.  Fourth Reich is also sometimes used, erroneously to describe the two-dozen day “administration” of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; German head of state 30 April-23 May 1945) who in Hitler’s will was appointed Reich President (and therefore head of state); the so-called “Flensburg Government”.  That’s wrong and the only difference of opinion between constitutional theorists is whether it was either the mere coda to the Third Reich or mostly a charade, the German state ceasing to exist by virtue of events on the ground, a situation the finalization of the surrender arrangements on 8 May merely documented.  The latter view, although reflecting reality, has never been widely supported, the formal existence of a German state actually required to ensure the validity of the surrender and other administrative acts.

The word "Reich" does sometimes confuse non-specialists who equate it with the German state, probably because the Third Reich does cast such a long shadow.  Murdoch journalist Samantha Maiden (b 1972) in a piece discussing references made to the Nazis (rarely a good idea except between experts) by a candidate in the 2022 Australian general election wrote:

The history of the nation-state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods: German Empire (1871–1918) Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Nazi Germany (1933–1945).

It's an understandable mistake and the history of the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods but that doesn't include the Weimar Republic.  The point about what the British Foreign Office labelled "Reichism" was exactly what the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), as a "normal" democratic state, was not.  The Reich's three epochs (and there's some retrospectivity in both nomenclature and history) were the Holy Roman Empire (1800-1806), Bismarck's (essentially Prussian) German Empire (1871-1918) & the Nazi Third Reich (1933-1945).  

Sketch of the orgone accumulator.

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a US-based Austrian psychoanalyst with a difficult past who believed sexual repression was the root cause of many social problems.  Some of his many books were widely read within the profession but there was criticism of his tendency towards monocausality in his analysis, an opinion shared by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in his comments about Reich’s 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), a work the author had dedicated to his fellow Austrian.  Freud sent a note of thanks for the personally dedicated copy he’d been sent as a birthday present but, brief and not as effusive in praise Reich as had expected, it was not well-received.  Reich died in prison while serving a sentence imposed for violating an injunction issued to prevent the distribution of a machine he’d invented: the orgone accumulator.

The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London (United Artists UAD 60037/8; referred to usually as Space Ritual) (1973).

The orgone accumulator was an apparently phoney device but one which inspired members of the SF-flavored band Hawkwind to write the song Orgone Accumulator which, unusually, was first released on a live recording, Space Ritual, a 1973 double album containing material from their concerts in 1972.  Something of a niche player in the world of 1970s popular music Hawkwind, perhaps improbably, proved more enduring than many, their combination of styles attracting a cult following which endures to this day.  

The First Reich, the Holy Roman Empire

Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth century.

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the early Middle Ages, the popular identification with Germany because the empire’s largest territory after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany.  On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III (circa 760-816; pope 795-816) crowned Charlemagne (747–814; King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans (and thus retrospectively Holy Roman Emperor) from 800) as Emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Despite the way much history has been written, it wasn’t until the fifteenth century that “Holy Roman Empire” became a commonly used phrase.

Leo III, involved in sometimes violent disputes with Romans who much preferred his predecessor and the Byzantine Empress in Constantinople, had his own reasons for wishing to crown Charlemagne as Emperor although it was a choice which would have consequences for hundreds of years.  According to legend, Leo ambushed Charlemagne at Mass on Christmas day, 800 by placing the crown on his head as he knelt at the altar to pray, declaring him Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans), in one stroke claiming staking the papal right to choose emperors, guaranteeing his personal protection and rejecting any assertion of imperial authority by anyone in Constantinople.  Charlemagne may or may not have been aware of what was to happen but much scholarship suggests he was well aware he was there for a coronation but that he intended to take the crown in his own hands and place it on his head himself.  The implications of the pope’s “trick” he immediately understood but, what’s done is done and can’t be undone and the lesson passed down the years, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) not repeating the error at his coronation as French Emperor in 1804.

Some historians prefer to date the empire from 962 when Otto I was crowned because continuous existence there began but, scholars generally concur, it’s possible to trace from Charlemagne an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, describing a gradual assumption of the imperial title and role.  Not all were, at the time, impressed. Voltaire sardonically recorded one of his memorable bon mots, noting the “…agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."  The last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II (1768–1835; Holy Roman Emperor 1792-1806) dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after Napoleon's creation of the Confederation of the Rhine.

