Month: December 2010

Umbra students hailing from St. Bonaventure University, the Center for International Studies, the University of Massachusetts, the University of Scranton, the University of Richmond, and the University of Roanoke were all invited for a daytrip to Assisi this past Sunday. Local tour guide Marco Bellanca led an especially detailed walk around Assisi, and didhis best to convince us that behind the heavy fog there really are spectacular views out across the valley. Students learned about the importance of the original frescoes in the Basilica of St. Clare to Renaissance art history, and crossed into the breathtaking sanctuary at the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi. After everyone had a chance to pick up souveniers for the nonne a casa — grandmothers back at home — as Marco had suggested, students left the center of Assisi and took a short ride down into the valley to the Agriturismo La Carfagna for lunch.Despite our late arrival, the family was ready with a full course meal Umbrian meal. All returned back to Perugia that afternoon with full stomachs and ready for a long nap before elective classes began Monday morning.

Two Umbra students presented their part of a local museum’s exhibit on Italian unification.

This year is the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Italy as a national state. History here, as everywhere, is always a battleground, and the anniversary of the unification is no exception as battles for the meaning of the Italian state—was it for the better or not—rage.

Last Friday one of the Umbra Institute’s community partners, the Palazzo Sorbello House Museum, had the grand opening of its exhibit Dal Risorgimento all’Unità d’Italia. Documents and Images from the collections of the Palazzo Sorbello dedicated to the questions of the unification movement, known in Italy as the Risorgimento, and its local ramifications: the liberation of Perugia from the dominion of the Pope.

Two Umbra students, Alex Hanken and Elise Fitzgerald, were present and took part in the ceremony. The two students had, with professor Antonella Valoroso, curated a section of the exhibit, contributing both background research on the American involvement in the Risorgimento and a thorough archival search which resulted in an unregistered find, a copy of the Italian classic I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) signed by the translator. The Umbra-portion of the exhibit was completed as a service learning project in the Honors course “Constructing a National Identity. History, Culture, Art and Society in 19th Century Italy”.

In the photo: Alex Hanken, Prof. Antonella Valoroso, Elise Fitzgerald, and (in the back) Prof. Ruggero Ranieri.

This week students attended the last meeting of the semester for the UNICEF Pigotte doll project marking the occasion, along with other local volunteers, by celebrating with food and drinks.  About a dozen students spent a few hours a week sewing ragdolls for the fundraising project this semester.

The dolls they’ve sewn by hand will be put up for adoption at two locations, first at the Christmas market “Mercato delle Strenne” at the Rocca Paolina this Saturday, December 4th and again December 6th – 12th at a local supermarket just outside the city center.  Proceeds from each doll go to funding a vaccine kit for children in developing countries.  Some Umbra students couldn’t resist and adopted their own Pigotta, a perfect souvenir of how they spent their time in Perugia.