Featured Events Archive

Fall 2009

Orientation Lecture:
The City as a Work of Art
Alick Mclean
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 6:20pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13 Piazza Savonarola 15

Lorenzo de' Medici as Art Patron: A Cost - Benefit Analysis
Jonathan Nelson
Wednesday, September 22, 2009 6:20pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13 Piazza Savonarola 15

Oscar Wilde and the Florentine Tragedy
Joel Kaplan
Tuesday, October 6, 2009 6:20pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13 Piazza Savonarola 15

Michelangelo's Laurentian Library:
The Structure and Patron Behind the Form
Silvia Catitti
Wednesday, November 11, 2009  6:20pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13 Piazza Savonarola 15

 

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Spring 2009

Re-reading Michelangelo
Reinterpretations and new analyses of Michelangelo’s work
Talks by Prof. Rab Hatfield, Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Florence and Prof. Jonathan Nelson, Coordinator of the Art History Department

Wednesday, January 21, 2009 6:20 pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13 Piazza Savonarola 15

Prof. Hatfield will speak about Michelangelo's fortification drawings, reviewing the military situation during the Siege of Florence of 1529-30, review what Michelangelo actually achieved during his term as Governor General of Fortifications, and then propose a redating and reinterpretation of most of his fortification drawings.

Michelangelo's Female Figures: Form Follows Function
Most viewers agree that Michelangelo's women are too muscular, too masculine, and too similar to each other. Prof. Nelson argues that Michelangelo created a range of female types. Moreover, these correspond to the figure’s function. If we learn how to read this body language, we can better understand Michelangelo's works. His female figures, highly praised in the Renaissance Italy, help reveal the artist’s great imagination and creativity.

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Francis, the Holy Jester
Performance by Mario Pirovano
Tuesday, 3 February, 2009
6:20 pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13
Piazza Savonarola 15

Francis the Holy Jester is the English translation of Lu Santo Jullare Francesco, written by the Nobel-prize-winning playwright Dario Fo. Lu Santo has been performed all over Italy by Mario Pirovano, a great friend and collaborator of Fo’s who has worked with the playwright for nearly 25 years. Mario has performed the Italian language version in scores of towns and cities across Italy.  Lu Santo is a one-man show, a play that relies solely on the considerable skill of a highly experienced performer, the artistry of one of the world’s most respected dramatists and the imagination of the audience.

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La legge e il sorriso
The Consul General of the United States of America Mary Ellen Countryman with
Vice President of the Region of Tuscany Federico Gelli
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
6:20 pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13
Piazza Savonarola 15

La legge e il sorriso, by Federico Gelli, is a lively account of the Region of Tuscany’s commitment to the education of the youth on the subject of legality and its engagement in the struggle against the Mafia. Syracuse University in Florence has been collaborating with regional institutions promoting projects involving its students in the education for democratic legality, including the volunteer program in Sicily.

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A Transatlantic Dialogue on Migration
An international conference co-organized by Syracuse University in
Florence and New York University with European University Institute and
the Facolta’ di Legge and Scienze Politiche of the Universita’ di Firenze

The two-day conference will take place on March 23-24, 2009, at NYU’s
Villa La Pietra and the Salone de’ Dugento at Palazzo Vecchio respectively.

In recent decades both Europe and the United States have seen an
increase in immigration and growing public controversy surrounding
government initiatives to address it. This exceptional partnership
between European and American academic institutions in Florence brings
prominent international scholars, policy makers and practitioners
together to discuss critical issues surrounding immigration, its impact
on public policy, the complex inter-relationship between national policy
and local practice, and to suggest reflections on immigrants' rights,
cultural diversity and national identity, which have stirred such
passions on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Civic Space in Scattered Cities
SUF School of Architecture Symposium
March 25, 2009
3.30pm
Ospedale degli Innocenti, Salone Brunelleschi
Piazza SS. Annuziata, Florence

As the world’s cities continue to expand, with more than 50% of the current population urbanized, urban form becomes increasingly spotty and disconnected. Despite their greater size and productivity, cities generally have not made a corresponding investment in the public realm. The aesthetic, social, and environmental problems of low-density sprawl beg for attention. This year’s Syracuse Architecture Symposium offers the theme of "Civic Space in Scattered Cities" to explore the possibilities of creating culturally significant forms in the urban hinterlands of Europe and North America. Three distinguished architects and urbanists will present projects and strategies that address the spatial and social anomalies of the fragmented city. Their differing approaches to formal, technical, and sociological solutions will lead to a lively debate about civic identity in the increasingly diffuse metropolitan city.

