Returning to Perugia

Waiting for gli studenti

The Franciscan Heritage Semester Study Abroad Program (FHP) 2010 is scheduled to resume in a few days with the arrival of our intrepid cohort of St. Bonaventure students: Evan Comins, Amie Marasco, Kara Telfer, Abby Schaaf and Ryan O’Donnell. Kara and Abby are education majors who are taking advantage of the special opportunities that FHP offers. They will be taking courses that have been approved for education majors, including Developmental Psychology, language and Clare College courses. In addition, Kara and Abby will be interning at the Perugia Montesorri school. Evan and Amie will be completing a series of courses that will virtually complete the requirements for an International Business minor. Their course schedule will include several business courses that focus on European and global business practices, including the politics and economics of the European Union, and, of course, they will study Italian. Their semester will be topped off by a month long internship with the Costa D’Oro Olive Oil Company in nearby Spoleto. And Ryan is enrolled in the “full immersion” Italian language and culture program. This is a unique program in which students attend Perugia’s Universita per Stranieri (University for Foreigners) studying Italian while their progress is monitored by the Umbra Institute, which awards credits transferable to American universities.

(Above: That's Mrs. C on Corso Vanucci, still decorated for Christmas. Right below: Ryan enjoys the first of many pizzas at the Cafe di Perugia.)

Ryan is already here (his program starts a few days earlier) and the other students will arrive soon. I thought that this might be a good time to resume blogging. Before the program starts in earnest I thought it would be a good opportunity to update our activities since last year.

Last summer, Mrs. C and I visited three of our AFCU (Association of Franciscan Colleges and Universities) partner campuses, Hilbert College, Neumann University and Felician College, greeting old friends and making some new ones for the program. We are looking forward to their participation, hopefully for spring, 2011. We’ll be attending the AFCU Symposium this summer at USF Fort Wayne, IN, and will encourage wider participation by AFCU schools. To date, we have enrolled students from Alvernia, Neumann, USF Ft. Wayne, Marian, as well as SBU.

Spring 2009 highlights

(From left to right: Senora Traub waiting for the bus to Todi;
Mrs. C leads Umbra Seder; Gerry Straub leads Assisi retreat; clockwise: Gilberto Zapitello, Tim Noone, Judy C., Colleen Noone climbing Mt. Subasio; Jacques Dalarun overlooking the Spoleto Valley, Mt. Subasio and Assisi.)

To review some of the highlights of last year’s program: We were happy to host, Dr. Maria Traub, of Neumann University, whose course, “Saints and Relics” integrated field trips to the sites of saints whose relics are found throughout Italy, with many Franciscan saints in Umbria. In January, we welcomed the internationally renowned Franciscan scholar, Jacque Dalarun, who gave a fascinating presentation illustrating his paleographic and interpretive skills on the famous autograph letter of Francis to Leo (which we were later to view in the Duomo in Spoleto.) Later in the semester, we hosted a Passover Seder, led by Mrs. C, and attended by students of various faiths. We organized a lenten retreat at Casa Papa Giovanni, in Assisi, lead by the well-known Franciscan film maker Gerry Straub, and attended by Tim Noone (yes, another famous scholar) and his wife, Colleen, and the Italian philosopher Gilberto Zapitello. Of course, we also took students on field trips to Assisi, Montecasale, and La Verna in conjunction with my course on “Contemporary Global Issues: The Franciscan World View.” We look forward to resuming many of these special events, and an expanded range of courses and visitors with more students participating in 2011.

Mrs. C’s famous melanzane parmigiana

Back in the US this fall, we sponsored the visit of Tom Cornell of the Catholic Worker Movement, Pax Christi, and the Catholic Peace Fellowship Tom is credited with organizing the very first anti-Viet Nam war demonstration in 1963, and the first corporate act of resistance to the Viet Nam War, the burning of draft cards, in 1965. (See picture on the left from NYTimes, 1965.) We first met Tom in Assisi in March, 2008, where he led a conference on the issue of conscientious objector status for Catholic GIs. He was returning from an audience with Pope Benedict regarding the CO question, and was accompanied by a former Abu Ghraib interrogator, Joshua Casteel, who had recently won a CO discharge as a Catholic pacifist. While at SBU, Tom visited several classes, lectured to the University Forum, and visited the Olean cabin where Thomas Merton summered with Robert Lax. (See photo on the right for Tom in Lax's cabin.)

Finally, no update would be complete if I didn’t mention the visit to SBU of several of my students from the previous spring: Nikki Tarantula and Ashlee Serik, from Neumann, and Patrick Craven from Elon U. They were visiting their Bonaventure friends Phil Penepent and Noel Baylor. Patrick also had a more "serious" purpose: he had decided to write his senior thesis on "Franciscan Theology of Creation and Community Supported Agriculture," and so I was happy to bring him to Mt. Irenaeus and Canticle Farm to interview Franciscan brothers and sisters whose ministries embodied the spirit of Francis and nature. (See photo above of Patrick at Canticle Farm with Sister Joyce Ramage, Farmer Mark Printz, and unnamed dog.)