The Second Reich, the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty, 1871-1919.

German Empire, 1914.

The German Empire existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Kaiser (Emperor) & King of Prussia 1888-1918) in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic, remembered as the Weimar Republic (1919-1933).  The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, most ruled by royal families.  Although Prussia became one of several kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory and certainly the greatest military power and the one which exercised great influence within the state; a joke at the time was that most countries had an army whereas the Prussian Army had a country.

To a great extent, the Second Reich was the creation of Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; chancellor of the North German Confederation 1867-1871 and of the German Empire 1871-1890), the politician who dominated European politics in the late nineteenth although his time in office does need to be viewed through sources other than his own memoirs.  When Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I and Germany’s defeat.  Following the Kaiser’s abdication, the Empire collapsed in the November 1918 revolution and the Weimar Republic which followed, though not the axiomatically doomed thing many seem now to assume, was for much of its existence beset by political and economic turmoil.  

The Third Reich, the Nazi dictatorship 1933-1945

Nazi occupied Europe, 1942.

“Nazi Germany” is in English the common name for the period of Nazi rule, 1933-1945.  The first known use of the term “Third Reich” was by German cultural historian Moeller van den Bruck (1876-1925) in his 1923 book Das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich).  Van den Bruck, a devotee of Nietzsche and a pan-German nationalist, wrote not of a defined geographical entity or precise constitutional arrangement, his work instead exploring a conceptualized (if imprecisely described) and idealized state of existence for Germans everywhere, one that would (eventually) fully realize what the First Reich might have evolved into had not mistakes been made, the Second Reich a cul-de-sac rendered impure by the same democratic and liberal ideologies which had doomed the Weimar Republic.  Both these, van den Bruck dismissed as stepping stones.

In the difficult conditions which prevailed in Germany at the time of the book’s publication, it didn’t reach a wide audience, the inaccessibility of his text not suitable for a general readership but, calling for a synthesis of the particularly Prussian traditions of socialism and nationalism and the leadership of a Übermensch (a idea from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) which describes a kind of idealized man who probably can come into existence only of society is worthy of him), his work had obvious appeal to the Nazis.  It was said to have been influential in the embryonic Nazi Party but there’s little to suggest it contributed much beyond an appeal to the purity of race and the idea of “leader” principle, notions already well established in German nationalist traditions.  The style alone might have accounted for this, Das Dritte Reich not an easy read, a trait shared by the dreary and repetitive stuff written by the party “philosopher” Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946).

A book channeling Nietzsche wasn’t much help for practical politicians needing manifestos, pamphlets and appealing slogans and the only living politician who attracted some approbation from van den Bruck was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce & prime minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The admiration certainly didn’t extend to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945); unimpressed by his staging of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (8–9 November 1923), van den Bruck dismissed the future Führer with a unusually brief deconstruction, the sentiment of which was later better expressed by another disillusioned follower: “that ridiculous corporal”.

The name “Third Reich did however briefly enter the Nazi’s propaganda lexicon.  The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich (German Empire) between 1933-1943 and Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire) between 1943 to 1945 but so much of what was fascism was fake and the Nazis were attracted to the notion of claiming to be the successor of a German Empire with a thousand year history, their own vision of the Nazi state being millennialist .  After they seized power, the term “Third Reich” would occasionally be invoked and, more curiously, the Nazis for a while even referred to the Weimar Republic as the Zwischenreich (Interim Reich) but as the 1930s unfolded as an almost unbroken series of triumphs for Hitler, emphasis soon switched to the present and the future, the pre Beer-Hall Putsch history no longer needed.  It was only after 1945 that the use of “Third Reich” became almost universal although the earlier empires still are almost never spoken of in that way.

Van den Bruck had anyway been not optimistic and his gloominess proved prescient although his people did chose to walk the path he thought they may fear to tread.  In the introduction to Das Dritte Reich he wrote: “The thought of a Third Empire might well be the most fatal of all the illusions to which they have ever yielded; it would be thoroughly German if they contented themselves with day-dreaming about it. Germany might perish of her Third Empire dream.”  He didn’t live to see the rise and fall of the Third Reich, taking his own life in 1925, a fate not unknown among those who read Nietzsche at too impressionable an age and never quite recover.

