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News and Blog

Everybody knows that Italians love soccer, but this love is at its peak when watching the Italian national team play, especially during tournaments like the World Cup.

Luckily for Umbra students, Perugian residents feel the same way, so during this years UEFA Euro 2012 soccer tournament, all restaurants are putting flatscreen TVs outside underneath their big white umbrellas so that people can both relax outside and scream their heads off as Pirlo chips a perfect ball to Di Natale to put Italy up 1-0 over World Cup champion Spain. Forza Italia!

Students new to Perugia may be curious about the comically large concrete blocks  or the abstract white house that seem to have fallen from the sky onto the center streets of the small city.

These temporary additions are part of Festarch, the fourth annual international architecture festival, which began Thursday morning. This year’s festival runs June 7-10; the theme is “Cities Within the City.”

“Each year, each month, many new cities are born inside the consolidated city,” states a pamphlet from “Abitare,” the architecture publication that produces each year’s festival. It lists examples: “Slums, favelas, townships, but also health, technology, or cultural districts, entire districts settled after big events, new towns, gated communities.”

The goal of Festarch 2012 is to identify formal and political solutions to facilitate the growth of these smaller “cities” while maintaining the flow of the city’s infrastructure. The festival also emphasizes the importance for European cities, particularly in Italy, to incorporate these changes inherent to contemporary life – like the increasing need for large parking lots, airports, and commercial/military areas – into the city without hurting the architecture inherent to their cultures.

Through Sunday afternoon, Festarch is presenting a variety of lectures by internationally acclaimed architects, linguists, city managers, and many other specialists, all proposing solutions to these issues.

For a schedule of the events in English, pick up a pamphlet at one of the many information points stationed along Corso Vannucci or visit the Festarch website.

Acclaimed professors from across the world are trickling into the Umbra Institute today to collect their badges and informational packets for Food Conference: Perugia. A welcome aperitivo on the Ranieri Foundation’s picturesque terrace will officially commence the first-time international food conference tonight.

Ken Albala, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific, will give the keynote address early Friday morning at the University of Perugia. Albala has published numerous respected works on food studies, varying from “Eating Right in the Renaissance”to “Beans: A History.” Fittingly, his speech will serve as an introduction to the two-day conference.

Held at the Umbra Institute’s building on Via Bartolo, the conference will use the broad topic of food as a lens to analyze the last 150 years of Italian history and cultural identity, according to the event organizers, Umbra Food Studies Professor Zach Nowak and Italian Professor Elgin Eckert.

In the last 150 years, there has been much discussion of seemingly contradictory trends in Italy, including the need for unification beyond the political, the promotion of regional differences, and the simultaneous encouragement of immigration and emigration. Key to this discussion is the question of identity, which is often expressed through tradition, especially in food. However, tradition is itself often recently created. 

In a call for papers from their colleagues, Nowak and Eckert posed the question: “How can tradition, or the invention thereof, help or hinder processes of cultural and political integration?”

The conference is free and open to the public; Nowak and Eckert encourage Umbra students to take advantage of the opportunity. Visit Food Conference: Perugia for a detailed schedule of the conference.

This weekend, the Umbra Institute welcomed two new groups of summer 2012 students with a whirlwind orientation to Perugian life.

Friday, Chapman University and Intensive Italian students flew into Rome and took a bus with Umbra staff up to Perugia. After checking into their rooms at Hotel Giò, the groups mingled, exploring the city, and returned to the hotel just in time for a classic Italian four-course meal with Umbra staff and faculty.

Saturday found the students moving into their new apartments, renting cell phones, and finally sitting in plush green chairs in the Oratoria Santa Cecilia for an orientation meeting – made complete by Officer Michele Canneschi’s infamous safety talk.

Everyone continued to settle in and explore on Sunday. Addy – or Harry, according to Canneschi – led small groups of students on practical walking tours, pointing out necessities of Perugian life from the post office on Via Mazzini to the closest stop for the adorable Minimetrò to the secret bakeries on Via dei Priori.   

After this action-packed weekend, students are already in their first day of classes.

Buona lezione!

Oaky or stony? Aged or young? Tannic or steel?

Umbra students learned the meaning of these terms during the summer’s first wine tasting Thursday evening at Énonè, a popular Perugian enoteca.

