Dr. Frank Ambrosio is an award-winning teacher as well as a Dante scholar. He is co-director of Georgetown University’s “MyDante” Project, a web based platform for readers of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Last year, the Ernest Becker Foundation site featured two articles on his works and ideas. Dan Liechty described him as “one of the most prominent Christian philosophers today” in his review of Ambrosio’s ‘Philosophy, Religion, and the Meaning of Life,” a 36-session lecture series from The Teaching Company (TTC). In a review from a learner’s point of view, psychologist and EBF contributor Henry Richards called his TTC course “a pilgrimage that is both intimate and epic, kind of Canterbury Tales of Western meaning-making.”

One Ambrosio event is planned for each of the first four days in May. The first two programs will be held at the University of Washington, co-sponsored by the Comparative Religion Program and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. These will be followed by two programs at Seattle University co-sponsored by the Departments of Psychology, Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, and the Honors Program.

You can learn more about Frank’s presentation here, including details of each presentation.

You helped set a record for attendance in the series – 85 in all. In her lecture, Deborah described the culture of “magnificence” as a great Renaissance experiment in bringing the ideals of Christian Humanism to life by creating a civic culture in which all could aspire to a life of virtue, setting an example not only for the later achievements of the Renaissance but for subsequent societies including our own. Urbino is one of the highlights of our Hilltowns of Tuscany and Umbria tour.

Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies has a post about the event:

Her lecture was a fine study in the humanities that are the hallmark of the Liberal Studies program at Georgetown University.

You can read more about the lecture here.

Buona Primavera! Although it may be a little early and even if you’ve enjoyed a mild winter in the US, it’s always great to see the days getting longer…and Italy beckoning again. We are ready to go and we want you to come along.

Register for one of our tours before the Ides of March and enjoy a 10% discount.

The Hilltowns of Tuscany, Umbria & Le Marche
May 28 – June 8, 2012

Venice, Verona, Ravenna and The Po Valley
June 11 – June 22, 2012

The Florentine Renaissance
June 25 – July 2, 2012

See below for more information or go to renaissancecompany.com

In the meantime, join us at Georgetown University for Deborah’s lecture:

“The Culture of Magnificence at the Court of Urbino”
Friday, March 23

Lecture at 7:00, Reception at 6:00

Leavey Center Faculty Club
Georgetown University
Reservations due by March 20th to
lsp@georgetown.edu

Guests are welcome; reduced parking in the
SW Quad Visitor Parking, Canal Road campus entrance.

Hilltowns of Tuscany, Umbria & Le Marche

May 28 – June 8, 2012

The Val d’ Orcia, the serenity of La Verna, the resonance of Assisi, the Brunello of Montalcino, the Piero della Francesca Trail. Enjoy a wine tasting in an ancient castello, see “the world’s greatest small painting,” gaze over the countryside that inspired St. Francis, Dante, and Michelangelo; visit the “Ideal City” and the legendary court that inspired The Book of the Courtier. Understand the context of the people and wonder of it all. We’ve led small groups through these regions for more than 15 years and each time, through the generosity of Italian friends and colleagues, a new door is opened to experience the culture in a wholly unique way. Read more…

Venice, Verona, Ravenna & the Po Valley

June 11 – June 22, 2012

The sleek modern and ancient beauty of Verona, the Arena, the conviviality of the sidewalk cafes, the contemporary bustles of medieval Bologna, the fabulous Palladian paradise of Vicenza, Montegna’s Camere degli Sposi in Mantua, the breathtaking fifteen hundred year old mosiacs of Byzantium in Ravenna, Padua and Giotto’s masterpiece The Scrovegni Chapel, the thrill of arriving in a private vaporetto in the ever mystical Venice, the Titians, the Tintorettos, the Bellinis, the Tiepolos, the romance…as one of our travelers said on the last day of the tour “Do we have to leave?” Read more…

The Florentine Renaissance

June 25 – July 2, 2012

Florence, birthplace of Dante, nurtured the ideas and the minds that astonished the world and fundamentally changed western culture forever. The city’s enthusiasm for Humanism, a philosophy that would later sweep all of Europe, found its articulation in the works of Donatello, Ghiberti, Botticelli, Massaccio, Brunelleschi, Lippi, and later Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Galileo. Seeing these masterpieces with an understanding of their unique intellectual and social expression, is to apprehend the full meaning of one of the fascinating periods in human history, the Florentine Renaissance. Read more…

and if you are in or around New York City in the next few weeks, be sure and see

The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until March 18, 2012.

