Illinois State University in Bologna

I don’t think any of us can believe that it’s already our last day together of this incredible experience. We made the most of it by going on one final morning excursion around town to MamBo (Bologna Museum of Modern Art) where we saw a number of different Bolognese artists’ works. We then went to what was once the Accursi home built in 1250 and sold to the Municipality in 1487. It was refurbished and the clock tower that we climbed(Torre dell’Orologio) was added on. With its stunning 360 views it was a perfect culmination to all of our exploration across Bologna. We saw hills we climbed, walls, gates and torresottos we visited, and streets we walked. Finally we had a fun and interesting Balsamic Vinegar of Modena tasting at Giusti, a company that’s been in the family for 17 generations since 1605! We all really enjoyed trying many different balsamic vinegars aged from 25 to 12 years down to not aged at all. We all went our separate ways this afternoon to pack, clean, and spend a few final hours walking the streets of this special place on our own. This evening we had our farewell dinner at a Bolognese restaurant in our neighborhood called Va Mo Là. It was hard to say goodbye at the end , but we will always stay in touch. In fact, at least four of our students are on the La Tavola Italian Club exec board and will be organizing events next school year, which we hope you all will attend. Arrivederci, amici!

Unbelievable but true, it was the students’ last day of Italian classes at Academya Lingue and their last Pausa Caffè. They have all gained in confidence and linguistic abilities and we couldn’t be prouder. Next, students presented their final project for the Food Culture class: a four course meal of their choice referencing the various cookbooks, movements, historical periods, and other themes discussed over the course of these past weeks. In groups, students presented an antipasto, primo and second course, a contorno (side) and dolce. Many referenced Slow Food and Futurism, and of course Italian American food, but also food rations and peasant/poor food. This evening, we walked up the hill to San Michele in Bosco where we visited the church of the same name, and the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, a stunning former convent, now a highly specialized hospital and research facility in orthopedics and traumatology and one of the best in Italy. One highlight of this building was the 162 meter long corridor facing the Bologna town center, including the main Asinelli tower. The view from the window frames the tower perfectly in the middle and the length of the hall creates an telescopic effect, making the tower appear closer the further you walk away from the window and shrink as you walk closer. After this fun experience, we walked through the woods and down the hill into a lovely neighborhood, back to the center of town and to Tigelleria Belvedere, where we had our first outing together the Sunday that everyone arrived. We enjoyed lively conversation and a charcuterie board with all of our favorite sides such as friggione, caponata, and squacquerone. We ended with Nutella filled tigelle that were warm and delicious. Tomorrow is our last full day, let’s make it as memorable as the rest!

This morning we left Bologna on the train and then took shuttles to Castelfranco Emilia (near Modena) to go to an organic Parmigiano cheese farmstead dairy. We put on our protective gear and walked through the various rooms starting from where the milk is poured to cook in huge copper vats that hold 1000 liters and make two wheels of parmigiano, for a total of 24 wheels per day. The next room was where the wheels sit in brine over time. In the final room were the endless shelves of wheels of aging cheese. The oldest cheese in there had been aging for 10 years, the youngest from this week. We then went to meet the cows. Apparently the much rarer and indigenous Modenese white cow produces a milk that gives a unique taste and a more valued parmigiano. Finally, we had a fun and delicious tasting of fresh ricotta from this morning, caciotta cheese and finally parmigiano aged 24, 36, and 60 months, including a white parmigiano. Our guide was engaging and knowledgeable and everyone enjoyed this trip out to the countryside for yet another satisfying Italian slow food experience!

Today was our beach day in beautiful Rimini! The day started out quite cloudy after a night of rains. We spent the morning learning more about Federico Fellini, an influential Italian filmmaker known for his distinctive narrative style and imaginative storytelling, who grew up in Rimini. First we meandered through Borgo San Giuliano, an ancient village that used to be the home to sailors and fishermen. This area was a favorite place for Fellini and was a source of inspiration. In recent decades murals depicting his characters and films have been painted onto the villages’ colorful little houses. It is a delight to experience! On our way to the museum we walked through town, past Cinema Fulgor, the place where Fellini saw his first films and was inspired. Our next stop was the Fellini museum in the Sismondo Castle, which provides a deep immersion into Fellini’s world, philosophy, and his cinematic visions. The skies had already begun to clear and after spending the morning with Fellini, we headed back across town toward the beach, passing under the Arch of Augustus built in 27 B.C. (the oldest surviving Roman triumphal arch in Italy) and past ancient walls, through a park perfumed by Linden trees in bloom and finally arriving at the beach. We spent the afternoon taking in the sun and the wavy sea (it was a bit windy with the front that had recently passed through), collecting shells and relaxing.

Class yesterday prepared us for today. We talked about Italian women during the 20+ years of fascism in Italy and how any woman who wanted to go to school, work, or make social connections could only have access by joining Italian fascist women’s associations. But we also spoke about women in the resistance. One of the first women to join the resistance in this region, first as a messenger at around age 13 and then as an armed resistance fighter was Irma Bandiera. Unfortunately she was caught, tortured, killed, and left as an example on the street of Bologna at the base of the hill we climbed today. We also talked about the importance of the June 2, 1946 election, because it was the first time women had the right to vote and it was also when the monarchy was voted out and the republic was voted in! Today marks the 80th anniversary of that important moment and there were parades and celebrations across Italy. In honor of June 2, 1946 and Irma Bandiera, we chose today to walk up the Guardia hill to the Sanctuary of San Luca connected to the city center by a road that, starting from Porta Saragozza (where we ended our walk with a delicious gelato), unwinds for four kilometers of porticoes (built in 1674) with over 600 archways and is the longest in the world. Later this afternoon we watched a multi-award winning film directed, written and starring Paola Cortellesi, C’è ancora domani/There’s Still Tomorrow. This film takes place in the year after the war and focuses in particular on the life of a working-class woman who hopes for a better future for herself and her daughter while enduring abuse at the hands of her husband. It ends on June 2, 1946.

