News and Blog

As part of an ongoing project, students in PSEU 340: Politics and Economics of the European Union participated in a workshop at Ramus Oleae Centro Immigrazione last Wednesday afternoon. As a local center for immigrants in Perugia, this organization aims to give this population the tools necessary to navigate Italian culture and to understand their rights. Through small group discussions, Umbra students had the unique opportunity to hear and share personal stories.

This project extends throughout the semester, and its goal is to explore the ways in which EU fundamental human rights impact the lives of those who move to the region. Umbra is also developing other collaborations with the center. This semester, several Umbra students are organizing English language classes with the immigrants, creating further bonds and opportunities for mutual understanding.

This week, BSEU 390: Business in Europe: Environment & Practices students took a trip to the local Cantina Goretti to meet their client for this semester’s marketing project. Sara and Giulia Goretti, fourth generation sisters of the Goretti family, gave the students a tour of the cantina and provided them with a tasting of excellent wines from their local vineyards.

However, the highlight of the excursion was when the students sat down in an exquisitely decorated room in the old stone tower to discuss the marketing of the Goretti’s most recent venture: their Winetherapy line. What started as a family hobby of using natural ingredients filled with the antioxidants found in the grapes of their vineyards has taken off as a line that is now sold in the U.S.  The Goretti sisters and the Umbra students will collaborate this semester to improve marketing strategies of the body and shower products to the U.S. market.

Student Ryan Messinger commented on how the visit to the winery encompassed both “old traditions and new prospects” revealed in the juxtaposition of the examples of  “the old tower and the modern wine silos.”

He finds the Winetherapy line an “interesting and exciting idea that has a lot of potential in today’s organic-conscious society.” The class will continue to work with the Goretti family throughout the semester on this project.

On Tuesday night, Umbra held its first choral workshop of the semester! Students were led through the Italian national anthem, “Fratelli d’Italia” (“Brothers of Italy”) by choral instructor, Maestro Sergio Briziarelli.

Maestro Brinziarelli is a professional singer as well as a choral and orchestra conductor. He graduated from the Perugian music school, Conservatorio Morlacchi, and studied post-graduation at the Giuseppe Verdi Music School in both Milan and Viena. He is a music instructor at several schools throughout Umbria, in addition to leading Umbra’s choral workshop.

Students will explore a variety of genres throughout the semester, including pop, opera, renaissance, and rap. To cover such an array of music, each workshop will focus on a different song and time period.

The choral workshops are a great opportunity to have fun, practice Italian pronunciation, and learn a little something about the history of music. Each workshop stands alone so students can come to one or as many as they want.

Ashley Webb is currently interning at Pashmere, a high-end fashion company. We met up with her for coffee at Bar Duomo, where she told us about her love for Perugia, stepping out of her comfort zone, and getting involved with the local community.

 Co-Op at Fashion Company Pashmere

For right now, I’ve started out in charge of social media. I went to the Pitti Immagine Uomo Fair where thousands of people from all over the world, and there are more than a thousand exhibitions of various high-end fashion companies, anything from Nike and Puma sportswear to Pashmere and the more fancy clothing providers. It was also cool that I got to meet Sergio Múñiz there, a well-known actor in Italy.

AT Pitti, I was in charge of taking notes and taking pictures, all of which are going to be edited and then placed on social media for promotional purposes. I’ve come up with a couple of social media campaigns to run on Facebook and Twitter, to make the company more well-known. 

Perugia and Umbra

Perugia is the perfect size and is centrally located. It takes only two hours to get to Florence or 20 minutes to get to Assisi. It’s halfway between Puglia and Milano, so you can get around pretty easily. There’s more opportunity in Perugia to learn Italian and to see Italian culture because it’s not just a big city. You have that small-town community feel here, everybody knows each other. When walking to class I always run into random people that I know.