Principal participants:
Margaret Crawford, Professor, GSD Harvard University
Teddy Cruz, Architect, Estudio Teddy Cruz, San Diego
Winy Maas, Architect Principal of MVRDV, Rotterdam

Co-curated by Lawrence Davis, Syracuse Architecure; Richard Ingersol, SUF; and Pino Burgellis, Targetti Foundation.

Co-sponsored:
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Syracuse University in Florence
Targetti Foundation

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Drawing the Other: Works on Paper by SU and SUF Faculty
Vernissage: April 2 at 6pm
Dates: April 2 - May 2, 2009
Open to the public Thurs-Sat, from 5pm-8pm.
SUF Art Gallery
Via dei Della Robbia, 99

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Fall 2008

Fall Inaugural Lecture in collaboration with the SUF School of Architecture
Palladio and the Design of Battle
500 Year Anniversary of the Birth of Palladio
Guido Beltramini
Director of the Centro Internazionale di
Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio in Vicenza
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
6:20 pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13
Piazza Savonarola 15

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Defiance: The Story of One man Who Stood Up to the Sicilian Mafia
Peppino Impastato on the Thirtieth Anniversary of his Death
Tom Behan
Wednesday, October 6
6:20 pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13
Piazza Savonarola 15

Behan, Senior Lecturer at the School of European Culture and Languages of the University of Kent (UK) where he teaches a course on Cosa nostra, is an expert on the Camorra and the Mafia and has published many books on the subject.

Behan will speak about the growing popularity of the figure of Peppino Impastato (1948-78), largely unknown outside of his home town of Cinisi durino his lifetime. In recent years Impastato has become known on an international scale for having made a series of changes necessary for a meaningful battle against the Mafia.

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SWAP: Selected Works by Art Professors
Gettysburg College
Vernissage: October 8, 2008
6:15 pm
SUF Art Gallery, Via dei Della Robbia 99
Exhibit open October 9 - November 1, 2008
Thursday - Saturday, 5pm - 8pm

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Herbert Horne's Botticelli: The Scholar and the Painter
A Three-Day Conference to Celebrate the 100th Anniversary
of a Landmark Monograph
October 9-11, 2008
Villa I Tatti
The Harvard University Center
for Italian Renaissance Studies
Syracuse University in Florence
Fondazione Horne

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SUF Student Day Celebration
& Faculty and Staff Art Show
December 11, 2008
SUF Art Gallery

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FIA Graduate Student Symposium: Gestures in Italian Renaissance Painting
Friday, December 12, 2008
3:00pm
Villa Rossa, Room 13
Piazza Savonarola 15

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Fall 2007

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Focus: Current Approaches to Photography
Works from Santa Clara University Professors Renee Billingslea, Susan Felter and David Pace
Opening September 19, 6pm
SUF Art Gallery
Via della Robbia, 99
Exhibit runs September 20 to October 14 (Thursday to Saturday, 5pm to 8pm)

The inaugural exhibit of Contemporary Visions: Encounters with Art, an initiative developed in collaboration with the SUF Studio Arts Department. Accompanied by artists’ lecture and discussion that will take place in the gallery space, providing a context for the dialogue.

This new initiative is inaugurated with an exchange exhibit with faculty colleagues at Santa Clara University, an institution that has a long and rich tradition of academic partnership with SUF. In the spring of 2007, SUF Photography Professors Stefania Talini and Francesco Guazzelli, together with their colleague Maurizio Berlincioni, presented their work at the Gallery of the Department of Art and Art History at Santa Clara University. This fall SUF is honored to present an exhibit of the photography faculty from Santa Clara University: Renee Billingslea, Susan Felter, and David Pace.

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An Englishman Across the Arno: A Tribute to Thomas Patch (1725-1782)
Inauguration September 21, 12 noon
Sala Bianca, Pitti Palace
Piazza Pitti

SUF supported the restoration of the painting The Eruption of Vesuvius, part of the small exhibit dedicated to the English artist Thomas Patch, an 18th-century English painter who resided in Florence.