Breezing into the weekend, but first morning Italian classes where students focused on Italian hand gestures, reviewed how to talk about future events, and learned new and interesting vocabulary. This afternoon we shifted from emigration away from Italy to immigration TO Italy and what that has looked like as well as how our identity can often inhabit multiple overlapping social categories (intertextuality). We discussed Italian colonialism from the late 1860s to 1970s and the effects that has on immigration. Finally, students formed groups to begin brainstorming their final project that they will present next Friday. Now, it’s on to the weekend!

After our long day in Florence, it was nice to be back “home” in Bologna today doing our regular routine of Italian lessons and Pausa Caffè in the morning. We then took a mini field trip to the Parco 11 settembre, the Cineteca (one of the world’s most prestigious film archives and restoration centers, hosting world-renowned restorations and vibrant year-round screenings), where we also stopped at the Fine Arts department for three of our students majoring in Acting, Theatre, and Film Studies. We then detoured to the Porta Lame (where an important battle occurred in April 1945 to help seal Italy’s liberation and where we saw some remaining walls of the third circle “La Cercla” from the 14th century). In the 12th through 19th centuries, canals crisscrossed the city and were used to transport products and goods, but many of them were filled in. We ended our morning walk at the newly re-opened Canale Reno.
This afternoon’s Food Culture class focused on emigration from Italy to other parts of the world and then we talked about Italian American immigrants and their food culture compared to Italian food culture. We watched several excerpts from Stanley Tucci’s 1996 film “Big Night” about two brothers running an Italian restaurant in 1950s Jersey Shore that sparked lively and extended discussion.

It was a hot day full of tourists and crowds in the ever-so-enchanting streets of Florence. Students experienced a number of important places: Santa Maria del Fiore, Piazza della Signoria, gli Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Repubblica, the breath taking view from Piazzale Michelangelo, and San Miniato basilica (with a mass in Latin!). On top of that, students got quite a lot of shopping in, purchasing Florentine leather items, Florentine paper, t-shirts and other souvenirs.

Students continue to make progress in their morning Italian classes. This afternoon in our Food Culture class we studied about Italian food and food access during the decades surrounding the two World Wars and political unrest. This time was highlighted by poor diet, food shortages, illness and requisitions, food substitutions like coffee made from acorns, legumes or chicory, prisoners’ rations (adding sawdust, acorns, or straw to bread), soldiers rations, and every day people’s rations. The two decades of fascism under Mussolini focussed on economic and food independence and self-sufficiency, a Futurist approach to food and recipes, and food rationing during WWII. Partisans (civilians opposed to fascism and N**i occupation who helped the Allies fight the war in Italy) also had a poor and uncertain diet. Our last subject of the day was Neorealist cinema, such as filmmakers Vittorio de Sica and Luchino Viscotti, but we spent a bit more time on Roberto Rossellini’s 1946 War Trilogy and watched a scene from “Paisà” between an American soldier and an orphaned boy in Naples at the end of the war. Immediately after class, we went to Istituto Parri where we had an excellent presentation on the history of fascism in Italy and the years leading up to WWII, after which we went on a walking tour of Bologna where our guide Tommaso talked to us about WWII air raids and we saw a Franciscan church that had been bombed and rebuilt, we saw places where the Resistance fought back against the Germans right here in town, and we discussed the tensions of being occupied by N**i forces and Partisans having to be very secretive and careful not to be found out. We ended the tour at a very moving monument to the fallen Resistance fighters from the area.

Day 7!

This morning after Pausa caffè we visited two different markets (Aldrovandi and Mercato delle Erbe) and saw another of the four fortified gates, San Vitale. We met back again for our city excursion with Lorenza at 3:30 where we focused on University of Bologna from its beginnings in 1088 spending time in Piazza and Basilica of San Domenico. We then walked over to the Archiginnasio, the main building of the University of Bologna commissioned by Pope Pius IV and built in 1563 and used until 1803. In this building, there was a single place where the Schools of the “Legisti” (Canon and Civil law) and “Artisti” (philosophy, medicine, mathematics, natural sciences and physics), could be taught. Inside this building is the Anatomical Theatre, built in 1636. Shaped like an amphitheater and made from fir wood, the hall was used for anatomy lectures and displays. We finished our tour in the neighborhood where the current University of Bologna departments are housed, in Via Zamboni. We had about two hours’ break to prepare our potluck dinner, held on the terrace. Each group of students was tasked with creating a recipe from one of the four cookbooks we’ve been studying in class. Dr. Sciubba and Dr. Edwards prepared two different tomato sauces, one from The Modern Steward or the Art of Preparing Banquets Well (Antonino Latini ) from around 1692. This was the first appearance of a tomato in an Italian recipe and it came from Spain. The second one was from The Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well (Pellegrino Artusi in 1891). Students seemed to all prefer the earliest recipe! Then it was their turn. One group of students prepared ASSATURAS IN COLLARI (Roast Neck) from De re coquinaria, Apicio (around 400AD). The second group of students prepared an Insalata di Patate from La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene, Pellegrino Artusi, and the final group prepared a Red Cherry and Rose Torte from Libro de Arte Coquinaria, (1400s - Maestro Martino da Como). It was such a fun way to share what we’ve learned. Everything tasted so good and everyone put in an excellent effort.