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.

Musicans playing alabaster instruments at the Widener Summer program in Volterra

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

On April 27, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting UTS Professor Geoffrey Holland. Professor Holland is a participant in Widener Law’s summer program in Sydney since it moved to UTS in 2001. Additionally, Professor Holland spoke about freedom of speech laws in Australia as part of a faculty development event that day.

You should consider taking a trip to the “land Down Under” this June and study Comparative Family Law or International and Comparative Commercial Law in Sydney, Australia.

In association with the Law School of the University of Technology Sydney, we offer you a unique opportunity to study law while abroad in Sydney, Australia. Imagine finishing a stimulating class debate and then heading out for some scuba diving. Sydney has a wide range of activities and cultural opportunities for you to experience.

Are you going to Venice this summer? If so, you might want to check out the summer medieval carnival,  the Market of the Gaite 2009 , in Bevagna, a region in Umbria (the official Italian site of the event). This event happens from June 19th through the 28th and it draws over 100,000 people to the tiny town every summer. On display: craftspersons demonstrating how paints, candles, paper, pharmaceutical herbs, and silk are made, as well as a demonstration of how fabrics are dyed; all this is done using the technologies of centuries ago.

There are also contests among the guilds during the festival. During our 2009 Spring Break, I joined Debb McCreery and Tony Doyle, for a first-hand tour of how some of these ancient crafts were produced.

In the photos: Serena, an Italian law student and our tour guide; showing us how paint is made; the streets of Bevagna.

This year alumni and friends have been invited to join me in Volterra, Italy which includes lectures by Delaware Supreme Court Justice Randy Holland. A few weeks ago, I along with Debb Mccreery (Assistant Vice President for Law School Development and Alumni Relations ) and Tony Doyle (Assistant Dean, Educational Services, Graduate and International Programs), visited  Rome, Tuscany, and Umbria. The video you see here is just a short compilation of sights and sounds from tuscany. for the longer version of our visit please see the photo collage video ( link here).

Next year i hope that you will be able to join us as one of our newest alumni.