Travel Study/Florence

The  Kent State University Art and Culture in Italy Program is a five-week Summer program that offers three credits each in Art History (ARTH 42091/62095 Art Experiences in Italy) and Italian Culture (ITAL 35597 Italian Colloquium). For more information regarding the Italian Colloquium class, please call the Office of Global Education at 330-672-7980.                                                                     

The program is based in Florence, Italy, birthplace of the Renaissance, and home to many of the most important monuments of the period.  Florence is often hailed as the most beautiful city in the world, and students will have the singular opportunity of living and studying in the old historic center, becoming thoroughly acquainted with its monuments and treasures.          

The Art Experiences class provides a thorough grounding in the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque monuments of Florence through direct, on the spot encounters with the painting, sculpture, and architecture found in each neighborhood. No work of art is ever examined through reproduction and the class does not meet in a classroom--everything we discuss is experienced through the original, in the churches, palaces, and museums of the city, so that Florence itself becomes our classroom. The Italian Colloquium dovetails perfectly with the Art History class by giving a cultural/social-political context to the art works encountered.  The importance of literature and philosophy for Italian culture is provided through readings of Dante and Poliziano, as well as recent seminal studies of the development of the Italian city states.  In addition, provocative discussions of some of the major movements of the twentieth century present a sense of the implications for modern Italy of the legacy of the past, giving students a unique lens on contemporary Italian society.