News and Blog

Last Thursday the Umbra Institute had the latest edition of the biannual Talent Show. Our growing enrolment meant  that even with a larger-than-normal venue (the University of Perugia’s 100Dieci Pub and Student Mensa), the hall was full to almost capacity.A number of Italian language classes put on performances, in addition to individual student acts.

It wasn’t a Parisian but rather a Perugian vernissage on Tuesday as Umbra fine arts students had a chance to show off their semester’s work. The vernissage took place in Umbra’s Via Danzetta art studio, where the walls of every room but the darkroom were hung with paintings, drawings, and photographs. Students displayed their oil paintings, charcoal and pencil drawings (among them some huge, Benetton-like faces looming from far above the floor), and a mixture of playful and serious black-and-white photographs, some even hand-tinted. Umbra’s fine art faculty, many members of the staff, and most of the student body came during the course of the two-hour show.

The semester’s almost over but the learning isn’t! This past Monday Umbra students were treated to a trip to a nearby Umbrian town, Bevagna. Bevagna is particular not so much for its beautiful boulevards or works of art, but rather for its preservation not just of buildings but of what was in them. Traditional crafts from as far back as the early Middle Ages are still practiced in Bevagna. Students witnessed demonstrations of paper and candle-making as well as silk spinning and a recreation of a medieval painter’s house and workshop. The weather was beautiful and warm and the students and staff were able to finish off the morning with a picnic lunch in a park-like atmosphere.

We often hear of alumni reunions held across the country – but we rarely receive photographic evidence. Rachel Bethany and Reid Williamson sent the following photos of an informal alumni reunion in Boston. These former Umbra students headed for Boston’s historic North End, a bastion of Italian eateries and culture, to share memories of their semester in Perugia.

Alumni: please send your updates (and photos!) to [email protected].

“Is the Pope Catholic?” is a sarcastic response to what seems to be a rhetorical question, but the answer to the question “How Catholic is Italy?” is not quite so obvious. In Professor Jim Schwarten’s Contemporary Italian Culture and Society, students attempted to answer just that question by compiling a questionnaire to poll Italians about Catholicism. The actual administration of the survey to Italians around Perugia gave the class members a chance to use their language skills, and approach members of the community. The results were very interesting.

Leavening wasn’t the only topic yesterday during the Bread & Pasta Workshop, part of Professor Peter Fischer’s Food Cultures course. The workshop – one in a series of three – makes for a more hands-on academic course. Students learned about the history and biochemistry of bread, pasta, and other grain products. The hands-on part of the workshop included different doughs and even a thoroughly-sticky lump of gluten, while the tasting part, less sticky and more pleasing to the palate, consisted of a variety of breads.

First up were the unleavened gyro bread and the famous Sardinian “pane carasau,” a millennia-old shepherd’s bread. The students also tried the old Umbrian standby, torta al testo, a low bread traditionally cooked on a round piece of stone, the testo. Next came salted bread cooked in a wood-fired oven, along with the Italian standard, pizza. Professor Fischer’s students not only got an earfull, they got a stomach-full!

Finland, a place of oddities and wonders, and the beginning of my spring break. While in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, I saw many a thing, but only a few are noteworthy. First and foremost, it is a city similar to Milan or Trieste, full of new life, new buildings and stores. It has large department stores and huge malls. The best story about Finland though, lies in its most trivial of places, the tourist shops. Unlike most big cities, Helsinki does not have a booming tourism industry, but there are a few shops here and there.
Finland, as is well known, is on the euro, but unlike other places they do not use the one or two cent coins. Instead, at each tourist shop and airport, they put these in little bags together and sell them for 3, 5, or even 8 euros. (in photo at left) What a country! Finland is a strange place and because of some disheartening events I will most likely choose not to return.

Leaving Finland, I went on to my final destination of Istanbul, once called Constantinople. This fantastic place is worth at least four or five days. They have many large beautiful mosques such as the Blue Mosque (in photo below) or Aya Sofia, and many fun museums too. They even have a royal palace that is filled with glitter and amusement, but the best part of Istanbul is their wondrous Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is one of the most interesting and fun places I have ever experienced. I felt like royalty as every merchant and business man approached me with an offer of some sort, ready to drop the price much lower than expected. It is a game, a constant game of wits and skill. Will they win and fleece you of a few extra dollars? Or will they get desperate and anxious enough to sell it to you for less than they had intended?

After going through the sixty-five streets of numerous goods ranging from clothes and normal items to marvelous chess sets and seemingly priceless artifacts, I took a Turkish Bath. This is the other must-have experience of Istanbul, a process of the best massages, saunas, steam rooms, and scrub downs that left me feeling entirely refreshed and ready to do anything. Every muscle in my body was relaxed. So I left the Turkish Bath with a smile on my face and headed over to a candy store to have some Turkish delights such as Lokum and then some baklava. These are the treasures of Istanbul and the joys of my spring break.

Blog and photos by: Dashiell Davis