Modern Italy from Napoleon to Hitler

The field trip to Anzio and Piana delle Orme allows students to visualize and feel the impact of Fascism and the Second World War on Italy, particularly on the Rome and Latium area. Museo Storico di Piana delle Orme is a large, unique open-air museum where students can explore exhibitions and dioramas featuring artifacts - including fully restored and even functioning military vehicles - related to the major events that marked the history of Rome and Latium in the twentieth century, such as the reclamations of the Pontine Marches and the Allied campaign in Italy.

In Anzio, students can continue their journey through Italian and world history by exploring the BeachHead Museum. This museum features additional materials related to the impact of World War II in Italy, such as uniforms, propaganda posters, original newspaper pages, video footage, and veterans’ personal accounts of the 1944 Anzio landings and the liberation of Rome.

From Constantine to Mohammed. Art and Architecture from the 4th to the 8th century A.D.

The excursion intends to reconstruct the art-historical and socio-cultural context of the upper Adriatic area from the age of the soldier emperors to the byzantine conquest (3rd-6th cent. AD); to learn about the early-Christian art and architecture of this region that embraced both shores of the northern Adriatic sea and to define its place within the general artistic context of the late-antique and early-byzantine art and architecture of the 4th-6th cent. AD; to understand the impact of imperial building activity on the urban development of Ravenna, being a capital and ecclesiastical centre of the Western Roman Empire during the late-antique and early-byzantine period; to see better the links between the architecture and the decorative parts of the building (floor- and wall decoration; architectural sculpture; furniture; etc.); to delineate the influence of the East in general and of Constantinople in particular upon the development of art and architecture in the West; to understand the importance of the church architecture in the region within the general development of architecture on the Italian peninsula.

Hand Papermaking and Printmaking

This overnight excursion, for students of Papermaking and Intaglio printmaking, focuses on an immersive experience of hand papermaking within the historic city of Fabriano; longtime center of the papermaking trade in Italy and on-going producer of world class fine art and technical papers. Students will learn about the history and contemporary practice of papermaking through site visits to the Museo Istocarta, with its world class collection of watermarks, the Museo della Carta e Filligrana, which holds an unrivaled collection of antique papermaking machinery and tools, as well as the Museo della Stampa, where an impressive array of antique printing presses convey the historical arc of the evolution of printing. The excursion is capped off with a hands on workshop in the laboratory of master papermaker Lorenzo Santoni, in which students learn the fundamentals of paper making and produce their very own collection of hand-formed fine art papers.

Topics in Art History: Raphael 500

In 2020 Rome will mark the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael – extraordinary draftsman, painter and architect – whose ideals of beauty and design have had an enduring influence on our own time. This course offers a direct access to the history that shaped Europe and unparalleled study of the artist through what inspired him, ranging from Classical Antiquity to the Renaissance: the age of Donatello, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Weekly class lectures and on-site visits examine his work at first hand, and an excursion to Florence (February 21) enhances our knowledge and appreciation of this creative genius.

Topics in 20th Century Art: The Art of Fascism in Rome

In the 1930s, Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini undertook a massive building project in the Pontine Marshes south of Rome, giving the area rich farmland, a new worker population and towns designed by famous architects in the modern Rationalist style. To this day, the towns visually demonstrate the ideology and propaganda of the former Fascist regime. We visit the coastal town of Sabaudia, now a summer resort, and Latina, a provincial capital, to explore the political aesthetics of signature buildings of the Fascist regime, a museum commemorating Diulio Cambellotti, an artist devoted to the beauty of the rustic landscape, and the reclaimed and now picturesque coastal landscape of a region first built under Italy’s 20th century dictatorship.

Special Topics in Design: Italian Food, Design and Sustainability

As agro-tourists we spend a weekend at a farm in Lazio, exploring traditional regional approaches to farming and food products such as wine, oil and cheese. Experiencing Italian sustainable agricultural practices in the field illustrates the basis for the contemporary food/design climate in Italy. Pasta and cheese making lessons are included.

Contemporary Politics in Europe / Special Topics: Immigration, Race and Identity in Contemporary Italy

The class excursion to Lisbon is conceived within two courses of Political Science, Contemporary Politics in Europe and Migration Politics, both with a strong European dimension. Along those lines, students will visit to the “Istituto Europeu” within the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, where they will meet Portuguese Professors and Researchers experts in the role of Portugal within the EU, and the particularities of Portugal featuring unique leftist policies against a general right wing climate in Europe.

The excursion includes the visit to the CNAIM center in Lisbon. This office has a very innovative and different approach to deal with the arrival and integration of immigrants. The center is multi-faceted and provide for any sort of need and request.