Of course, we could not let the leave western New York without a fine dinner of Mrs. C's famous melanzane parmigiana (eggplant parmesan) !!!!

(Above is a picture of -- clockwise -- Ashlee, Nikki, the C's, Phil, Noel and Patrick. Notice the clean plates and the conspicuous bottle of Costa D'oro's Il Grezzo on the table.)

Next: The Magi visit Perugia

Siamo qui ancora! (Here we are again!)

Here we are again in Perugia for another semester of the Franciscan Heritage Program. We’re back on Paradise Street, la via de Paradiso, but this time we had to leave Dodger back in the US. So we are senza cane! Besides saving a lot of money and customs hassles, we are now considerably freer to enjoy our leisure time in Italy. Although we are far from home I have not lost my addiction to news, especially political news. And the two big items here have been the war in Gaza and the impending inauguration of Obama. We'll get into that later; first the basics.

Perugia is a very small city perched upon a saddle-back hill-top overlooking the Spoleto Valley built millennia ago by Etruscans. The Etruscans built a huge wall around the original city, much of which still stands. Another wall was built, I believe in the middle ages a few hundred meters beyond the original one. Our home is below the Etruscan wall, but inside the medieval wall, beyond which is a unremarkable modern Italian city. Our apartment is in a 1,000 year old building from which troops once guarded two of the gates of the medieval wall. In the next picture, you can see our little apartment as viewed through the Porta Eburnea, in the outer medieval wall. Look up the street and you'll see a yellow wall.

Look closely, that's me inside the window blogging away

But although old, walled and relatively remote, Perugia is surprisingly in touch with the rest of the world. This is probably due to the presence of the Universita per Stanieri (The university for foreigners) to which students come from all over the world in order to study the beautiful lingua italiana. And many never leave.

Sun and Moon over Monteluco

The region of Umbria is filled with sites that were important to Francis of Assisi and his brothers. Francis, it seemed, was always on the lookout for places of solitude and spectacular natural beauty. And one of the great rewards of living here is to discover them – especially with friends and students. Of course, places of solitude are by necessity hard to reach, and by the same token, places of spectacular beauty are worth the effort. One such place is Monteluco and we’ve been there twice already. (I got this picture of the moon zooming over Monteluco on a bright sunny February afternoon! On the right is a hazy shot of the Spoleto valley seen from Monteluco. If you look closely you can see a small white strip on the hillside at the center of the picture. That's Assisi, about 23 miles away, a view I am sure that Francis himself once enjoyed.

The first was organized by our colleague and ex-pat extraordinaire, Cindy Clough. “Cinzia” had emailed the entire Umbra community with an invitation to a communal hike. Knowing that this was an important Franciscan spot I encouraged my students to join us on the trek. Sure enough, that Saturday about three of them spilled into the last early train to Spoleto seconds before it left the station. Arriving at Spoleto, a wonderful town that merits a blog post of its own, we walked from the station to the Piazza della Liberta, where our plucky gang of pilgrims had gathered and we begain the hike proper. The weather was wonderful – one of those spring-like February days that often happen in the Italian February -- but I am sorry to report that the hike itself gave new poignancy to the question, “are we there yet?” as we walked switchback to switchback up to the 2,700 foot summit. Awaiting us were the spectacular views of the Spoleto Valley, the Sacred Grove, forbidden to woodcutters by an ancient Roman law, and the Primitivo Convento, established by Francis who visited in 1218. But our primary objective was Ferretti’s trattoria and its famed porcini-stuffed ravioli in lemon sauce. (On the left above is a shot that helps explain why this grove has been considered sacred for thousands of years; on the right is the graffitti fresco over the door to Francis's cell in the Convento Primitivo; the door is about a meter high, mattress a plank, and his pillow a log as you can see on the lower left.)

Sadly, our slow climb (and ravioli) plus our concern about making the last train back to Perugia did not allow us to linger at the peak. I was able to break away from our pranzo long enough to walk through the convento and the sacred grove, but not long enough to take in the view which was just beyond the woods and convent. Meanwhile, back at Ferretti's gli studenti await their secondi piatti. (That's Andrea, second from bottom, followed by Heather in center.)

The following week we returned with our friend Gilberto, for a more leisurely – but much colder – experience of this most remarkable place. To the left is a picture of a triumphant Gilberto, having conquered Monteluco in his Fiat Panda and trusty GPS. Bravo Gilberto!