Monospecchio

Monospecchio (pronounced mon-oh-spec-kjo)

The Italian for “one mirror”, a descriptor applied to the early production (1984-1987) Ferrari Testarossas (1984-1991).   

1984: The construct was mono- + specchio.  Mono was from the Ancient Greek, a combining form of μόνος (monos) (alone, only, sole, single), from the Proto-Hellenic mónwos, from the primitive Indo-European mey- (small).  It was related to the Armenian մանր (manr) (slender, small), the Ancient Greek μανός (manós) (sparse, rare), the Middle Low German mone & möne, the West Frisian meun, the Dutch meun, the Old High German muniwa, munuwa & munewa (from which German gained Münne (minnow).  As a prefix, mono- is often found in chemical names to indicate a substance containing just one of a specified atom or group (eg a monohydrate such as carbon monoxide; carbon attached to a single atom of oxygen).  The Italian specchio (mirror, table, chart) was from the Vulgar Latin speclum, a syncopated form of the Classical Latin speculum, the construct being speciō +‎ -culum.  Speciō (observe, watch, look at) was from the From Proto-Italic spekjō, from the primitive Indo-European spéḱyeti which was cognate with the Ancient Greek σκέπτομαι (sképtomai), the Avestan (spasyeiti), and the Sanskrit पश्यति (páśyati).  The suffix –culum was (with anaptyxis) from the Proto-Italic -klom, from the primitive Indo-European -tlom, from -trom.  Despite the resemblance, ōsculum and other diminutive nouns do not contain this suffix which was used to form some nouns derived from verbs, particularly nouns representing tools and instruments.

1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa.  One sold in a private sale in 2014 for a reported US$39.8 million, exceeding somewhat the US$16.39 million one achieved at auction in 2011.

The type F110 Ferrari Testarossa (1984-1991) was one of a number of models between 1973-1996 to use a flat-12 which pedants insist is actually a 180^o V12 because of a definitional distinction related to the attachment and movement of internal components; the external shape is essentially identical.  The Testarossa name (testra rossa literally “red head” in Italian) was a revival of one the factory had last used for the 1957 250 Testa Rossa which had won that year’s World Sportscar Championship, the first having been the 1954 500 TR.  The visual link to the name was the red paint applied to the engines’ camshaft covers.

BB & BB:  Ferrari 365 GT4 Berlinetta Boxer displayed at the 1971 Turin Motor Show & Brigitte Bardot, supine, 1968.

The factory was in general a bit loose with the nomenclature on which purists like to insist.  The first of the road-going flat-12 Ferraris was the 365 GT4 BB (1973-1984), the “BB” long thought to stand for Berlinetta Boxer but Road & Track in 2018 noted RoadRat's publication of an interview with the BB’s designer, Leonardo Fioravanti (b 1938) who admitted it was named after the actress Brigitte Bardot (b 1934), simply because the staff in Ferrari's design office were as besotted with Mademoiselle Bardot as engineers everywhere; "Berlinetta Boxer" was just a cover story.  There’s an undeniable similarity in the lines of the two and on the factory website, Ferrari later confirmed the story.

The Italian berlinetta translates as “little saloon” and is the diminutive of berlina (sedan) and the 365 GT4 BB in no way resembled a saloon, small or large, Ferrari using the word to describe a two-seat car with a closed cockpit (convertibles are Spiders), referred to by most as a coupé.  Nor was the Ferrari’s flat-12 technically a boxer, the boxer configuration one where each pair of opposed pistons move inwards and outwards in unison, the imagery being that of a pugilist, ritualistically thumping together their gloves prior to a bout.  The Ferrari unit instead used the same arrangement as a conventional V12, each pair of pistons sharing a crankpin whereas as true boxer has a separate crankpin for each piston.  This is one practical reason why boxer engines tend not to have many cylinders, the need for additional crankpins adding to weight & length.  Thus the earlier flat-16s, the Coventry Climax FWMW (1963-1965) intended for Formula One and the unit Porsche developed in 1971 for the Can-Am and tested in chassis 917-027 weren't boxers although bulk was anyway a factor in both proving abortive, Porsche instead turbo-charging their flat-12 and Coventry Climax giving up entirely, the FWMW having never left the test-bench.  Despite it all, just about everybody calls the 365 GT4 BB “the Boxer” and its engine a “flat-12”, the factory clearly unconcerned and while cheerfully acknowledging the technical differences, their documents refer to it variously as a “boxer”, a “180^o v12”, a “flat-12” & a “boxer-type” engine.