Last the students will join a peculiar tour – named “Postcolonial Lisbon” – led by a local psychologist: the tour showcased some interesting architecture and somehow maintains a kind of thematic coherence with courses’ framework of race, identity and migration, along with the political and social development of this EU Member State.

Design Studio in Rome

Emphasis on understanding problems of today’s design in historical urban context. The relation between old and new is examined in projects of architectural elements and small public buildings located in the historical center of Rome. Themes are chosen for their aptness to demonstrate the basic problems produced by the context of the old city, rather than for their architectural complexity. Main goals of the course are to orient students progressively into a partial synthesis of the huge visual material of study that a city like Rome offers, and to promote research on today’s attitude towards historical heritage of forms in the city, as they are the roots of our individual and social cultural identities.

Topics in Ancient Art: Museum History and Theory in Rome / Special Topics:Museum History and Theory in Rome

Renowned for fashion, design and industry, Milan is also home to some of Italy’s most exciting, innovative and fascinating museums.  Looked at together, the museums provide a glimpse into the cultural history of the city and some of the best museological methods in Italy. We will visit the Pinacoteca di Brera, Museo del Novecento, Fondazione Prada, Triennale di Milano and others to look at a range of collections, spanning the Renaissance to the contemporary, formed in different historical periods.

Engineering Dynamics / Mechanics of Solids

In this excursion the class takes part in an exciting 36 hours trip to the so called “Motor Valley”, attending several workshops organised within MUNER facilities (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw6MxGaF49s&t=53s). The first day a workshop on “Structural Design & Optimisation”, hosted by Modena University, provides some background to learn more about the Manufacturing processes shown during the laboratories visit. The second day a Ferrari Museum guided tour, following the “Formula team” workshop and the amazing hands-on activity “pit-stop experience”, takes place in the morning. In the afternoon, before heading back to Rome, the group attends a last workshop held by Dallara “Structural Analyst specialists”, within the wonderful Dallara Academy. For the night the group stays in Modena, visits the Modena Cathedral (an UNESCO World Heritage Site) and enjoys a typical dinner from the region.

Wonders of Rome: Art & Culture of the Baroque Era

In this excursion the class will discover the secrets, surprises and treasures of baroque Naples. The itinerary includes viewing Caravaggio’s paintings, and visiting the Cathedral, the Certosa di San Martino, the Capodimonte Museum and churches in Spaccanapoli. In addition, students find out about how to do research in historical archives, and get a taste of the Neapolitan cuisine and culture.

Special Topics: Human Rights Now

The excursion to the juvenile justice detention center in Nisida, Naples, is an integral part of the Human Rights course, aimed at fostering a first-hand understanding of the respect for dignity and human rights of convicted minors.
Students interact with young detainees and are able to discuss how a strategy of social reintegration is implemented through vocational art workshops and skill-gaining, to ensure the re-entry into society of the juveniles is efficient and productive, and above all that it is a real alternative to their previous path.

Rome Sketchbook

The ancient port city of Ostia Antica, a twenty minute train ride from the Pyramid Metro Station and a few kilometers from the sea in Rome, is the perfect location for an all-day joint drawing excursion for both our Rome Sketchbook classes. Inspiration for drawing is everywhere: from the black and white mosaics in the Baths of Neptune, to the ruins of the numerous maritime offices; from the Theater and the shops at the House of Diana, to the faded frescoes clinging to terracotta walls against an exquisite backdrop of deep green Mediterranean pines. It is a wonderful opportunity to meet the other participants, exchange feedback, and learn about history, while improving one’s drawing skills.

Selected Topic: Italian Mafia

An integral part of the Italian Mafia course is a weekend excursion to Palermo, in Sicily, famous not only for the historic presence of Mafia, but also because it has one of the richest histories of any European city. Founded by the Phoenicians, this beautiful port town has attracted a vast array of invaders, including the Arabs, all of whom left deep marks in the urban fabric. Mafia seized control of local politics in the period following the Second World War, profoundly disrupting the urban environment. Fortunately, anti-Mafia movements starting in the 1980s have been broadly successful in reversing this trend. Today Palermo is a lively city with a rich cultural life. The excursion leads the students through this extraordinary history, with special attention to the implications of modern criminality. In this connection the group meets anti-Mafia activists who are engaged in promoting a culture of legality. Sicilian Mafia has its roots in the rural landscape south of Palermo, in the area approaching Corleone. The excursion includes a day trip to the south through the Belice Valley, the birthplace of Mafia, and today home to vibrant anti-Mafia activities, including farming enterprises.

