undergraduate courses

"Beauty and the Sacred"
Rome June 18th - July 13th 2012

·   Course Description

     Beauty has long been intertwined with the sacred, from the perfect proportions of Greek temples and statues, to medieval love poetry, to renaissance and baroque religious art and architecture, and so on. But their relationship has also always been an uneasy one because of beauty's tendency towards independence from ethical concerns, and because of the perceived threat of idolatry. Similarly, the beautiful has a complex relation to the history of philosophy. While it seems to be at the very heart of ancient philosophy, it comes to be of less consequence for modern philosophers, even for many who take a serious interest in the history of art. What significance should the beautiful have in our understanding of philosophy? And more generally, what relation does beauty have to the sacred? What is the difference between idol and icon? We will address such questions in our classes and excursions in Rome.

     To pursue these questions we will read a few crucial texts. Our seminar readings are Plato's Symposium, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Hegel's Aesthetics. Rome is a natural setting for this course. Questions about art and religion, both pagan and Judeo-Christian, are everywhere in the city. In addition, the art in Rome provides numerous concrete connections to details of our readings.

     Once or twice a week, after the morning seminar, students will get a brief pre-visit presentation intended to make a helpful link between the text under discussion and the site to be visited in Rome that day. Informal discussion can follow then, or later on, when on site.

     There will also be one formal guest lecture on the theme of the course.

     Course Dates and Format

     The full course is four weeks in length. The course will start on Monday, June 18th. Students are required to arrive in Rome on Saturday, June 16th. The course will end on Friday July 13th, students will be required to leave their apartments by 10am on Saturday July 14th.
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·   Excursions

     The class will go on a number of excursions each week. One excursion will take us outside of Rome, to Naples (an optional excursion will also be offered to Siena). Students explore sites together with the seminar leaders and sometimes with an art historian or classicist as well.

     The first week of excursions, parallel to our reading of the Symposium, will take us to Vatican and to the Galleria Borghese. There we are confronted by a number of Renaissance appropriations of Plato, in Raphael's School of Athens, in Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, in Michelangelo's neo-platonic allegories in the Sistine Chapel. We will also simply be immersed in vast collections of classical, medieval, renaissance, and baroque art that will be of significance for our reflections on the theme of the course as a whole and later on will have particular value for our Hegel reading.

    In the second week, now reading Dante, we will again visit the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's. This week will also take us to Naples. We will visit the Naples Archeological Museum, one of the finest archeological museums in the world. It has important collections of ancient Roman painting as well as some of the most important pieces of ancient Greek sculpture. Of particular interest in the collection for our theme and readings are the late pagan religious paintings from the Temple of Isis and Pompeii, as well as some allegorical works by the Greek sculptor Lysippus.

     The third week of excursions, again alongside our Dante readings, will focus on the question of how images can express the divine without becoming idols. We will pursue the question through two developments. First, we will look at the Churches built in Rome as a protest against Byzantine iconoclasm. Second, we will look at the more iconoclastic direction in the painting of the early modern Caravaggio.

     In the fourth week, finishing with Dante and reading Hegel, we will try to understand Borromini's new ways of presenting infinity in his architecture, and in the new, very modern understanding of the sacred that his churches suggest. We will also turn again to classical sculpture, in the collections of the Palazzo Altemps and Palazzo Massimo, to try to digest Hegel's claims for its superiority as art to other later art forms.

     Optional Afternoon Trip

     Weekly non-required excursions are designed to supplement these formal excursions. As a group we will visit the Pantheon, the Capitol and Capitoline Museum, the Ara Pacis, Forum, and a number of ancient, medieval, renaissance and baroque churches.

     Optional Overnight Trips

      All students and faculty in both RILA summer class will be invited on a non-required, overnight trip to Siena.

     Siena is one of the most beautiful cities in Italy, as well as one of the most important sites for sacred art. The mere quantity of important art in this small city is vast and overwhelming. The Sienese style is of particular interest for our theme of beauty and the sacred, since it offers a more mystical version of the momentous developments in Italian late medieval and renaissance art. In Siena we can also visit the Palazzo Pubblico, which was the beginning of a new development in the idea of public life in the late middle ages, the birth of the commune and the end of the feudal order. Within the historic building are Lorenzetti's Aristotle-inspired frescoes of good and bad government. These famous frescoes alone are worth the trip for readers of Aristotle's Politics, and are of particular interest in connection with our Dante readings.

