Inter-disciplinary Travel-Study
Summer Program in Italy
TRAVEL-STUDY: THE HSIA METHOD
At HSIA, our method is comparative. Trips illuminate classes, just as classes help students to connect more deeply with what we see on trips. For example, students compare Robert Browning's poem, Fra Lippo Lippi, with their own view of that painter’s rainbow-colored fresco cycle in Spoleto. Or students sketch the Doric columns in Paestum and decide whether they agree with Vitruvius that these resemble strong men, or feel they imitate the form of trees (or both!). And students use mythology and observation to explain the names of wild flowers (fiori spontanei in Italian) growing in the fields around Humanities Spring; why, for example, a Venus’ mirror is named after that goddess. At HSIA, students learn to have individual, idiosyncratic conversations with great works of literature and of art. We encourage students to keep a sketchbook or journal (or both!) at home and on trips.
FAVORITE TRIPS TO ENCORE AT HSIA 2010
Pompeii, Paestum, Amalfi Coast, Naples: (3-day trip) HSIA goes south! Students tour Pompeii (both the domus and the public buildings), the three extraordinary Greek temples in Paestum, Naples’ archaeological museum and the Amalfi Coast, famous for its pottery, lemon groves, Roman villa, spectacular views and beautiful beaches. Our HSIA base, for the 8th year, is the Sette Bello Hotel in Minori, a small charming city just 4 kilometers up the coast from Amalfi, with pretty beach and a little piazza where students like to get gelato. For students interested in an extra week down south, please see our Archaeology Boot-Camp.
Bevagna: (half-day trip) Mercato delle Gaite (Bevagna’s Medieval Festival). Students listen to medieval folk songs played on early instruments, eat medieval food, learn how brass pots, string, cakes, and silk were made and see impromptu medieval street theater. While we’re in Bevagna, we also visit her Roman baths with their whimsical sea-monster mosaics and charming main square with its early Romanesque churches (one still has the form of an early Roman basilica!).
Castiglione del Lago: (day trip) We have coffee at Lago Trasimeno and visit the battlegrounds of the famous Battle of Lake Trasimene (217b.c.) and discuss Roman strategy and how Hannibal won. Then picnic lunch and swim in the lake! In the afternoon, students climb all the ramparts of Castiglione’s famous hexagonal early Renaissance castle with its magnificent views of the lake and visit the adjoining palace with its Renaissance frescoes inspired by Virgil’s Aeneid.
Perugia: (half-day trip) A lively student town near Assisi with several famous universities, excellent ice-cream, and frescoed cafes. Outings include a climb down a beautiful monumental Etruscan well and visit to Perugino’s frescoed Palazzo del Cambio, an early wall street. Students particularly like listening to jazz in Perugia’s medieval streets and squares.
Assisi: (frequentissimi trips!) Favorites include the peaceful Piazza del Comune (main square) with its lion fountain and torre del popolo, ice cream cafes and loggias, the fairy-tale medieval castle on top of Assisi’s hill, the grass-filled Roman amphitheater, the infiorata, Assisi’s festival of flowers and, as always, the church of St. Francis, bursting with sunlight and its joyful frescoes.
Florence: (day trip) The baptistery doors (gates to Paradise) and the baptistery itself with its sparkling mosaics, the Fra Angelico frescoes, the spectacular green and white duomo, the bridges, the piazzas, Giotto's frescoes in Santa Croce, as much Michelangelo as possible, and a picnic lunch in the Boboli gardens, where we relax and refuel, half way through our day.
At HSIA, our method is comparative. Trips illuminate classes, just as classes help students to connect more deeply with what we see on trips. For example, students compare Robert Browning's poem, Fra Lippo Lippi, with their own view of that painter’s rainbow-colored fresco cycle in Spoleto. Or students sketch the Doric columns in Paestum and decide whether they agree with Vitruvius that these resemble strong men, or feel they imitate the form of trees (or both!). And students use mythology and observation to explain the names of wild flowers (fiori spontanei in Italian) growing in the fields around Humanities Spring; why, for example, a Venus’ mirror is named after that goddess. At HSIA, students learn to have individual, idiosyncratic conversations with great works of literature and of art. We encourage students to keep a sketchbook or journal (or both!) at home and on trips. 
Pompeii, Paestum, Amalfi Coast, Naples: (3-day trip) HSIA goes south! Students tour Pompeii (both the domus and the public buildings), the three extraordinary Greek temples in Paestum, Naples’ archaeological museum and the Amalfi Coast, famous for its pottery, lemon groves, Roman villa, spectacular views and beautiful beaches. Our HSIA base, for the 8th year, is the Sette Bello Hotel in Minori, a small charming city just 4 kilometers up the coast from Amalfi, with pretty beach and a little piazza where students like to get gelato. For students interested in an extra week down south, please see our 
Castiglione del Lago: (day trip) We have coffee at Lago Trasimeno and visit the battlegrounds of the famous Battle of Lake Trasimene (217b.c.) and discuss Roman strategy and how Hannibal won. Then picnic lunch and swim in the lake! In the afternoon, students climb all the ramparts of Castiglione’s famous hexagonal early Renaissance castle with its magnificent views of the lake and visit the adjoining palace with its Renaissance frescoes inspired by Virgil’s Aeneid. 
