an interdisciplinary program in engineering and classics
(tentative)
AREZZO (week 1):
The program begins with a stay in Arezzo, a city in Tuscany dating to Etruscan times and rich in history, monuments, and art. Here, students will be housed in the medieval city, at the Collegio Santa Caterina where they will attend initial seminars and lectures. These initial class meetings will lay the foundation for the on-site fieldwork in ROME.
During the stay in Arezzo, the group will take day trips to SIENA and FLORENCE (and possibly PISA) to visit the medieval and Renaissance monuments of these cities and in particular to study two buildings of extraordinary importance for the history of civil engineering: Brunelleschi dome of Florence cathedral and the unfinished cathedral of Siena. The group will proceed from Arezzo to Rome by train.
ROME (week 2 & 3) :
During the stay in Rome the group will be housed at the Bernardi Campus of the University of St. Thomas, located on the west bank of the Tiber River at Lungotevere delle Armi in Rome, Italy. Situated in the heart of the modern Prati Zone, the campus is near both the center of Rome and Vatican City and is served by the underground and by several bus and tram lines.
In Rome we will visit all major Roman monuments, building complexes, and archeological sites, including the Republican and Imperial Fora, the Markets of Trajan, the Imperial residential complex on the Palatine and the Circus Maximus, the Flavian Amphitheater (the Colosseum), the Domus Aurea of Nero, the Pantheon and the Mausoleum of Hadrian (Castel St. Angelo), the baths of Caracalla , the baths of Diocletian (Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli), Roman aqueducts at Porta Maggiore and at Roma Antica, the Aurelian Walls and city gates, the Roman bridges on the Tiber, and the Museum of Roman Civilization.
Outside
of
Rome,
we will take day trips to the Villa of Hadrian in Tivoli, and the Roman
city of Ostia Antica, two of the most important archeological sites for
studying the evolution of Roman civil engineering. Finally, we will
visit Saint Peter and the
Basilica
of Saint Paul outside the walls.
FREE WEEKENDS :
The stay in Italy includes two free weekends - Saturday & Sunday without program activities, one in Arezzo and the other in Rome. The weekend in Arezzo coincides with a major Antique Fair, held monthly throughout the medieval city center. From Arezzo, students may take advantage of excellent train and bus connections to travel on their own to other cities of Tuscany - or to reach Venice - for day-long visits. During the weekend in Rome, students are free to tour the city, relax at the seaside resorts near modern Ostia - easily reachable by local metro- or travel on their own by train to Naples for a day-long visit to the Pompeii archeological site.