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The Private Life of an Arts Documentary: How Art History Challenges the BBC and Viewers
Ian Jones
September 24
Villa Rossa, room 13, 6:15pm

Of all art forms, the visual arts seem best suited to television.  The camera can show paintings and sculptures in ways that seem to surpass a visit to the gallery: huge, High-Definition close-ups, beautifully lit; crane shots that allow the viewer to look straight into the eyes of Michelangelo's David; views of the back of a canvas, as seen in a conservation studio.  But television has struggled over the years to find the best way to relate the history of art.  Focusing on Michelangelo's David, Botticelli's Primavera, and Leonardo's Last Supper, this talk examines how producers have moved from televised lectures, through presenter-led tours of Italy, to drama-based programs in an attempt to find a solution.  But one basic challenge always remains: how to relate the richness and complexity of art history while still telling a gripping and accessible story.  How do you make the art the hero of the your program, rather than the artist—or even the presenter?

Ian Jones is a television producer and director, working mainly in the field of arts documentary.  After spells with The Discovery Channel UK and the BBC, he went freelance and began to concentrate on making visual arts programs.  Over the past seven years, he has produced and directed six episodes of The Private Life of a Masterpiece, the BBC's most in-depth and critically acclaimed series on the fine arts in recent years.  For the series, Ian has concentrated largely on Italian art of the Renaissance: Michelangelo's David, Botticelli's Primavera, Uccello's Battle of San Romano, and Leonardo's Last Supper.  As well as to Italy, the series has taken him to Rome, Paris, Oslo, Munich, New York, Los Angeles and Tahiti.  He is currently developing a new arts series for the BBC.

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Slavery and the Renaissance Art World

Carl Brandon Strehlke

October 1
Villa Rossa, room 13, 6:15pm

African, Greek, and Tartar slaves were a common sight in Renaissance Europe. While scholarship has studied their social status, this lecture will consider their contributions to the societies in which they found themselves, and, in particular, to the arts in Italy and Spain. It will look at how artists represented slaves, but also at artists who were slave owners, and slaves who were artists. The remarkably well-documented story of Lluc, a Tartar slave working as a painter in the Crown of Aragon in the early 1400s, will help students to understand how a traditional painter’s workshop was run, and how an artist organized his working life.

Strehlke is adjunct curator of the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where he has worked since 1983. He recently published a catalogue of the early Italian paintings of that collection and curated an exhibition on portraits by Pontormo and Bronzino. He is now preparing an exhibition on fifteenth century painting in the Kingdom of Aragon.

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The Mafia Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (In-class lecture)
Franco Di Maria
October 10
Villa Rossa, room 13, 6:15pm

The mafia constitutes a criminal phenomenon which has been generally studied from a historical as well as a sociological perspective. This lecture explores a new and innovative approach to the Mafia as a form of collective psychopathology. Franco Di Maria will illustrate the genesis and development of the psychological research on the mafia and how this field of research has investigated the so-called “Mafia feeling.” The Mafia will be analyzed as a subtle form of social psychopathology, more precisely, a peculiar kind of ethnic depressive syndrome. Special attention will be devoted to the role of women in the formation and transmission of Mafia feeling and to the relationship between teenagers and the Mafia feeling. Finally, the lecture will address issues such as the transformation of the Mafia’s new organizational strategies and frontiers and the collusions between the Mafia feeling on one side, and the political and economic systems on the other.

Dr. Di Maria teaches Dynamic Psychology at the Univ. of Palermo, and is a psychotherapist and group analyst. He has experience in counseling and psycho-social formation in public and private institutions. He is President of IAGP.it (Italian Association of Group Psychotherapy) since 2006.

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Whistler in Italy:
His Work and Influence
Opening November 21, 6:15pm
SUF Art Gallery
Via Della Robbia, 99

A selection of prints from James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Venice sojourn, examining the impact they had on other artists who traveled to Italy in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries

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Book presentation
The Likeness of Venice: A Life of Doge Francesco Foscari, 1373-1457
Dennis Romano, SU
November 28
Villa Rossa, room 13, 6:15pm

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Villa Rossa Book Series Presentation Under the Devil’s Spell: Witches, Sorcerers, and the Inquisition in Renaissance Italy
Matteo Duni, SUF
December 3, 5pm
Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento, Palazzo Strozzi

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Villa Rossa Book Series Presentation
Italian Art, Society, and Politics: A Festschrift for Rab Hatfield
December 13, 8pm
Galleria dell’Accademia
via Ricasoli, 58-60

A collection of essays in honor of Rab Hatfield, edited by Barbara Deimling, Jonathan K. Nelson and Gary M. Radke

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