The eighth grade's annual Italian Study Tour - 10 days exploring Assisi, Florence, and Rome - is a longstanding capstone experience for our graduating class and their teachers.
The trip, which takes place each year during the two weeks prior to spring break, provides the opportunity for our boys to visit in-situ the actual paintings, sculpture, and architectural sites they have studied all year in their art history class. At each site, they deepen their understanding through reflective journaling and sketching what they see.
This year, our flight landed in Rome on Tuesday morning, March 5. The day was a beauty. We headed straight to the medieval city of Assisi, for a visit to the Basilica of Saint Francis. The setting of this beautiful village against the Umbrian hillside is breathtaking, humbling, and inspiring. We concluded our Assisi visit with lunch at Enoteca San Pietro, the first of several delicious meals we would share over the next ten days.
The Study Tour continued with four days each in Florence and Rome. In preparation for the trip, the boys, in groups of four or five, were assigned an iconic Renaissance building in Florence to research. They learned about the building, its patron, architect, and significance; and they shared the results of their inquiries with each other. They also wrote an essay about their team's effort and created a visual representation of the building in the medium of their choice, using skills learned and practiced in observational drawing classes. When they reached their site in Italy, they presented their research findings to their fellow classmates and faculty.
In Florence, we visited Il Duomo and enjoyed the always exhilarating view from the top of its bell tower, closely observed Michelangelo's
David in the Accademia (the first of four
David statues we would visit), and took in masterpieces at the Uffizi Gallery, Bargello, and Santa Croce, among others.
While our time in Rome began with a "cats and dogs" rainy-day visit to the Colosseum and Roman Forum, the weather gods soon showed mercy, delivering blue skies for our subsequent excursion to the Galleries at Villa Borghese. A highlight of our Rome experience was access to Vatican City, where we were able to walk by the gardens and entered St. Peter's Basilica through a special door.
Throughout the trip, the boys made our community proud as their mature presence, scholarly inquisitiveness, and astute observations impressed their teachers, guides, and passers-by alike. By the tour's end, we had covered hundreds of miles, seen countless masterpieces dating back centuries - with lessons still relevant today - celebrated two boys' birthdays, and bonded closer with each other.
In addition to providing our eighth-grade boys the opportunity to hone their skills in analytical and creative thinking, writing, observation, and reflection, the Italian Study Tour connects the graduating class in a shared multi-faceted signature experience that they will always remember.
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