     The optional trip requires paying separately for a bus trip as well as one night in a hotel. Details will be made available later, but we make sure any optional trips are very, very inexpensive. In past years all participants in all RILA courses went on the optional trips.
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·   Guest Lectures

     Anthony James Carey, St. John's College, Santa Fe.
     The Idea and the Ideal--The Place of Aesthetics in Hegel's "System of Science."
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·   Readings

     Dante, Divine Comedy.
     Plato, Symposium.
     Hegel, Aesthetics (selections).
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·   Seminar Faculty

     Margaret Kirby, Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis
     B.A., King's College, 1977; M.A., Dalhousie University, 1979; Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1988;; Commonwealth Scholar, Hertford College, Oxford University, 1980-82; M.Litt., Faculty of Modern Languages, Oxford University, 1982; Gasthorer, Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat, Heidelberg, 1982; Junior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto, 1983-85; Fellow and Tutor, University of King's College, 1987-89; Tutor, St. John's College, Santa Fe, 1990-96, Annapolis, (1997-)

     Gabriel Pihas, Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis.
     B.A., St. John's College, Annapolis, 1993; M.A., M.Phil., Yale University, 1997; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2003; Fellow, American Academy of Rome (2001-2002); Assistant Professor, European College of Liberal Arts, Berlin (2003-2005); Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis (2006-); Academic Director, RILA (2007-)
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·   Art Historian

     Gianpaolo Castelli
     Staff Art Historian in the Regional Office of Museums (Lazio). After receiving his degree in Classics, Mr. Castelli went on to specialize in Etruscan, Greek and Roman art history.

     Teresa Calvano
     President Emeritus of the Italian National Association of Art History Teachers (ANISA) Professor Calvano has published in numerous subjects in art history, most recently on the early history of the Vatican Museums.
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·   Optional Courses

     Italian language course
     Although RILA students are not required to know any Italian, and all the readings will be done in English, we encourage you to sign up for an Italian language class. It may make your experience in Rome more meaningful and interesting. RILA has a deal with one of the best language schools in Rome, that will organize a special course of basic Italian reserved for RILA students. Classes take place in the center of Rome, near Piazza di Spagna, not far from the RILA classroom building. Italian classes meet twice a week for two hours each meeting, for a total of eight meetings and sixteen hours of lessons. The course is designed to give students a basic knowledge of Italian grammar and vocabulary. It will focus on immediate language needs in daily life, with attention to the development of listening, understanding and speaking skills.
For the course's cost, please check the Application and fee page.
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"Empire and the Soul"
Rome June 18th - July 13th 2012

·   Course Description

     Confronted with regular political upheavals and interactions between neighboring cities with different forms of government or regimes, ancient political theorists grew acutely aware of the effects of these regimes on the human soul. Similarly, the development of empires from city-states seems to have had an impact on what kinds of ideals and human beings were thought possible. How do certain kinds of greatness evolve and flourish only in an empire? And what evils are characteristic of empires? We will examine the foundations of city and empire, setting the writings of competing philosophic theorists side by side with practically oriented historians. We will read one ancient and one modern political philosopher, Plato and Machiavelli. After a careful reading of Plato's Republic, we will read selections from Thucydides' history of the Athenian democracy, its empire, and conflict in Sicily. We will then turn to selections from Livy's account of the rise of the Roman republic and from Tacitus' account of the Roman Empire. We will read Machiavelli's political writings alongside these Roman authors. The aim of the class is to reflect on the human situation by understanding how politics casts its shadows and its light onto what is most intimate in human life.

     Italy is a fascinating backdrop for all these readings. Of course, it offers the setting for the ancient history readings. But Rome is also central to Machiavelli's understanding of later history as well. More generally, if you have the right kind of background and support (which we will supply through lectures and tours), walking through Rome confronts you, not with a heap of historical details, but with other ways of thinking about the structure and aim of political life. The experience will force you to read the books in a new way. Also, many art works in Rome, both ancient and modern, illuminate the general themes of the course and present them as living questions.

     Once or twice a week, after the morning seminar, students will get a brief pre-visit presentation intended to make a helpful link between the text under discussion and the site to be visited in Rome that day. Informal discussion can follow then, or later on, when on site.

     Course Dates and Format

     The full course is four weeks in length. The course will start on Monday, June 18th. Students are required to arrive in Rome on Saturday, June 16th. The course will end on Friday July 13th, students will be required to leave their apartments by 10am on Saturday July 14th.
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·   Excursions

     The class will go on a number of excursions each week. One excursion will take us outside of Rome, to Naples (an optional excursion will also be offered to Siena). Students explore sites together with the seminar leaders and sometimes with an art historian or classicist as well.

     The first week of excursions will take us to the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's. Many important works of art in the Vatican are intimately tied to, and of profound significance for our theme and our readings in the first week from Plato's Republic. From Raphael's School of Athens to Michelangelo's Neo-Platonic allegories, many of the works of art raise issues directly related to the reading. But furthermore, the role of the Pope and the history of the Vatican also raise Platonic questions about the the philosopher-king ideal in practice. The Vatican's vast holdings in classical art will also be also of great interest for our theme. We will also study the Pantheon in this first week, which suggests the combining of the role of the emperor with that of the astronomically informed philosopher. We will compare the relation of politics and cosmos in the Pantheon with that implicit in the ceiling fresco of the nearby Jesuit church, the Gesu'.

     In the second week we will again visit the Vatican as well as the Naples Archeological Museum, one of the finest archeological museums in the world. Of particular interest in the collection for our theme and readings are the Farnese Hercules, the decorations of the Temple of Isis, as well as many other paintings and sculptures. The transition from Greek to Roman art is well documented here, and this history suggests new attitudes that develop on account of living under an empire.