1986 Ferrari Testarossa in monospecchio trim.

The early-production Testarossas were fitted with a single high-mounted external mirror, on the left or right depending on the market into which it was sold and although the preferred term was the Italian “monospecchio” (one mirror), in the English speaking-world it was quickly dubbed the “flying mirror" (rendered sometimes in Italian as “specchio volante” (a ordinary wing mirror being a “specchietto laterale esterno”, proving everything sounds better in Italian)).  The unusual placement and blatant asymmetry annoyed some and delighted others, the unhappy more disgruntled still if they noticed the vent on right of the front spoiler not being matched by one to the left.  It was there to feed the air-conditioning’s radiator and while such offset singularities are not unusual in cars, many manufacturers create a matching fake as an aesthetic device: Ferrari did not.  The mirror’s curious placement was an unintended consequence of a European regulation regarding the devices and this was interpreted by the designers as having to provide 100% rearward visibility.  Because of the sheer size of the rear bodywork necessitated by the twin radiators which sat behind the side-strakes (another distinctive Testarossa feature), the elevation was the only way but it later transpired the interpretation of the law was wrong, a perhaps forgivable mistake given the turgidity of much legislation.

1991 Ferrari Testarossa in duospecchio trim.

That alone may have been enough to convince the factory to change to a more conventional location but there had also been complaints, notably from the US, that the monospecchio restricted the vision of oncoming traffic and many missed having a passenger-side mirror, remarking too on the difficulties found when trying rapidly to adapt to the placement, few owners using a Testarossa as their only car.  Thus was taken the decision to phase in the fitting of dual mirrors, mounted in a conventional position at the base of the A pillars.  Shown at the 1986 Geneva Motor Show, the first examples of the new arrangement were those built for European sale, those bound for the US revised initially in 1987 with a single, low-mounted, driver-side mirror before later gaining the same dual arrangement as those sold in Europe.

Caveat emptor: 1986 Ferrari Testarossa.

Being Ferraris with a certain cachet, the monospecchio cars attract additional interest and inevitably there is fakery and folklore.  There exists the odd early Testarossa with either double-high or double-low mirrors but Ferrari insists these are modifications installed either by dealers or owners and there was at a time, a lot of it about.  It wasn’t a simple job, requiring one or two mirrors, window frames and support assemblies and thus always cost somewhere in four figures but, like those who once converted their now precious 1963 split-window Chevrolet Corvettes to 1964’s single piece of glass lest they be thought driving last year’s model, there were those who didn’t wish to look outdated.  Also, the Testarossa was, by Ferrari’s standards at the time, almost mass-produced with over seven-thousand sold and, in the aftermath of the severe recession of the early 1990s, a glut emerged which for years depressed prices; originality not then the fetish it would later become, modifications to mirrors and other bits & pieces not uncommon.  Still, the factory was known to accommodate special requests from good customers so if a duospecchio with high mounts does show up, accompanied with the vital proof of authenticity, it would add a notch of desirability.  Market support for Ferrari’s flat-12 ecosystem (Boxer, Testarossa & 512 TR) is now healthy and, while not matching the buoyancy of the pre-1973 cars, operates well into US$ six figures, the quirk of the monospecchio cars making them much fancied.

Monospecchio: Lindsay Lohan selfies, one mirror at a time.

Mania

Mania (pronounced mey-nee-uh or meyn-yuh)

(1) Excessive excitement or enthusiasm; craze; excessive or unreasonable desire; insane passion affecting one or many people; fanaticism.

(2) In psychiatry, the condition manic disorder; a combining form of mania (megalomania); extended to mean “enthusiasm, often of an extreme and transient nature,” for that specified by the initial element; characterized by great excitement and occasionally violent behavior; violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity.

