Art history, undergrounds and Orvieto.

I am absolutely loving my art history class here in Rome. It's called Intro to Renaissance and Baroque Art, and quite frankly, I was very nervous going into it. It sounded interesting, but I don't know the slightest thing about art history. Yet, it has proven (so far...knock on wood...) to be so amazing.

So far, each time we have gone on a field trip/site visit, which is almost every class being that only four of our classes this whole semester are in the classroom, we have seen what we're actually there to see and then gone beyond and seen the other interesting things about the location that maybe aren't what we're actually studying but yet are fascinating pieces of culture, art, etc.

For example, on our first field trip to a church named San Clemente, we saw the frescoes we were studying but then, as a cool, cultural side note, she also took us down to the underground excavations that had been done there. Thus, we got to see the 12th century church that is currently standing on ground level, the 5th century church upon which the current one was built, and then the 1st century house believed to be Saint Clement's upon which both the 5th century, old church and the 12th century, current church was built. Thus, we saw three levels/layers of history, two of which were deep underground, all in addition to seeing the frescoes we were actually there to see.

Our teacher is awesome.

Our last field trip was just as amazing. We took a day trip to a Medieval town called Orvieto, about an hour and a half to two hours from Rome by bus. As was characteristic of Medieval towns, it is up high on a mountain and we even had to take a cable-car tram to get up there. Once there, we were greeted by the cutest town, filled with cobblestone streets, quaint cafes and boutiques, magnificent views and an atmosphere that was truly a community.

And the fact that it was the first day of real fall weather didn't hurt the day's ambiance either! It was such a magnificent day, and it's all because of my art history class that I was able to go. I've already experienced so many fascinating things with this class; I can't wait to see what else we see and do as the semester continues! :)

Love and Style,
L.M.