After describing the process of making wine, sommelier Silvia Bartolini guided students in visual, olfactory, and taste analyses of three Italian wines.

“Let’s see: it looks like wine, smells like wine, and tastes like wine,” one student laughed before sampling her first glass. “I’m not exactly a wine expert.”

By the end of the wine tasting, she could swirl, sniff, and sip like the best of them.

After each wine’s initial critique, Bartolini encouraged students to sample an array of appetizers and determine which best complement the wine. Students paired pâté on toast with a firm red wine, a crisp white wine with frittata, and sweet wine with a variety of cheeses.

Bartolini then showed students the appropriate glass for the appropriate drink, from wine to water to whiskey. At the end of the evening, the group walked back up the winding steps of San’Ercolano, ready to impress all future dinner party guests.

The Italians have a saying: “L’appetito vien mangiando,” or, “Appetite comes with eating.” Wednesday evening, a group of Umbra Institute students tested this theory at Aperitivo 101.

 

Surrounded by the Living Café’s sweeping panoramic views of Umbrian countryside, students listened as Umbra Institute food studies professor Zach Nowak explained the time-honored tradition of aperitivo.

Taken anytime between 6:30-8 p.m., an aperitivo is an alcoholic or non-alcoholic drink typically served before a meal to stimulate the appetite. Notably among the popular drinks Nowak described is the spritz, which is made with prosecco, bright red Campari or Aperol, and an orange slice. Aperitivi are served with an array of appetizers. Depending on the locale, an aperitivo varies from crackers, pâté, and cheese to a full-fledged buffet.

Nowak said that records show the aperitivo first appearing in 1786 in the notes of Antonio Benedetto Carpano, the inventor of Vermouth; the tradition was definitely widespread throughout Italy by the early 19th century.

Today, the streets of Perugia still overflow with outdoor tables under umbrellas, the perfect spot for friends to sip a spritz, snack, and chat.

           

Experientia docet is the motto of the Umbra Institute: Experience teaches. Two Food Studies Program students, Julia Rackow (Tufts University) and Kimberly Goldman University of Wisconsin), just finished a month working at the Lungarotti Winery in Torgiano, near Perugia. The two students began preparing for the internship in January, working with Umbra Institute staff member Mauro Renna to learn search engine optimization and other skills. The two students then spent an intensive month at the winery, working with Lungarotti personnel on the winery’s English-language site. We sat down with them recently to hear what they thought about their time at Umbria’s best winery.

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There’s just over a week until the Umbra Institute’s Intensive Italian summer program begins again in Perugia, Italy! The program is ideal for students who want to deeply immerse themselves in the language and culture of their host country while studying abroad, and focuses on language acquisition both in and (mostly) out of the classroom.

Between tours and guided visits, cultural events like wine tastings and dinners, language exchange sessions, and cinema nights — all conducted in Italian, of course — there’s no better way to experience Italy and improve your language skills.

Staying in Perugia in the summer also means experiencing the world-famous Umbria Jazz festival, with free shows throughout the day and night, not to mention acts like Sting, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, and many more.

The Umbra Institute’s Summer 2012 session got off to a smooth start this past weekend! Students from across the US arrived in Rome to meet the Umbra staff at the airport and then arrived in Perugia on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, students moved into their new apartments in the city center, and were invited on walking tours of Perugia that afternoon to see more of their new home and learn where to buy groceries, send mail, and go to class. Classes started Monday morning, and hopefully the sun will come back out for Gelato Night on Wednesday! Benvenuti a tutti!

Last weekend, Vanderbilt students took the classroom on the road with a field trip to Assisi, the famed home of St. Francis. One early morning train ride into the hilltop city later, students arrived at the Basilica of St. Francis.

Professor Sheri Shaneyfelt led a “whispering tour” through the towering basilica, which holds not only frescoes by the likes of Cimabue and Giotto but the actual crypt where St. Francis is buried. After viewing the real-life works they had studied at Umbra only the day before, group climbed the winding Assisi streets to Ristorante Pizzeria Ostello, located across from the classic Roman columns of the Temple of Minerva.

After lunch, students were free to adventure through the St. Francis’ old stomping grounds as they wished: Some boarded the next train to Perugia, while others explored the other well-known churches in the small city. A few stayed in Assisi until the very last train, returning to their apartments with armfuls of artisanal goods.