“We highly recommend The Renaissance Company for its well-balanced educational travel programs in Italy, and anywhere else Deborah and Frank decide to go. Expert organization at a very reasonable cost; and no one can facilitate our appreciation of the beauty and artistic wealth of Italy any better than they can. In depth directed visits to significant sites are combined with ample time on our own.”

Tim Fowler, December 14, 2011

We hope you can join us on Friday evening March 23rd at Georgetown University.

“It is possible to achieve fame and power by using wealth with generosity and magnificentia for important and noble purposes.”
- Leon Battista Alberti, 1452

The Renaissance Court of Urbino

Friday, March 23, 2012

Leavey Center Faculty Club: Reception, 6 PM; Lecture, 7 PM

Reservations due by March 20th to lsp@georgetown.edu

Deborah Ross Warin, MALS ‘93, co-founder and co-director of The Renaissance Tour Company served as the former Director of Georgetown’s Continuing Education and leader in higher education in previous positions as a director of the American Council on Education, assistant vice-president of Trinity University, and adviser to the European Council’s Higher Education, Civil Responsibility and Democracy Initiative in Strasbourg, France. In her forthcoming book, Battista Sforza and the Ducal Court of Urbino, she tells the rich story of the “Duke and Duchess of Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza, who were at the heart of a most brilliant court of their time – a court that reflected the apogee of artistic, intellectual, political, and humanitarian values during the Golden Age of the Renaissance.”

The holidays are here again! We are celebrating by high-lighting three Italian holiday traditions: The Presepio, the Feast of the Seven Fishes, and the Befana & the Feast of the Epiphany.

As well as these time honored traditions, in the spirit of the warmth, grace and beauty of the season, we hope you enjoy our Italian Renaissance holiday greeting below. (Full screen view & audio advised.)

St Francis and the Origins of the Presepio

St Francis and the First Presepio, Giotto

In December 1223, while St Francis was staying with some of his Franciscan brothers outside the town of Greccio, he felt moved by a desire to celebrate the approaching Christmas mass by replicating the scene of poverty and humility in which Jesus had been born. He enlisted the help of his brothers and a noble supporter of the Franciscans, Giovanni Villeta. In a nearby grotto, Villeta set a manger filled with straw and a table above to celebrate mass and brought ox and donkey to the cave.
The stage was set. Friar John Speyer remembered that first Presepio sixteen years later in 1239 : “The hay in the manger was prepared, the ox and the ass were arranged around the manger, and the vigil celebration began with joy. A great multitude of people stream together … the night was filled with an unaccustomed joy and made luminous by candles and torches.”
Giovanni Villeta said that St. Francis was so overcome with emotion at the sight, he picked up the carved image of the baby in the manger and the child “came alive” and smiled at St. Francis. This “Miracle of Greccio” is depicted in Giotto’s fresco cyle in the Basilica of St. Francesco in Assisi. What is certainly true were the words of Friar John, ” And so, a new ritual … is celebrated.”

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

Or La Vigilia. We’ve never heard an authoritative answer as to why seven fishes but it is an entrenched Christmas Eve tradition. It takes awhile to settle on which seven fishes are one’s own favorites for this feast, but we have some excellent wine suggestions from Chain Bridge Cellars for various dishes. To begin the meal, (a marinated salad with crab, octopus and calamari at our house) Pra Soave Classico 2010. Moving on to the clams and muscles followed by pasta with red sauce (with lobster and shrimp), La Mondianese Grignolino. Finally for the main course (Bronzino, risotto and winter squash, broccolini) Taburno Falanghina. As for dessert, poached pears and a little Vin Santo and everyone’s ready for “a long winter’s nap.”

