CALENDAR Fall 2022–Spring 2023
Fall 2022 Semester
August 27–December 17
1st-month class:
August 29–September 22
2nd-month class:
September 26–October 20
3rd-month class:
October 24–November 17
4th-month class:
November 21–December 15
Spring 2023 Semester
February 25–June 17
1st-month class:
February 27–March 23
2nd-month class:
March 26–April 20
3rd-month class:
April 24–May 18
4th-month class:
May 22–June 15
The curriculum in Orvieto hinges upon the dialogue between the verbal and the visual. For millennia, words and images have been the primary means of narrative and representation. Italy remains an origin point for this history as a crossroads of the arts and humanities. For this reason, our location in Orvieto is vital, providing the opportunity to study design, poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, and history from original sources in their original context. By being in this place, we hope to inspire interdisciplinary collaboration and cultivate a model of learning that is place-specific.
During the first month, all students take Disegno, the course that orients us to the city by challenging us to look at, listen to, draw and write about Orvieto. Through these first encounters, the class prepares students to engage deeply with their surroundings and lays the foundation for a semester of intentionality.
Following Disegno, students are free to choose one studio art or humanities course each month. These courses are taught by Gordon College faculty, faculty from associated colleges and universities, and professional artists and writers. Working closely with teachers in a workshop setting provides unparalleled opportunities for our students. This echoes the relationships used throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance of forming sustained conversation and development of the work. This course model between teachers and students has been a gift to everyone involved since the beginning of the program.
Though the curriculum is based in the arts and humanities, Gordon in Orvieto is open to all majors. Talk to your academic advisor to determine if this program fulfills your respective degree requirements.
Read about Program Director Matt Doll ➔
"I loved that there was no such thing as working solely in the studio. The whole program is built around the idea of enjoying the wonderful resource of Italy. There's no way you're going to stay inside. The best place to draw is out in the city, drawing the architecture that you see, the church facades, the people—taking all you can from the life that's around you."
— Emily Friesen, Gordon in Orvieto
FALL 2022 CURRICULUM
Throughout the semester, students without previous Italian language study will take ORV101: Italian Language Studies, a course in conversational Italian with the central purpose of assisting students' full participation in the life of the Orvieto community. [2 credits]
1st Month All students take:
ORV270: Disegno in Orvieto (Instructor: Matthew Doll) This drawing-based course is taken during the first month of the semester by all students, art majors and non-art majors together. The course prepares each student to engage deeply with his or her surroundings, giving the visual language of description a lead role in forming our relationship to the landscape and townscape. [4 credits]
2nd Month Students choose between:
ORV322: Text and Image (Instructor: Jim Zingarelli) Inspired by different topographical points within the city and from the surrounding countryside, we will explore narratives that emerge from a layered observation of Orvieto. Working in paint and drawing inspiration from both predella altarpiece paintings and contemporary installation practices, each student will create a multipart project that offers a personal vision through attentive observations of the city and local landscape. [4 credits]
ORV375: (Special Topics in Literature and Creative Writing) Reading Virgil in Umbria: Furrow, Verse, Civilization, Grapes, and Honey (Instructor: Christine Perrin) The word versus (Latin) means a line, a row, and the metaphor is of plowing—of turning from one line to another (vertere) as a plowman does. The landscape is one of the reasons that we are drawn to this beautiful country, and when you drive through it on your way to a monastery or a vineyard to help with the harvest you see such lines and turns. Virgil writes about cultivating the land and bees in his Georgics, and in the Aeneid he turns his lines to telling the origin story of Rome. He is revising Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey at the same time that he seeks to distinguish his own epic and national identity. Much later, Dante takes Virgil as his guide through hell and purgatory where his will is purified. We will read this story and think about its being part of a line of stories having the great and long conversation with each other through the centuries. But we will also think about the land in which we are learning to dwell for a time, the labor of storytelling in civilization making, and the work of bees. We will read the map of his journey, harvest grapes, see Bernini’s sculpture of Aeneas, while absorbing Rome’s sense of itself as an empire as we walk its streets and statuary. [4 credits]
