Seminar:

‍An overview of the tradition of the virtues and vices in philosophy, literature, and the visual arts (with brief guest appearances by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Giotto, Lorenzetti, Michelangelo, and others). This seminar will take place in the monastery library.

Guided Tour:

This afternoon we will become familiar with the town of Orvieto, Urbs Vetus, the old city, as it was once called in Latin, by way of its churches and civic buildings, piazzas and palazzi, convents and monasteries, shops and cafès. We make our first visit to the Duomo: the 14th-century cathedral, richly decorated, and its Chapel of San Brizio, frescoed with scenes from classical writers, Dante’s Divine Comedy, the End Times and the Last Judgment, and the choir of saints singing the Te Deum–one of the most acclaimed fresco cycles of Renaissance Europe.

Conversation:

How does sophisticated visual art exercise its effect on our sensibility (and on our moral compass and character)?

Excursion: Siena‍

This morning we’ll travel to Siena, medieval arch rival of Florence, exuberant in style and art. Focusing on the two main piazzas, we will visit the black-and-white striped Duomo, the town hall (Palazzo Pubblico) with its frescoes of Good and Bad Government framing the council chamber of the Nine, and the medieval hospital (Ospedale), with the works of mercy depicted on the frescoed walls of the great hall.

‍Conversation:

‍We’ll return to Monastery San Ludovico for an evening conversation about Virtue (and Vice) in the Public Square: then and now.

‍Mass:

‍The morning will be free for those wishing to join Dr. Skillen to attend a Sunday mass either in the majestic Duomo or in the beloved parish church of San Giovenale (named for the evangelist who brought the faith to southern Umbria), where worship has continued since its founding in 1004.

Local excursion:

‍Today we’ll honor the day of rest with an invigorating country walk to the Cappucchin monastery on the opposite hill, with stupendous vista of Orvieto, or with a visit to a local family winery in their ancestral villa, a one-time medieval monastery built over the fifth-century Etruscan foundations. The quiet theme of the day: the continuity of place and community, rich with resonance.‍

Conversation: ‍

A Socratic conversation, taking up these topics:

• How can, might, should we teach virtue?
• What is the difference between teaching about the virtues and fostering virtue?
• In what ways does virtue relate to civic responsibility and engagement?

Excursion: Florence

‍This morning we’ll depart for the great medieval and renaissance city of Florence. Together we will visit the Baptistry and the Bell Tower of the Cathedral, the Town Hall and its Loggia and its piazza, the guilds’ chapel Orsanmichele, the Franciscan monastery of Santa Croce and the Dominican monasteries of San Marco and Santa Maria Novella.

In this journey across the city, we’ll experience the unfolding of art and history from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. Together, these places add up to a vivid apprehension of how every element of civic, religious, and commercial life are brought into coherence in the design of medieval-Renaissance cities, fostering the ideas and affections that shaped medieval and Renaissance culture and society.

Seminar: Virtue and Public Practice

‍Drawing on the examples of Orvieto, Siena, and Florence, we will consider how the civic design and “built environments” of towns and cities–including their public art–may have influenced the dispositions toward virtue (and vice) in the citizenry of that earlier epoch. As points of reference, we can turn to Plato’s and Aristotle’s descriptions of the polis, and to the Inferno and Purgatorio for Dante’s exploration of the interplay between political life and moral condition.

Discussion: Fostering the Virtues in our own schools

‍For context, what do we see as the dispositions toward virtue and vice as fostered by the civic design and the use of the arts in the cities and towns of our own society?

How does the architecture, interior design, and decorative elements of our schools subtly encourage (or discourage) the virtues we wish to cultivate in our students?

In the Renaissance, public art was assumed to have educative value; no argument needed. How would you go about persuading parents, donors, board members, civic funding agencies, that (sometimes expensive) art has positive pedagogical and behavioral impact (or “value”)?

Check-out:

‍After checking out of our convent in Orvieto we’ll travel to Rome where we’ll spend the final two days or our journey focusing on the repurposing of pagan classical temples and public buildings into places of Christian worship.

Excursion: Rome

‍As we arrive in the Eternal City, we’ll explore some of Christendom’s earliest churches, among them the vast Santa Maria Maggiore, constructed on the model of a Roman basilica, and the nearby diminutive churches dedicated to the martyred sister saints Pudenziana and Prassede; the Baths of Diocletian, in ruin and refurbished (with Michelangelo called in as the architect) as the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Angels and Martyrs.

After lunch and checking into our hotel, we will visit the Pantheon–temple of all the gods re-dedicated as a church in honor of the panoply of Christian martyrs—and the adjacent church of Santa Maria built on the site of the temple to the goddess Minerva. Then to Piazza Navona, repurposed from the Roman sports stadium, with Bernini’s fountain of the Four Rivers and the jewel of a church honoring the young martyr Saint Agnes, stopping on the way to see Caravaggio’s masterpiece of the Calling of Matthew in the church of the French community.

Excursion: Day 2 Rome

This morning we’ll continue our discovery of the layers of Christian virtue through the centuries with a visit to the church of San Clemente, begun as a first-century house church in a convert’s villa near the Colosseum. From the 12th-century nave of the present-day church, we can descend into the underground layers of the church and the ancient neighborhood, excavated in the 19th century. Our morning will conclude with a visit to the Roman Forum and the church of Saints Cosmos and Damian. The afternoon is free for exploring Rome until our final Italian dinner and evening discussion.

Final Discussion:

‍In what circumstances can we re-purpose or re-dedicate the “temples” of our contemporary built environment into “schools of Christ” (in St. Benedict’s phrase)?

After an early breakfast in our hotel we’ll say farewell to the Eternal City and head to the airport for a final goodbye and to catch our flight home.