Dean’s Blog

Buongiorno:

Today is Friday and this is the final leg of the Italy trip.  The church bells of Santa Croce (where Michelangelo and Galileo are buried) are ringing and the sun is going down.

I arrived in Pisa on Sunday.  I drove for the first time on Italian roads and actually made it to Volterra in about an hour.  The day was beautiful and there were many tourists walking around the old medieval city, which is high in the Tuscan Hills.  This city is also known as the place where the Etruscans had a thriving metropolis, centuries before the Romans came along.

After arriving at the SIAF, unpacking and get just a little rest it was time for the evening opening reception.  Deborah McCreery brought in the group from Rome safely and Dean Joe Tomain of the University of Cincinnati who would be the primary facilitator and his wife Cathy drove up from Florence.  Justice Randy Holland (the other facilitator) and his family were also among the group.  We had dinner and then a group of musicians from Volterra performed for us.  They played Jazz on instruments made of alabaster, drums and guitars.  They also had a flute made of the same material.  Marcia D’Antona and her husband, Giacomo Cresci,  a couple I met when visiting Italy in March,  joined us for dinner and Marcia interpreted for Giorgio Pecchioni the artist, who made the instruments, explaining that the alabaster flutes date back to the days of the Etruscans.  There is a video clip of just a little of musician’s performance.

The classes for the week were organized around four topics: law and justice, law and culture, law and politics and law and the legal profession. Monday morning classes began and Joe lead us in a discussion of readings from Virgil’s Aeneid and Cicero’s The Republic and their riveting discussion about natural law and the rule of law.. During lunch I met Professor Massimilano Granieri, who had just completed teaching his course on the EU for our summer school in Venice.  He was surprised we were here and we were surprised to meet him. When the day’s classes were ended and after lunch, we headed to Volterra about 5 minutes up the hill by car for a city tour.  It had been beautiful all morning.  Just as we arrived in Volterra, the heavens opened and it poured.  We could not get all of our outside tour in, but, what we did see, the church, the baptistery, the Etruscan ruins in the floors of a major conference center and the ruins of a roman theatre and bath house was fantastico.  Wladek Fuichs, a polish architect, who has spent some time teaching in Michigan, allowed us to get out of the rain and take cover in his studio whose walls were lined with his beautiful watercolors of Tuscany. Fuchs  has recreated in 3d animation the roman theater whose ruins we had just visited.  The presentation was incredible. Then there is the alabaster art everywhere.  Artisans were in the town square showing how they carve this beautiful stone.

The week went fast with classes in the morning and with visits to Pisa, Siena and Florence.  The Thursday night dinner was special.  Held at a vineyard, the daughter of the owner ( who is an architect by day) explained the origin of the vineyard and how her family’s brand of wine is made.

Friday’s trip to Florence capped the week. While we waited, some of our group got to see an Italian court in action.  Marcia had a case before it, defending a man who had problems with being abusive to his mother. She had the full attire of robes.  Those who attended said they enjoyed it.

Back at City Hall, we stood on the spot where the bonfire of the vanities took place that we read about in one of the assignments.
This same place is where Girolamo Savonarola, who had been responsible for the burning of art and literature, was later hung and burned.  From there it was a visit to the Uffizi museum All along the façade of the building are sculptures of Leonardo Divinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and other great artists.  Inside, arranged by our friends Marcia and Giacomo, the guide led us to a museum tour of the private hallways and chapels of the Medicis.  Paintings by Chagall and Delacroix not on display in the main galleries lined those hallways.  We looked out of small windows down on Ponte Veccchio and ended up in the private section of the Pitti Palace.

Later, Michelangelo’s David was just as impressive as it was the first time I saw it at the Academia.  There is a Mapplethorpe photography exhibition, “La Perfezione Neela Forma” mounted along side sculptures by Michelangelo.

