January 2011 – DEV – The Umbra Institute – Study Abroad in Italy

Umbra Institute students last night enjoyed more than a hot cup of Joe. Umbra staff member Mauro Renna and history prof Zachary Nowak entertained students who participated in the Coffee Workshop, offered as part of Umbra’s extra-curricular series of food workshops. Renna and Nowak described the convoluted and often odd history of that bean which lets us start our mornings, from its domestication in Ethiopia and export from the Yemenese port of (get this!) Al-Moka, through its arrival in Venice and quick spread through Europe.

History gave way to botany (Coffea arabica vs Coffee robusta, the two main species), processing, and even a little economics (coffee is the #2 most-traded product behind petroleum in dollar value). The workshop ended with a tasting of six different coffees and an explanation of their “cultural context”: Italians rarely drink cappucino after 11am, and coffee in a glass cup is considered more elegant. Renna finished up the night with a demonstration of how to us the “moka,” which in Italian refers to the Italian coffee pot, not a drink with chocolate.

The next workshop is Aperitivo 101, next Tuesday!

Umbra Institute professors Simon Young and Zachary Nowak have been working on an exciting new initiative, a blog about Italian food history.The Umbra Institute has a long history of food studies as a part of its academic program. Professor Simon Young, who teaches “The History and Culture of Food In Italy,” and Umbra history professor Zachary Nowak have created a unique blog that attempts to fill a research gap that students of food culture in Italy often encounter.

Many sources are only available in Italian,

and often then only treated in book-length monographs.

Young and Nowak’s blog, on the other hand, presents a clearinghouse of sources (hard-to-find firsthand accounts of Italian food in the past in English), resources (search engines and other directories), images, and Italian food news, as well as their commentary on all of the above. Young and Nowak are also in the process of making their colleagues in food studies aware of the blog and soliciting guest posts from other scholars. The blog, called Food In Italy (FoodinItaly.org), will be made available not only to Umbra students but also other interested in food history in Italy.

Perugia has about a 3 to 1 ratio of nooks to crannies, Umbra Institute students found out yesterday. Sunday afternoon saw two editions of the “almost internationally-renowned” (as history professor Zachary Nowak describes it) tour of Perugia. Nowak took the students on a sun-drenched traipse around Perugia’s center, recounting anecdotes and stories about monuments and people in Perugia’s past.

The tour, not intended to be a historical tour in the strictest sense but rather an entertaining walk around the city, included answers to such questions as “Where was the aqueduct that brought more debts than water?”, “Why is everyone’s last name?”, and “Why is the bread here so bad?” (in Via dell’Acquedotto, because the orphanage gave that name to foundlings, and because of the Salt War of 1540). Nowak, who will teach a class on the history and culture of food in Italy this summer, will lead the Coffee Workshop next week

Professor William Pettit III was asked to participate in a special on the art of fresco and the Sistine Chapel.

According to its website, in every episode of the History Channel’s program “Museum Secrets,” its troupe “travels to one extraordinary museum: the Louvre, the Vatican Museums, London’s Natural History Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto [and] reveals the stories of one of its irreplaceable treasures: the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the golden mask of King Tut, and many more. Museum Secrets probes familiar legends and assumptions, using cutting edge research and technology to investigate the unknown.”

It’s no surprise that Umbra’s dashing and affable fine arts professor would be a candidate for a television special, but it was his expertise in the technique known as buon fresco that got him involved in this particular project. Buon fresco is a process, perfected in the fifteenth century in Italy, of painting on a wet lime-mortar covered wall. Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raffaelo all used it—and William Pettit teaches it. Pettit was asked to participate in the episode on the Vatican Museums, which discusses Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

The Umbra professor was contacted by the producers because he is one of the few artists and instructors of the fresco painting technique working today. In particular, they were interested in a demonstration of the techniques of cartoon transfer—pouncing and incising—which he also teaches to his students at the Umbra Institute in his ARFP 210: Fresco Painting course. The demonstration involved producing a full sized drawing (cartoon) of Michelangelo’s Adam, and transferring the drawing onto a fresco wall Pettit had prepared. The series was aired on the History Channel on January 6.

The Umbra Institute is now in its third year of offering the class as part of its fine arts program. Want to know more? Click here for a description of Professor Pettit’s class.

Though the first fifteen Full Immersion students arrived last Wednesday, and the rest of the over-hundred strong student body members got to Rome’s Fiumicino airport on Friday, yesterday was the real beginning of their Umbra experience. The day began with housing: students were taken in taxis from the hotel where they had stayed and had their Welcome Dinner to their apartments up in Perugia’s beautiful historic center. Some apartments have frescoes, some have majestic views (often four flights up, but worth the sweat!), but all are our “temporary citizens” homes for the next four months.

In the afternoon, after Italian placement tests, the entire student body gathered in the main hall of Perugia’s thirteenth century town hall, the Sala dei Notari, on the main piazza. There was a greeting from Resident Director Anna Girolimetti and an introduction from Professor Elgin Eckert. The third speaker was Officer Michele Canneschi, who talked to the students on behalf of the Italian police forces about safety and security in Italy. Today, students will get additional information in their break-out orientation meetings with staff members, then ask questions during the Open House.

The Umbra staff and faculty welcome the students of Spring 2011!

Despite a slight case of post-holiday rain, Perugia was ready for her new American students. Today almost a hundred and fifty students had their Orientation in the main room of Perugia’s beautiful fourteenth century town hall. Each of the staff members explained their part in the Umbra team and gave advice and special instructions for all students. In addition, police

inspector Michele Canneschi gave an amusing but very to-the-point speech on safety in Italy, one that no student will soon forget. Tomorrow is an open house and the Italian placement exam and then Monday Intensive Italian lessons begin. Welcome, studenti dell’Umbra Institute, and all the best for this semester’s adventure!