(3) In mythology, the consort of Mantus, Etruscan god of the dead and ruler of the underworld.  Perhaps identified with the tenebrous Mater Larum, she should not be confused with the Greek Maniae, goddess of the dead; In Greek mythology Mania was the personification of insanity.

(4) In popular use, any behavior, practice, cultural phenomenon, product etc enjoying a sudden popularity.

1350–1400: From the Middle English mania (madness), from the Latin mania (insanity, madness), from the Ancient Greek μανία (manía) (madness, frenzy; enthusiasm, inspired frenzy; mad passion, fury), from μαίνομαι (maínomai) (I am mad) +‎ -ῐ́ᾱ (-íā).  The –ia suffix was from the Latin -ia and the Ancient Greek -ία (-ía) & -εια (-eia), which form abstract nouns of feminine gender.  It was used when names of countries, diseases, species etc and occasionally collections of stuff.  The Ancient Greek mainesthai (to rage, go mad), mantis (seer) and menos (passion, spirit), were all of uncertain origin but probably related to the primitive Indo-European mnyo-, a suffixed form of the root men- (to think)," with derivatives referring to qualities and states of maenad (mind) or thought.

The sense of a "fad, craze, enthusiasm resembling mania, eager or uncontrollable desire" dates from the 1680s, the use in English in this sense borrowed from the French manie.  In Middle English, mania had sometimes been nativized as manye. The familiar modern use as the second element in compounds expressing particular types of madness emerged in the 1500s (bibliomania 1734, nymphomania, 1775; kleptomania, 1830; narcomania 1887, megalomania, 1890), the origin of this being Medical Latin, in imitation of the Greek, which had a few such compounds (although, despite popular opinion, most were actually post-classical: gynaikomania (women), hippomania (horses) etc).

The adjective maniac was from circa 1600 in the sense of "affected with mania, raving with madness" and was from the fourteenth century French maniaque, from the Late Latin maniacus, from the Ancient Greek maniakos, the Adoption in English another borrowing from French use; from 1727 it came also to mean "pertaining to mania." The noun, "one who is affected with mania, a madman" was noted from 1763, derived from the adjective.  The adjective manic (pertaining to or affected with mania), dates from 1902, the same year the clinical term “manic depressive” appeared in the literature although, perhaps strangely, the condition “manic depression” wasn’t describe until the following year although the symptoms had as early as 1857 been noted as defined as “circular insanity”, from the from French folie circulaire (1854).  It’s now known as bi-polar disorder.  The constructions hypermania & submania are both from the mid-twentieth century.  The adjective maniacal was from the 1670s, firstly in the sense of "affected with mania" and by 1701 "pertaining to or characteristic of a maniac; the form maniacally emerged during the same era.  Mania is quite specific but craving, craze, craziness, enthusiasm, fad, fascination, frenzy, infatuation, lunacy, obsession, passion, rage, aberration, bee, bug, compulsion, delirium, derangement, desire & disorder peacefully co-exist.

Noted manias

Anglomania: An excessive or undue enthusiasm for England and all things English; rarely noted in the Quai D'Orsay.

Anthomania: An extravagant passion for flowers; although it really can’t be proved, the most extreme of these are probably the orchid fanciers.  Those with an extravagant passion for weed are a different sub-set of humanity and are really narcomanics (qv) although there may be some overlap. 

Apimania: A passionate obsession with bees; beekeepers tend to be devoted to their little creatures so among the manias, this one may more than most be a spectrum condition.

Arithmomania: A compulsive desire to count objects and make calculations; noted since 1884, it’s now usually regarded as being within the rubric of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Bibliomania: A rage for collecting rare or unusual books.  This has led to crime and there have been famous cases.

Cacodaemomania: The obsessive fixation on the idea that one is inhabited by evil spirits.  To the point where it becomes troublesome it’s apparently rare but there are dramatic cases in the literature, one of the most notorious being Anneliese Michel (1952–1976) who was subject to the rites of exorcism by Roman Catholic priests in the months before she died.  The priests and her parents (who after conventional medical interventions failed, also become convinced the cause of her problems was demonic possession) were convicted of various offences related to her death.  Films based on the events leading up to death have been released including The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Requiem (2006) and Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes (2011).

