Program Description

The Summer Honors Program in Florence, Italy is co-sponsored by the UW-Madison and the University of Michigan. This four-week summer program offers Letters and Science Honors Program students a rigorous academic curriculum focusing on the intersection of life and culture in Italy. This program is ideal for Honors students who would like to engage with Italian culture while earning honors credit.

The Florence Honors Program is housed in the Villa Corsi-Salviati in Sesto Fiorentino, a town located six Roman miles from the center of Florence. The villa’s history, the history of its owners, and the history of Florence have been inextricably linked from the sixteenth century to the present. The plan and decoration of the villa, with its high frescoed ceilings, interior courtyards, and statuary, are largely Baroque. Elaborate formal gardens, restored in the last century, appear much as they did three hundred years ago.

Students live, eat, and attend classes in the villa, which has been extensively renovated for the program. In addition to faculty and student living space, the villa has a large lecture hall, seminar rooms, a library, a computer lab, and study areas. The former limonaia, where potted lemon trees were once stored over the winter, serves now as the dining hall.

Academics

In Florence, students will enroll in two courses taught by two faculty members, one from each of the home campuses. Specifically designed for honors students, the program will begin with a two-credit course offered during the spring semester prior to the experience in Florence; this course prepares participating students for the academic experience through a series of readings, discussions, and lectures. The courses will be taught in English. The summer 2009 course descriptions will be available during the fall 2008 semester; contact the IAP Study Abroad Resource Room for this information (peeradvisor@bascom.wisc.edu).

Participants earn six UW-Madison honors credits in L&S Interdisciplinary 185, two credits for the spring semester course at UW-Madison and four credits for the summer courses in Florence. Students receive one grade for all six credits at the completion of the summer program.

Housing

The Florence program is unusual in that it is, in essence, a living-and-learning community, with students and faculty all living at the Villa Corsi-Salviati. Student rooms are mostly doubles and triples, with a few singles and quads. Meals are taken in the limonaia and are included in the program fee.

In addition to volleyball and tennis courts, the villa has a recreation room with TV, novels, travel guides, board games, and more. Nearby, one can find parks for walking, jogging, or cycling while enjoying panoramic views of Sesto and Florence.

Excursions and Activities

The Summer Honors Program seeks to integrate as thoroughly as possible both the many opportunities for study that the Tuscan location provides and the varied approaches to intellectual inquiry that characterize the humanities and social sciences. In addition to the courses, the program provides a series of art historical lectures and site visits under the direction of Josephine Rogers Mariotti, an art historian and resident of Florence who has taught for the Florence Academic Year program for many years. Day-long excursions are also planned to several important sites pertinent to the subject of the courses including Rome. Past summers have also included optional day trips to Cinque Terre and Venice.