I could not end my visit without going back to Santa Croce.  Inside this Franciscans basilica is buried Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli.  We read Machiavelli’s “The prince for this trip.”  There is also a large tomb dedicated to Dante, although he is not buried there.  In Italy, there is celebrating the 500th birthdates of Galileo, who had been buried in Rome, but now resides in this massive church.

AS the group leaves for Rome in order to return home, I am headed to our summer school in Kenya.

Ciao.

Bonjour again! After writing my last post I would like to share all the wonderful places I’ve visited and photographed to date.
Enjoy!

Bonjour:

The last few days in Lausanne have been interesting.  I arrived in Switzerland Wednesday morning after an all night flight from Philadelphia on USAir.  After an hour’s train ride I reached my destination. Immediately after reaching my hotel, the Mirabeau, not far from the train station, I took a nice long nap .The weather here has been great, in the high 70’s  and low 80’s with little or no humidity.  Later in the evening I met Professor James White, the ABA consultant, from Indiana School of Law, who was here to inspect our program.

I am quite pleased with our new location.  Having visited earlier this year, there were no real surprises for me.  The campus is large, and has its own natural beauty with running creeks.  The law and economics building, known to the cab drivers as Internef is spacious. This building houses a library and there is also a wonderful international and comparative law library nearby. Upon arrival with Professors Andy Fichter and James White we went to the office of Professor Andrea Bonnami, whom had been my host earlier in the spring.  He is not teaching in the program this summer, but hopes to do so in years to come.

The students have been here for 3 weeks now.  Almost equal numbers of students are from the Wilmington and Harrisburg campuses.  Two students, one of them  from Texas, had already moved on to Venice by the time I arrived.  Another student in the current class is from Albany Law School raved about the program. Some of the men have gone sailing on Lac Leman.  Some of the group has also taken side trips to Paris, and this past weekend a couple of them are in Budapest. Professor Fichter had a fondue party at his little village called Lutry.   Talking with the students brings back memories of my days as a law student and spending a summer in Paris, while studying International Public and Comparative Law.

I sat in on both Professor Jiminez and Zieglers’s classes. Professor Fichter’s class ended a week or so ago.  I wish I could enroll again.  Professor Jiminez was focused on crimes against humanity, and Professor Ziegler taught about the various  countries attempt to even the trade markets through instruments: embargoes, tariffs etc.   This coming week the class will travel back to Geneva for visits at the International Red Cross and the WTO. Earlier the class was at the World Health Organization at the UN for special lectures on the right of medicine and drug fraud.

At dinner Professor Jimenez reminded me of her background as a long-time International human rights specialist.  She is originally from the Philippines, but also spent some time in Bulgaria before coming to Switzerland.  She has been knee deep in negotiating United Nations conventions and protocols relative to human rights.  Professor Ziegler is from Zurich and has quickly climbed the academic ladder, starting out as an adjunct at another institution and now he is not only professor of law, but he is also one of 3 vice deans at Lausanne.

I also had to opportunity to meet the dean of the law school and the vice dean.  They are both pleased that we have begun this partnership with them.

I did get to do just a little sight-seeing.  I took the subway from the school to downtown and went to the old town where there is an impressive Notre Dame cathedral. Getting around the town, and the country for that matter is so easy.  Inside there was a young woman practicing the organ and other tourists getting out of the early afternoon heat.  From that site you can look out over the city.  Another little town that I visited over the weekend before taking off to Volterra is Sion.  About  one hour by train to the east of Lausanne, this charming little town  has at the top of a mountain another Notre Dame with what is said to be one of the oldest functioning organs around.  Above that site (about a ½ hour walk is another old ancient site of a bishops fort.  Couldn’t make that trek.  It was straight up the side of the mountain.

My Sunday morning started very early about 5am.  It was to have begun at 4:30 but the automatic wake-up call never happened.  “Anyway, got to the airport in plenty of time for my flight to Pisa.  However, the Pisa flight is late, which gives me the opportunity to write this blog.  I have to meet alumni and friends later today in Volterra which is about an hour from Pisa, so I hope the plane is not too delayed.

Vederla dopo (See you later).