Callomania: The obsessive belief in one’s own beauty, even when to all others this is obviously delusional.

Dipsomania: The morbid craving for alcohol; in pre-modern medicine, it was used also to describe the “temporary madness caused by excessive drinking”, the origin of this being Italian (1829) and German (1830) medical literature.

Egomania: An obsessive self-centeredness; it was known since 1825 but use didn’t spike until Freud (and others) made it widely discussed after the 1890s and few terms from the early days of psycho-analysis are better remembered.

Erotomania: Desperate love, a sentimentalism producing morbid feelings.

Flagellomania: An obsessive interest in flogging and/or being flogged, often as one’s single form of sexual expression and thus a manifestation of monomania (qv).  The English Liberal Party politician Robert Bernays (1902-1945), the son of a Church of England vicar, was a flagellomanic whose proclivities were, in the manner of English society at the time, both much discussed and kept secret.  He was also an illustration of the way such fetishes transcend other sexual categories.

Gallomania: An excessive or undue enthusiasm for France and all things French; rarely noted in the British Foreign Office.

Graphomania: A morbid desire to write.  Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527; Italian diplomat, philosopher and political advisor of the Renaissance) attributed many of the problems he suffered to his graphomania and he was right, his sufferings because of what he wrote, when it was written and about whom.

Hippomania: An excessive fondness for horses; an affliction which often manifests as the intense and passionate interest in horses developed by some girls who join pony clubs and fall in love.

Hypermania: There’s a definitional dualism to hypermania; it can mean either an extreme example of any mania or, as used by clinicians, specifically (and characterized usually by a mental state with high intensity disorientation and often violent behavior), a severe case of bipolar disorder (the old manic-depression).  The earlier term was hypomania (A manic elation accompanied by quickened perception), one of the earliest (1882) clinical terms from early-modern psychiatry.

Kleptomania: The obsessive desire to steal; in early (1830s) use, the alternative form was cleptomania.  The klepto element was from the Ancient Greek kleptes (thief, a cheater), from kleptein (to steal, act secretly), from the primitive Indo-European klep- (to steal), from the root kel- (to cover, conceal, save) and was cognate with the Latin clepere (to steal, listen secretly to), the Old Prussian au-klipts (hidden), the Old Church Slavonic poklopu (cover, wrapping) and the Gothic hlifan (to steal) & hliftus (thief).  The history of the word kleptomania is of interest also to sociologists in that as early as the mid-nineteenth century, there was controversy about the use by those with the capacity to buy the services of doctors and lawyers were able to minimize or escape the consequences of criminal misbehavior by claiming a psychological motive.  The argument was that the “respectable” classes were afforded the benefit of this defense while the working class were presumed to be inherently criminal and judged accordingly.  The same debate, now also along racial divides, continues today.

Logomania: An obsession with words.  It differs from graphomania (qv) which is an obsession to write; logomania instead is a fascination with words, their meanings and etymologies.

Megalomania: Delusions of greatness; a form of insanity in which the subjects imagine themselves to be great, exalted, or powerful personages.  It was first used in the medical literature in 1866 (from the French mégalomanie) and came to be widely applied to many politicians and potentates the twentieth century.

Micromania:  "A form of mania in which the patient thinks himself, or some part of himself, to be reduced in size", noted first in 1879 and twenty years later used also in reference to insane self-belittling.  In the twentieth century and beyond, micromania was widely used, sometimes humorously, to refer to things as varied as the sudden consumer in interest in small cars to the shrinking size of electronic components.   

Monomania: An insane obsession in regard to a single subject or class of subjects; applied most often in academic, scientific or political matters but can be used about anything where the overriding mental impulses are perverted to a specific delusion or the pursuit of a particular thing.

Morphinomania: A craving for morphine; one of the earliest of the words which noted specific addictions, it dates from 1885 but earlier still there had been morphiomania (1876) and morphinism (1875) from the German Morphiumsucht.  In the medical literature, morphinomaniac & morphiomaniac rapidly became common.

Narcomania: The uncontrollable craving for narcotic drugs and a term which is so nineteenth century, the preferred modern form being variations of "addiction".