3rd Month Students choose between:
ORV376: (Special Topics in Art) Design Studio at Orvieto: Form, Function and Spatial Significance (Instructor: Tim Miller) With a focus on furniture and objects, we will investigate the relationship between concept, design, material and creation. Students will be introduced to the process of designing and building furniture and objects through a range of exercises aimed at developing technical skills, gaining confidence working in three dimensions, and seeing an idea through to an actualized form. Through the observation and study of local architecture, traditions, materials and processes, we will focus on designing work that honors the spaces we inhabit, with an added emphasis on our shared life in the convent. [4 credits]
ORV330: Women, Religion, and Reform (Instructor: Agnes Howard) The Renaissance and Reformation not only brought changes in art, science and belief, but prompted extraordinary writings by distinguished women in Italy. Women contributed literature, argument and devotional works. Religious institutions, particularly convents, fostered this work. Convents were set apart from the world but integral to the life of the community. In this period, Catholics opened new venues for women to teach and serve, while Protestants offered different paths for faith and learning. This course will examine texts and institutions from the period, situating them within the religious communities in Orvieto. [4 credits]
4th Month Students choose between:
ORV371: Painting Studio at Orvieto (Instructor: Bruce Herman) Advanced studio in methods and materials of oil or tempera painting with historical attention to narrative tradition of Renaissance painting. [4 credits]
ORV350: Poetry and Ekphrasis (Instructor: TBA) Explores the relation between poetry and pictorial arts in classical Renaissance tradition of ekphrasis (poetry about art or visual art based on poems). Students both study tradition and practice craft of ekphrasis. [4 credits]
SPRING 2023 CURRICULUM
Throughout the semester, students without previous Italian language study will take ORV101: Italian Language Studies, a course in conversational Italian with the central purpose of assisting students' full participation in the life of the Orvieto community. [2 credits]
1st Month All students take:
ORV270: Disegno in Orvieto (Instructor: Matthew Doll) This drawing-based course is taken during the first month of the semester by all students, art majors and non-art majors together. The course prepares each student to engage deeply with his or her surroundings, giving the visual language of description a lead role in forming our relationship to the landscape and townscape. [4 credits]
2nd Month Students choose between:
ORV 322: Text and Image (Instructor: Jim Zingarelli) Inspired by different topographical points within the city and from the surrounding countryside, we will explore narratives that emerge from a layered observation of Orvieto. Working in paint and drawing inspiration from both predella altarpiece paintings and contemporary installation practices, each student will create a multipart project that offers a personal vision through attentive observations of the city and local landscape. [4 credits]
ORV 345: Paul’s Letter to the Romans in its First-Century Context (Instructor: Steve Hunt) This course exploits the proximity of Rome for a study of Romans that focuses on the historical, cultural, social and architectural contexts faced by the early Church in the age of the Roman Empire. [4 credits]
3rd Month Students choose between:
ORV 372: Sculpture Studio at Orvieto (Instructor: TBA) Sculpture in context of Italy’s long tradition of stone carving and sculpture in clay, plaster and casting; attention given to mass and space relationships, volume, surface planes, textural variety and narrative organization. [4 credits]
ORV 350: Poetry and Ekphrasis (Instructor: TBA) Explores relation between poetry and pictorial arts in classical Renaissance tradition of ekphrasis (poetry about art or visual art based on poems). Students both study tradition and practice craft of ekphrasis. [4 credits]
4th Month Students choose between:
ORV 371: Painting Studio at Orvieto (Instructor: Cherith Lundin) Advanced studio in methods and materials of oil or tempera painting with historical attention to narrative tradition of Renaissance painting. [4 credits]
ORV 379: Special Topics in History: Jews and Christians in Italy (Instructor: Matt Lundin) Course description coming soon. [4 credits]