I knew that Perugia was a sister city with my home university city, Grand Rapids, Michigan, so I applied and was accepted for The Umbra-Perugia Sister City Scholarship (SCS). It allowed me to go abroad and learn a third language, which is greatly beneficial. Umbra is great because you know that when you come here and you are doing your community engagement work for a business class, you aren’t just working to a dead end, your work will actually get followed up on by the businesses you work with. The businesses get really involved and they’re grateful and excited to work with students. Overall, it’s just an amazing experience. I haven’t been able to work with a business like that back home.

 

“Well, the ocean isn’t really always blue, is it?  It’s sometimes blue – but also brown, green, white….”

What began as a low rumbling of murmured acknowledgment in response to this statement quickly erupted into a dissonant chorus, not unlike the colorful tempest that had initiated it.  Disagreement abound in our Aesthetics class at the Accademia di Belle Arti – a passionate, excited disagreement that never really ended, but merely underwent a change of topic from day to day. I loved it.

It turns out, a theoretical class about the philosophy art included a lot of very real debate on topics such as the definition of beauty, the grotesque, and the profound emotional impact of both.  These ideas also found their way into the practical class I was following, Artistic Anatomy, where we practiced drawing the body not only as accurately as possible but also contorting and exaggerating it into different states of idealization and demonization. 

And sometimes we just drew what we wanted, “like you did when you were children,” as my professor would say.

He and my Aesthetics professor were both lively, engaging, and understanding of the language barrier I sometimes experienced.  Throughout each lesson they combined a respect for the past with an excitement for up-and-coming artists and students’ new ideas.  Many of the “contemporary masters” we studied gave presentations in the Accademia’s library and lead live drawing demonstrations that lasted for hours.

Here in Perugia and especially at the Accademia, Italy’s centuries of contribution to the worlds of painting, sculpture, and aesthetic philosophy are constant, palpable sources of inspiration.  I feel incredibly fortunate to have experienced first-hand the pride artists here have for their work.  And I’ll definitely never think as the ocean as just blue again.

– Cat Tartaglia

Read more about the Direct Enrollment program at L’Accademia di Belli Arte here.

Yesterday, the Institute was fortunate enough to host a presentation by Professor Marcello Simonetta, a Renaissance scholar, “Assassin’s Creed” video game consultant, and two-time author. Simonetta is in town to share the ground-breaking discovery behind his latest novel, “The Montefeltro Conspiracy,” a fact-driven tome with an overflowing cast of towering personalities such as Botticelli and the Duke of Urbino.

Incredibly, the research that became “The Montefeltro Conspiracy,” began with Simonetta’s decoding of a letter written by his own ancestor, Cicco Simonetta, secretary and adviser to the Duke of Milan. By cracking this letter five-hundred years after its writing, Simonetta has cast one of the most diabolical conspiracies of the Renaissance in a shocking new light…

To read more, check out “The Montefeltro Conspiracy,” on Amazon.

Balmy temperatures (for January) greeted Umbra’s Spring 2015 group during their arrival on Sunday. After being met by Umbra staff in Rome, students took private buses to Perugia. At Hotel Gio just outside the city center, students received orientation packets that included helpful handouts covering topics from culture shock to Italian customs. After more introductions and their first Italian dinner, students were shuttled to their new apartments on Monday morning.

On Monday afternoon, intermediate and advanced Italian students took written and oral placement exams. At Umbra’s open house, students had ample time to rent cell phones, ask questions, and take guided walking tours of the city center. After working up their appetites, Perugia’s newest residents experienced their first of several free pizza nights courtesy of Umbra. Tuesday (Epiphany, a major holiday here in Italy) consisted of a talk with a charismatic Italian police officer, more exploration of the city, and a community engagement info session during which students learned of the many service-learning opportunities available at Umbra.

Yesterday marked the start of Intensive Italian Week, a special schedule that combines classroom instruction and practical Italian lessons. These classes extend through Saturday, at which point students will prepare to begin their elective courses next week. Benvenuti a Perugia!