Ancient Roman Historians / Roman History

The purpose of the academic excursion to archaeological sites like Paestum, Pompei, Sperlonga and Terracina is to make the students aware of the complexity of the ancient cultures in southern Italy. The excursion will focus on the contacts between native populations like the Samnites with the Greeks and Romans. It will talk about art and architecture in the public and private sphere, the use of art and architecture as a tool of propaganda, the pursuit of intellectual satisfaction by the elite of Rome and the way ordinary people lived during the Roman age.

Cultural Heritage Preservation

The class spend the day with award-winning conservation experts Roberto Nardi and Andreina Costanzi Cobau and their classes at Centro di Conservazione (CCA), a world-renowned center for conservation training in the maintenance and protection of monuments, archaeological sites, mural paintings and mosaics. Located in the restored 13th century Franciscan convent of San Nicola, 80 km (50 miles) north of Rome in the spectacular setting of the green Sabine Hills, students see first-hand how field projects are managed and professional training programs and laboratory activities carried out under the discipline of world heritage preservation.

Rome Sketchbook

Tarquinia, an ancient Etruscan town dating back to the 9 th B.C., provides evocative visual inspiration for our Rome Sketchbook students. They spend the day sketching at the underground necropolis and from artifacts at the Museum of the Palazzo Vitelleschi. The students practice their perspective skills gazing at the 32 medieval towers that rise up like long fingers pointing to the sky. Romanesque church façades set against a backdrop of rolling hills challenge both the beginner and the advanced Fine Art student. The classes build up their fluency by applying line, tone and gesture to stone sculptures of embracing couples, red and black sinewy figures circling ceramic vases, terracotta coffins and magnificent equestrian statues. A final, group review is an opportunity to get feedback from both students and instructors in other sketchbook classes.

History of Art in Rome

This excursion takes students to two United Nations World Heretige sites right in the shadow of Rome, at ancient and medieval Tivoli: Hadrian’s Villa and the Villa d’Este. The first thing students confront on the bus ride to Tivoli is the intimate relationship, since antiquity, between Rome and la campagna romana (Roman countryside), in supplying the capital with agricultural products, wine, olive oil and building materials, and in providing the Roman elites with the places of their summer residences. The Tiburtine mountains above Tivoli, moreover, furnished the water sources of eight of the eleven ancient Roman aqueducts. With its array of ruins from some 30 interconnected buildings, Hadrian’s Villa, built in the second century CE, was the greatest country estate of an ancient Roman Emperor. In the morning students, therefore, learn about the idea and design principles of the ancient Roman villa. Particular attention is given to the landscape setting, as well as the role that the arts, opulent imported stones and naturalistic effects, played in creating for the imperial court and its guests a microcosm of the civilization that was the Roman Empire at its maximum splendor. After a break for lunch in the village of Tivoli, we visit the Villa d’Este. Built for the Roman Catholic cardinal, Ippolito d’Este, according to the designs of the Neapolitan architect Pirro Ligorio beginning in ca. 1560, Villa d’Este was the greatest of sixteenth-century Renaissance giardini italiani (Italian garden) estates. Students thus learn about the frescoes executed by a team of leading mannerist painters in the villa proper, then experience the dreamlike quality of the lower garden’s dazzling display of axial paths, fountains, grottoes, pools and artworks. Hadrian’s Villa as both the ideal model for, particularly in regards to the ubiquitous and dramatic uses of water, as well as a supplier of much precious artifacts to the Villa d’Este is further contextualized.

Modern Italy from Napoleon to Hitler

Turin is a very lively cultural center as well as one of Italy’s most important economic hubs. The city played a crucial role in the process of Italian unification – the Risorgimento – and offers unique learning opportunities for students of modern Italian history. The Turin field trip features visits to the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento, the Musei Reali, and the Museo Diffuso della Resistenza. The trip also includes a tour of the Mole Antonelliana, where students can explore a vast, interactive museum of cinema and enjoy a breathtaking panoramic view of Turin and its surroundings.

Galleries and Studios of Rome/Advanced Painting: Rome/Advanced Drawing: Rome

As part of the Advanced Painting and Advanced Drawing courses, students and professors travel to Venice to visit the Venice Biennale and other contemporary art spaces like Punta della Dogana and Palazzo Grassi, and modern collections like the Peggy Gugghenheim.

Venetian painting is known for its color, but this is not just due to the particular quality of light in the city. It has as much to do with the status of Venice as an independent Republic with a free press, industry, and trade.

We will visit the Academia to see how oil painting flourished under the Venetian Republic through trade of pigments, technologies of shipbuilding and glass, and its international atmosphere. So while the goal is understand how paintings work, it is also to see how they work on a continuum specific to Venice, and how the past and the present relate in a climate of multicultural exchange.