The fall 2007 tour is fully subscribed, but plans are being made to offer it again in spring 2008, if there is sufficient interest. For more information, contact Mark Breseman at 920-839-2216 or mark.d.breseman@lawrence.edu.

 

September 4-15, 2007
Five Spectacular Days Each in Florence and Rome

Study leader Dan Taylor, the Hiram A. Jones Professor of Classics, writes: All roads lead to Rome, including the Via Cassia, on which participants in the 2007 Björklunden Seminar in Italy will be traveling next September. We’ll be studying Ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence in person and in situ, spending five days in each glorious city. My wife Donna and I are directing the seminar, and we’re looking forward to sharing our knowledge of and affection for the eternal city and the jewel of the Renaissance and to introducing our “students” to the history and art and cuisine and shopping of both cities.

Our boutique tour of Roma et Florentia is expressly designed with a traditional Björklunden Seminar in mind, for it offers a perfect blend of “classroom” — i.e., group — activities on the one hand and free time on the other for all of you to “do your own thing” (with plenty of recommendations and advice from us).

In Florence, where we’ll go first, we will all visit the Uffizi, one of the world’s greatest art museums (I’ll linger a while with Botticelli in Room #11), head out “under the Tuscan sun” to sample that delicious wine right where it’s produced, and stand in awe in front of Michelangelo’s David.

In Rome we’ll all traipse through the Forum and the Colosseum, travel to Monte Cassino — think St. Benedict and the first monastery in Europe — and Pompeii and have the same timed entrance tickets to visit the Vatican Museums — note the plural! — before enjoying pranzo (the mid-day meal) at a nearby restaurant.

Otherwise, we’ll have time to “do as the [Florentines and] Romans do.” Needless to say, we’ll enjoy both welcome and farewell dinners together as well as a cocktail party-cum-lecture.

Both Rome and Florence offer us history buffs and art aficionados more than enough museums and churches and archaeological sites, not to mention fountains and extraordinary piazzas, to keep us occupied and fascinated. In Rome, the Etruscans are in the Villa Giulia, Bernini’s best in the Borghese, Caravaggio in San Luigi and San Agostino, and I haven’t even mentioned the ancient Romans, who are everywhere. How about the Trevi Fountain or the Circus Maximus? You can enjoy a chocolate tartufo in Piazza Navona before strolling over to the Pantheon or St. Peter’s, or eat Jewish artichokes before climbing the Capitoline to greet Marcus Aurelius on his horse.

In Florence the Piazza della Republica and its immediate environs are Roman in design, but the rest of the city is mediaeval and Renaissance. You can’t miss the narrow streets of the Middle Ages or escape the spirit of the Renaissance, that intoxicant feeling that emanated from nowhere but was felt everywhere (and still is). The Bargello has sculpture, the Pitti Palace more paintings than you can imagine, and the Laurentian Library some of the world’s most important classical manuscripts. Beato Angelico is in San Marco, Masaccio in Santa Maria del Carmine, and everybody who was anybody is buried in Santa Croce (except for Dante — his tomb is a cenotaph). The Duomo with Brunelleschi’s magnificent dome is the heart and soul of Florence, and its hard-to-find museum, which Donna and I love, offers Giotto, Donatello, Michelangelo’s self-portrait in one of his four Pietas, and Ghiberti’s original doors to the Baptistery, the “gates of Paradise.”

By the time the seminar concludes, you’ll all feel right at home in both Florence and Rome. We can’t possibly see everything in ten days, but we can see enough to make us want to return ASAP. I’ll keep the lectures to a minimum, but Donna and I can help you pick and choose what you most want to do.

Delicious dining and superb shopping are hallmarks of any Björklunden sojourn, and they can both be taken to almost sinful levels of pleasure in Italy. Don’t even think of dieting, and don’t even think of not shopping. Whether it’s a pizza or a seven-course gourmet meal, you will love it. Donna and I crave ribollita in Florence, saltimbocca in Rome, and wild game anywhere in Italy. Via Tornabuoni in Florence runs from Ferragamo to Gucci geographically, but for gold and silver you need to shop the Ponte Vecchio before heading for the leather shops around Santa Croce. After shopping on Via Condotti in Rome you can sit on the Spanish Steps and calculate what you spent. On second thought, just soak up the sounds of the fountain and the rays of the sole mite di Roma (soft Roman sunshine). Donna and I have our favorite restaurants and stores in both Florence and Rome, and we’ll make sure you do too by the time we all leave.

Our hotels are charming and ideally located. We’ll have our own private museum in Florence, and in Rome we’ll be staying only steps from where Julius Caesar was assassinated! After dinner and before retiring for the night we can stroll along the banks of the Arno and Tiber! Mark Breseman [Björklunden's director] wanted charm, I wanted location, and we both got what we wanted. We can walk just about everywhere from our hotels, and we will need to walk (although taxis are readily available and inexpensive in both cities). We’ll also want to walk, because much of the appeal of Rome and Florence is to be found on the streets and in the piazzas. You turn a corner in Rome and bump into a mother showing off her bambina in front of a Roman inscription or temple; you cross a piazza in Florence and interrupt a father and son kicking a soccer ball. Both cities are urban museums, but they are also homes to wonderful and joyful human beings.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get back to Italy, where we Taylors have lived and vacationed for about four years total. This is a unique Björklunden Seminar, and I would cordially invite you to join us. The dates are September 4-15, the price is right, space is limited, the links below have all the details. Andiamo! Let’s go!

[Read about Björklunden's first international seminar, Opera in Amsterdam and London, with Dale Duesing ’67, February 2006.]