The Befana and the Feast of the Epiphany

The Feast of the Epiphany marks the end of holidays. The day is celebrated in many cities with a Procession of the Magi from the town hall to the Duomo . But that comes after the visit from the The Befana, a witch like character who delivers treats to children during the night on the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany. As with most legends, there are many variations of this story and this is one of them: Long ago an old woman spent her days cleaning her home – dusting, polishing, sweeping from chimney to floor. One evening in the middle of her toil, there was a knock at her door. Broom still in hand, she opened the door and was startled to see three richly clad strangers. They told her they were following a star in search of a newborn king and asked if she knew where the child might be. The Befana was bewildered and said she knew nothing of such a child. The three gentleman asked her to join them in their search but the old woman declined saying she had too much housework to do, closed the door and resumed her endless sweeping. The three men regretfully left her and continued their journey. Not long after dismissing them, the Befana grew troubled. She couldn’t stop thinking about the three exotic strangers and the child they were seeking. Suddenly her housework seemed meaningless – especially as providence seemed to have chosen her, alone in her humble home, for such a invitation. What a fool she had been not to have seen that! Now she saw that she had made her own life so trivial by spending all of her days obsessively cleaning and scrubbing that she had missed the everything – even when the miraculous knocked at her very door. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find the three wise men, go with them and give her own gifts if they found the baby. Desperately, she gathered the most valuable objects she had to give to the child, tied them in a satchel, and ran out the door. She searched and searched through the night but she never found the Magi. Alone, she searches still and because her foolishness kept her from finding the baby they were seeking, she gives gifts to good children the night before the Feast of the Magi.

-Wendi Berkowitz ’11 Traveler

In his 1934 essay “The Best Picture” on Piero’s The Resurrection, Aldous Huxley claimed “…if it were necessary to sacrifice all of Botticelli’s works in order to save The Resurrection, the Madonna della Misericordia and the Arezzo frescoes, I should unhesitatingly commit the Primavera and all the rest of them [Botticelli’s works] to the flames.” Shortly after Huxley’s essay was published, British art lovers began to wear a path between Arezzo with Piero’s spectacular fresco cycle The Legend of the True Cross; to the tiny town of Monterchi which holds The Madonna del Parto (The Pregnant Madonna); to San Sepulcro, Piero’s home town and home to The Resurrection and The Madonna Misericordia and across the Apennines to Urbino and The Flagellation and The Madonna Senigallia. In 1954, one of these  travelers was twenty year old John Pope-Hennessy who decided to find out for himself if Huxley was right. Hennessey added his own “best of” by acclaiming Piero’s The Flagellation as the “greatest small painting in the world.” The trail was popularized in John Mortimer’s novel Summer’s Lease and the BBC and later PBS television series based on it. In the book, a trio of British travelers staying in “Chiantishire” (Tuscany) takes the trail “to see what all the fuss is about.”

What is all the fuss about? My first personal experience (I am not being sentimental here – that is what it is) with Piero was while I was standing in front of The Resurrection in San Sepulchro nearly 20 years ago. (At the time, The Legend of the True Cross was still under restoration.) It was the most arresting painting I had ever seen. Serene, dignified, puzzlingly modern, mysterious, a wholly unique milieu and authentic. Authentic to what, I am not sure I can say. I could say all of the facts about painter and fresco, but as with all of Piero’s work, there is something more. Something so resonant it cannot be named. Enigmatic but real. Too much conventional analysis reduces the mystery of its mesmerizing power. His works always seems more human than divine and yet through their “humanness” they are more sacred than the most reverentially rendered painting. I could not stop looking at it. You want to enter the scene – enter his entirely unique imagination. In this way “transportable” characterizes his painting after all: he takes you to a mysterious place he has imagined and yet a place you recognize some place in your consciousness.

I still gaze at the image of The Resurrection but in a far less satisfying way. I have a large mounted reproduction of it in front of my desk. Four other Piero’s from the trail surround me. I’ve had them in my office – wherever that office has been – since 1995. Visitors unfailingly ask all about the paintings and I obviously enjoy talking about them – yet that’s not why they are there. They resonate beyond their immediate visual asset. Often I see a new metaphor he has worked or a detail yet unnoticed. Or something he has referenced that I had not noticed in 20 years of looking. Sublime little miniatures of light play or a harmonic line I had not seen before. But most of all they resonate because they remind me of seeing the “real” image in its “real” place – of the experience of looking at what the master himself saw when he conceived it and then gave it to the world.