All students take an introductory interdisciplinary course in the cultural history of the early Italian Renaissance (OR214). Students then select three of six courses offered in the visual arts, creative writing, history and/or literature. In addition, students with no background in the Italian language will be expected to take a 2-credit tutorial-based course in Beginning Italian (OR101).
Courses typically follow the pattern of 3-hour class sessions from Monday through Thursday, with the three-day weekend available for program excursions and personal travel. (Program costs include, at a minimum, excursions to Florence, Rome, Siena, Arezzo, and Assisi. Other excursions are arranged in relation to the needs of particular courses.)
Courses are taught by members of the arts and humanities faculty from Gordon College and other Christian liberal arts colleges, and by professional artists selected for the relevance of their own art to the guiding themes of the program. The faculty enjoy close daily contact with the students.
CALENDAR
Spring 2010
Arrival: Saturday, February 20
1st month class: Monday, February 22–Thursday, March 18
2nd month classes: Monday, March 22–Thursday, April 15
3rd month classes: Monday, April 19–Thursday, May 13
4th month classes: Monday, May 17–Thursday, June 10
Departure: Sunday, June 13
Fall 2010
Arrival: Saturday, September 4
1st month class: September 6–September 30
2nd month classes: October 4–October 28
3rd month classes: November 1–November 25
4th month classes: November 29–December 21
Departure: December 22?
Spring 2011
Arrival: Saturday, February 26
1st month class: February 28–March 24
2nd month classes: March 28–April 21
3rd month classes: April 25–May 19
4th month classes: May 23–June 18
Departure: June 19
ORV 214: Renaissance Studies in Italy (John Skillen)
Humanities courses [offered sequentially during 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months]:
ORV 376: Introduction to Medieval Monasticism (Liesl Smith)
ORV 350: Creative Writing (Paul Mariani)
HIS 371: Iconography & Spirituality in medieval Italy (Jennifer Hevelone-Harper)
Visual Arts courses [offered sequentially during 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months]:
ORV 372: Drawing (Matthew Doll)
ORV 325: Sculpture (Peggy Parker)
ORV 372: Painting (Bruce Herman)
ORV 214 Renaissance Studies in Italy
Instructor: John Skillen
The interdisciplinary course that provides a framework for the Orvieto program takes as historical point of departure the conditions of community life that promoted the rich production of religious and civic art in Italy during the Renaissance era. Students are invited to compare these earlier conditions with those of the past century in order to imagine how the cultural arts may be fostered by communities of faith in our own epoch.
ORV101: Italian Language Studies
Because culture and language are inextricably linked, a 2-credit course in Beginning Italian language will be taught concurrently with Professor Skillen’s course in the cultural arts, and integrated with the subject matter, although its central purpose is to assist the students’ full participation in life of the Orvieto community. (All students are expected to enroll in this course; students with previous formal Italian language study should discuss their situation with the director.)
ORV 372: Special Topics in Studio Art: Drawing
Instructor: Matt Doll
Through intense in-studio drawing sessions that involve dynamic spatial constructions, still-life, the figure and the landscape, this course students emphasizes drawing as a way to engage, map and describe the details that are essential to any environment, but specific to the site of Orvieto. This dialogue with the city or urban context is intended to show how the inner life of notation, description and recognition can be intimately related to the outer world of making.
ORV 325: Sculpture
Instructor: Peggy Parker
A Sculpture for a Renaissance Noblewoman: Exploring the Relationship between Artist and Patron. Your class has been honored to receive a sculpture commission from Vittoria Colonna, a titled, learned, and pious woman who is also Michelangelo’s spiritual advisor. Each of you will work with your patron (in actuality, your instructor) to create a figure in plaster to her specifications. No previous art experience is necessary: the course will take you through a quick apprenticeship. The first week you will learn the basics of plaster and working with the figure, while you enter into initial discussions with your patron. The second week, after agreeing on a contract, you will create small studies to present to your patron for comment and approval. The third and fourth week you will construct a larger figure, working with your patron on final decisions about patina, base construction, and installation. At the end of the course each of you will present your work to your patron, who will preside at the dedication.
ORV 372: Painting Studio at Orvieto: Narrative Painting
Instructor: Bruce Herman
This course in the studio practice of narrative painting will give historical and theoretical attention to the conventions of narrative painting in the Renaissance, the widespread suspicion of narrative in the era of modernism, and the problems and challenges facing painters of narrative in a ‘postmodern’ cultural context.
ORV 376: Special Topics: Introduction to Medieval Monasticism
Instructor: Liesl Smith
This course will be an introduction to the literature and history of monasticism, one of the most influential modes of spiritual life and intellectual thought in the Middle Ages. Beginning with a brief look at the roots of monasticism in the Egyptian desert, the course will focus particularly upon the Italian contribution to the Western tradition made by men like Benedict of Norcia, Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, and women like Benedict's sister Scolastica, Claire of Assisi. After careful attention to the writings both by and about these architects of spiritual and intellectual thought and models of medieval monasticism, the course will turn to our contemporary context to address the New Monasticism and examine why the medieval monastic life and disciplines are once again so "current".
ORV 350: Literature and Ekphrasis
Instructor: Paul Mariani
This course renews a conversation lively in the Renaissance concerning the relation between poetry and the pictorial arts, between word and image. Taking up the classical dictum ut pictura poesis (as pictures work, so does poetry), the new humanists thought of poetry as a “speaking picture.” Interest was reborn in the classical tradition of ekphrasis in which poets were invited to create verbal responses to, or even imitations of, works of visual art. In reverse, artists created visual representations of verbal artworks or drew from verbal descriptions of lost artworks of the past. Both directions are embodied in the frescoes of Luca Signorelli in Orvieto’s cathedral: the poet Dante ekphrastically describes the artwork of God on the cornices of Purgatory, and Signorelli paints the scenes poetically described by Dante.
HIS 371: Iconography and Spirituality in late antique and medieval Italy
Instructor: Jennifer Hevelone-Harper
This course explores the experience of lay Christians, clergy, and monastics in Italy during the course of the middle ages. From the earliest Christian images in the catacombs in late antiquity and the development of the papacy in the early middle ages to the flourishing of the Franciscans in the high middle ages and the transfer of papal residence to Avignon in the fourteenth century, we will examine the interface of the visual arts, Christian doctrine, spirituality, monasticism, and politics.
FALL 2010
Note: we anticipate offering an intensive 4-credit course in Beginning Italian in August as an independent International Seminar, or as an optional course taken by Orvieto semester students able to come early to Italy.DanteVisual Arts courses [offered sequentially during 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months]:
Education in Classical, Medieval & Renaissance Europe
Creative Writing: Poetry
DrawingORV 101: Italian Language Studies
Oil Painting
Sculptural Ceramics
Spring 2011
Cultural History of the Renaissance [1st month, taken by all students]Introduction to Medieval MonasticismVisual Arts courses [offered sequentially during 2nd, 3rd, and 4th months]:
Creative Writing: Poetry
Shakespeare in Italy
DrawingORV 241 Cultural History of the Renaissance
Oil Painting
Text & Image