     The third week's excursions will take us to sites that will help us begin to outline Roman history, alongside our readings of Livy and Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy. We will discuss changes in the roles of ruler and subject from the period of the kings, to the republic, to the empire, changes that find expression in the art and architecture in the Capitoline Museums, the Palatine and Forum, and the Ara Pacis.

     Finally, in the fourth week, alongside readings in Machiavelli, we will consider the imperial theme as defended in the art of a number of Churches in Rome, and consider the late renaissance and counter-reformation defenses of papal power. The baroque fresco of Divine Providence in Palazzo Barberini suggests a new the attempt to defend the temporal power of the pope, while Borromini's Church of San Carlo delle Quattro Fontane down the street suggests a new separation between the earthly and the divine that would become characteristic of modernity.

     Optional Excursion

     Weekly non-required excursions are designed to supplement these formal excursions. As a group we will visit the great collection of Renaissance and baroque art in the Galleria Borghese, of classical art in the Palazzo Altemps and the Palazzo Massimo; and visit a number of ancient, medieval, renaissance and baroque churches; we will also discuss the works of Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Bernini, and Borromini scattered throughout the city.  

     Optional Overnight Trips

     All students both RILA summer classes will be invited on a non-required, overnight trip outside of Rome, to Siena.

     For "Empire and the Soul" we will be visit the Palazzo Pubblico, which marks the beginning of a new idea of public life in the late middle ages, namely, the birth of the commune and the end of the feudal order. Within the historic building are Lorenzetti's famous frescoes of good and bad government, derived from Aristotle's Politics. These frescoes invite speculation about whether ancient political thought can be absorbed into Christianity (in the manner of Thomas Aquinas' political theory), or whether they intend to be the beginning of a more worldly modern political theory (in the manner of Brunetto Latini's political writings). These famous frescoes alone are impressive and interesting, but Siena is worth the visit for other reasons as well. It is one of the most beautiful cities in Italy and contains some of the finest examples of art from the middle ages and renaissance.

     Each optional trip requires paying separately for a bus trip as well as one night in a hotel. Details will be made available later, but we make sure these trips are very, very inexpensive. In past years all participants in all RILA courses have gone on the optional trip.
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·   Guest Lectures

Thomas Pangle, University of Texas at Austin.
"Machiavelli's Rome: An Introduction to the DISCOURSES ON LIVY."
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·   Readings

     Plato, Republic.
     Thucydides, Peloponnesian War.
     Livy, The Rise of Rome.
      Machiavelli, The Prince; Discourses on the Ten Books of Livy.
     Tacitus, Annals.

·   Seminar Faculty

Anthony James Carey, Tutor and former Dean, St. John's College, Santa Fe. Visiting Professor, United States Air Force Academy.
     St. John's College, Annapolis, 1963-65; B.A., University of North Carolina, 1967; M.A., 1973, Ph.D. 1998, Graduate Faculty, The New School for Social Research; U.S. Marine Corps, 1967-69; Graduate Study in Music, University of North Carolina, 1969; Part-time Instructor in Philosophy, East Carolina University, 1974-78; Part-time Instructor in Philosophy, North Carolina Wesleyan College, 1976-78; Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis, 1979-83, Santa Fe, 1984-; Dean, 1986-91, 1996-2000; Acting President, 2000. Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy, United States Air Force Academy, 2004-.

Robert Goldberg, Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis.
     B.A., Harvard University, 1981; M.A., University of Toronto, 1983; Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1990; Adjunct Lecturer in Political Science, University of Toronto, 1989-90; Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, Kenyon College, 1990-94; John M. Olin Faculty Fellow in History and Political Theory, Kenyon College, 1994-95; Tutor, St. John's College, Annapolis, 1995-.

·   Art Historian

     Gianpaolo Castelli
     Staff Art Historian in the Regional Office of Museums (Lazio). After receiving his degree in Classics, Mr. Castelli went on to specialize in Etruscan, Greek and Roman art and archeology. He is currently pursuing research on Renaissance humanists in the region around Rome.

     Teresa Calvano
     President Emeritus of the Italian National Association of Art History Teachers (ANISA) Professor Calvano has published in numerous subjects in art history, most recently on the early history of the Vatican Museums. .
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·   Optional Courses

     Italian language course
     Although RILA students are not required to know any Italian, and all the readings will be done in English, we encourage you to sign up for an Italian language class. It may make your experience in Rome more meaningful and interesting. RILA has a deal with one of the best language schools in Rome, that will organize a special course of basic Italian reserved for RILA students. Classes take place in the center of Rome, near Piazza di Spagna, not far from the RILA classroom building. Italian classes meet twice a week for two hours each meeting, for a total of eight meetings and sixteen hours of lessons. The course is designed to give students a basic knowledge of Italian grammar and vocabulary. It will focus on immediate language needs in daily life, with attention to the development of listening, understanding and speaking skills.
For the course’s cost, please check the Application and fee page.
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