CLASS EXCURSIONS

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.

Topics in Ancient Art: Museum History and Theory in Rome

This course focuses on the history of museums in Rome, arguably the birthplace of the modern art museum. In Rome, the idea of turning private collections into what are today public museums was formulated as early as the 15th century; the Capitoline Museums include one of the oldest civic collections in Europe. The great 18th-century palace collections and exhibition spaces of the Villa Borghese and Doria Pamphili Gallery are among the most influential in the world. Rome’s cultural landscape, itself a kind of public museum, was a locus for the 18th-century Grand Tour. With weekly visits to these sites and other ancient Roman ruins, monuments, churches, palaces and villas, illuminated by selected readings and class discussion, students consider the evolution of museums over time and how certain collections, galleries and exhibition spaces have contributed to the image and ideology of Rome as the seat of Western civilization.

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.

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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 include

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.

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.

MILAN – Art History 2622 / Painting, Drawing and Sculpture 3112 / Painting, Drawing and Sculpture 3412 / Visual Studies 3253

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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.

Selected Topic: Italian MafiaAn 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 HistoryThis survey of Roman History begins with the foundation of Rome in the 8th century B.C. and ends with the founding of the Christian capital of the Empire at Constantinople. Students will read a narrative history, a study of various aspects of Roman society and culture, and a selection of the ancient sources upon which our knowledge is based. Archaeological material will be used to augment the literary sources. The influence of Rome on later Western Civilization in government and law will be studied as well as its role in determining the foundation of Christianity.In Rome, the historical reality is analyzed as broadly as possible, in its political, economic, cultural and social aspects. Attention is paid to the literary and archaeological evidence; ancient texts are read and Roman sites are visited. Special topics include the origins of Rome between fact and fiction; the Hellenization of Roman society; literature and the age of Augustus; and the “end” of the Roman Empire.

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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.

Rome Sketchbook

Multiple sections of the Rome Sketchbook class travel together for an all-day drawing marathon to the medieval hill town of Tuscania, near Viterbo. The morning session begins outside the town’s fortified walls at the churches of San Pietro and Santa Maria Maggiore, used in the films “Romeo and Juliet” by Zeffirelli and “Uccellacci and Uccellini” by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Students sketch from remnants of Etruscan coffins and artifacts, Romanesque stone creatures and frescoed devils munching on some unfortunate sinners in hell. After a regenerating lunch at a local “hosteria,” the group gathers at the Park of Torre Lavello where a vast, rolling landscape inspires panoramas in pencil, charcoal and watercolor. Occurring at the beginning of each semester, this field trip is a wonderful opportunity for the new Temple Rome students to get to know each other and their professors, while exchanging feedback on their artwork in a magnificent setting.

VENICE – Art History 2321

Masters of Renaissance Art

This course will explore the construction of artistic identity and style from the mid-fifteenth century to the early-seventeenth century through visual analyses, readings of contemporary sources (biographies/autobiographies, art treatises, and correspondences), and modern scholarship in an attempt to demystify the “Masters” of the Italian Renaissance.

In Rome, this course provides a survey of Italian painting and sculpture from the thirteenth through the early sixteenth centuries. An analysis of the “revival” of painting beginning in the Proto-Renaissance by Cimabue, Cavallini, Duccio and Giotto is followed by a study of significant artistic inventions in the Early Renaissance by Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello (and others). The course concludes with the inception of the High Renaissance with works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and the Venetian School. The artistic culture in Rome and its relationship to Venice is examined.

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

Museum History and Theory of Rome Goes to Vienna!
The Austrian capital of Vienna is home to some of Europe’s richest royal collections. The Hapsburg Emperors travelled the world for over 400 years in search of magnificent, beautiful and curious objects, vying to create the most sumptuous museums in the world. Early 20th century Vienna also witnessed an explosion of Modernism with the Viennese Secession, where Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and other groundbreaking artists proved ahead of their time. The palaces and modern museums that display these riches are all located in Vienna’s center and provide a wonderful complement to the famous museums students visit in Rome, enriching their understanding of the historic, artistic, and increasingly civic significance of museums throughout Europe.