Necromania: An obsession to have sexual relations with the bodies of the dead although, perhaps surprisingly, practitioners (those who treat rather than practice the condition) classify many different behaviors which they list under the rubric of necromania, some of the less confronting being a morbid interest in funeral rituals,  morgues, autopsies, and cemeteries.   Those whose hobbies include the study of the architecture of crypts and tombs or the coachwork of funeral hearses might be shocked to find there are psychiatrists who classify them in the same chapters as those who enjoy intimacy with corpses.

Nymphomania: The morbid and uncontrollable sexual desire in women.  Perhaps the most celebrated (and often sought) of the manias, it dates from 1775, in the English translation of Nymphomania, or a Dissertation Concerning the Furor Uterinus (1771) by French doctor Jean Baptiste Louis de Thesacq de Bienville (1726-1813), the construct being the Ancient Greek nymphē (bride, young wife; young lady) + mania.  The actual condition is presumed to have long pre-dated the term.

Onomatomania: One obsessively compelled to respond with a rhyming word to the last word spoken by another (something possible even with orange and silver).  It’s thought to co-exist with other conditions, especially schizophrenia.

Phonomania: An uncontrollable urge to murder; those who suffer this now usually described as the more accessible “homicidal maniac”.  When applied especially to serial killers, the companion condition (just further along the spectrum) is androphonomania which, if properly argued, could be a defense against a charge of mass-murder but counsel would need to be most assiduous in jury selection.

Plutomania: The obsessive pursuit of wealth (and used sometimes in a clinical setting to describe an "imaginary possession of wealth").

Pyromania: A form of insanity marked by a mania for destroying things by fire.  It was used in German in the 1830s and seemed to have captured the imagination of Richard Wagner (1813–1883); the older word for the condition was incendiarism.

Rhinotillexomania: Nose picking. Gross, but a thing which apparently often manifests when young but fades, usually of its own volition or in reaction to the disapprobation of others.

Trichotillomania: The compulsion to pull-out one’s hair.  The companion condition is trichtillophagia which is the compulsive eating of one’s own hair, one of a remarkable number of eating disorders.

Definitional variations in the criteria for mania, DSM-IV & DSM-5

The study and classification of idea of manias had been part of psychiatry almost from its origin as a modern discipline although the wealth of details and fragmentation of nomenclature would come later, the condition first noted “increased busyness”, the manic episodes characterized by Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926; a founding father of psychiatric phenomenology) as those of someone who was “…a stranger to fatigue, his activity goes on day and night; work becomes very easy to him; ideas flow to him.” 

Whatever the advances (and otherwise) in treatment regimes, little has changed in some aspects of the condition.  In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5, 2013), the primary criterion of mania remains “a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood” and “abnormally and persistently increased goal-directed activity or energy” but did extend duration of the event to qualify for a diagnosis.  In the DSM-IV (1994), the criterion for a manic episode only required “a distinct period of abnormally and persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood, lasting at least one week” whereas DSM-5 now requires in addition the presence of “abnormally and persistently increased goal-directed activity or energy”; moreover, these symptoms must not only last at least one week, they must also be “present most of the day, nearly every day.”

The changes certainly affected the practice of the clinician, DSM-5 substantially increasing the complexity associated with the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorder, no longer requiring that clinically significant symptoms which may be present should be ignored.  All those years ago, Kraepelin conceptualized manic-depression as a single illness with a continuum of episodic presentations including admixtures of symptoms which have long since been considered opposing polarity.  DSM-5 thus represents an advance with the possibility of improved treatment outcomes because it enables clinicians to diagnose mood episodes and specify the presence of symptoms inconsistent with pure episodes; a major depressive episode with or without mixed features and manic/hypomanic episodes with or without mixed features.

The revisions in DSM-5 also reflect the efforts of the editors over several decades to simplify diagnostic criteria while developing more precise categories of classification.  In the DSM-IV, both bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder were included in one chapter of mood disorders and a “mixed state” was a subtype of bipolar I mania, a diagnosis of a mixed state requiring that criteria for both a manic episode (at least three or four of seven manic symptoms) and a depressive episode (at least five of nine depressive symptoms) were met for at least one week.  In DSM-5, bipolar disorder and depressive disorders have their own chapters, and “mixed state” was removed and replaced with “manic episode with mixed features” and “major depressive disorder with mixed features.”