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When Bruce Siska, Jason Halter, Matt Lysne, Ed Muehlberg, and Ernesto Teran arrived in Florence for the one-year Master of Architecture program in the fall of 1994, they were five strangers among a class of eleven. By the time they left the following spring, they were something closer to brothers. Thirty years later, that bond hasn’t faded — and when Bruce returned to Villa Rossa last year, it brought a flood of memories that Bruce, Matt, and Ed were happy to share.

“I think we can all agree that our year in Florence was pretty epic, life changing, and beyond memorable,” Bruce said.

An Apartment Lost, and a Friendship Found

The five almost didn’t have a place to live. Within their first days in the city, a young count offered to rent the group an apartment overlooking the Arno. They shook hands and agreed to meet the next morning at Villa Rossa — only to watch, on their way out, four pretty female students from Florida State arrive to tour the same place. Sure enough, the count never showed the next day.

Bruce and Jason spent the next week sleeping on their drafting tables in the M.Arch studio while the search continued. It wasn’t all bad — the two met a slew of memorable people during those homeless days, including a countess who hosted them at her palazzo near Santa Croce. “Toward the end of that week, we had dragged all of our luggage down to Ernesto’s apartment only to find he was out,” Bruce recalled. Defeated, they hauled their bags to Piazza Santa Croce and sat down to watch a group of local boys playing soccer. When one of the younger boys took a ball to the face, his friends picked him up, dusted him off, and sent him right back into the game.

“We had an epiphany at that moment that life wasn’t so bad,” Bruce said. They found an apartment the next day.

Lunch, Foosball, and a Year Planned to the Day

Their professor, Steven Peterson — known to the group simply as “Coach” — spent that year in Florence with his wife, architect Barbara Littenberg, and ran the program with a rhythm the group still remembers fondly. “Coach had the year planned out to the day,” Bruce said. “He planned out the projects we would be working on and designing, then we would travel to places that related to each project.”

Days fell into a routine: mornings in class, lunch together at Taverna degli Artisti around the corner, foosball at Villa Rossa, studio in the afternoon, and — depending on discipline — a pint or two at the Old Stove Pub before heading home, followed by a return to studio to “work” late into the night, a term Bruce admits was often used loosely.

The classes themselves left an impression, too: Giorgio Ciucci’s course was, in Bruce’s words, unreal, and Marcello Fantoni taught a class devoted entirely to the Medici dynasty. Ciucci later invited the group to his home in Rome for aperitivi and snacks — the kind of hospitality, Matt said, that “is real” in Italy in a way that’s hard to describe to people who haven’t experienced it.

When Ed was asked, in a job interview shortly after returning to the U.S., what his favorite part of studying abroad had been, one word came out before he could stop it: “Lunch.”

“I quickly had to elaborate that part of our daily routine was stopping what we were doing and meeting up at Taverna degli Artisti,” Ed said. “It was this routine and focus — enjoying good food and company — that I liked the most about my time in Florence.” He got the job, for what it’s worth.

Lost in Translation

Cross-cultural mishaps were a constant, and the group still keeps a running list of favorites. There was the class with Giorgio Ciucci, in which the students spent several confused minutes trying to understand why he kept insisting “the cows are in the woods” — before realizing he meant chaos, not cattle. There was Matt’s trip to pick up his girlfriend (now wife) in Milan, where he asked Architecture Assistant Carla Fioravanti for a hotel recommendation. She booked him a room at the Hotel Monopoli, and he walked past the sign twice, unable to reconcile her pronunciation (“moh noh polly”) with the board game stamped into his American brain.

Ed learned Italian the hard way, one word at a time. “We had to quickly learn some key Italian words — like sciopero (strike) — to understand why the bus suddenly stopped mid-route, why the grocery stores were randomly closed, why the trains stopped running, and so on,” he said. He also discovered, more slowly than he’d like to admit, that Florentines judge newcomers by their shoes. Once he traded his hiking boots for proper Italian leather, he noticed people on the street actually looking up and saying ciao.

Then there was the train strike that stranded the whole group in Venice, forcing Coach to scramble for last-minute lodging and tickets home — just one more afternoon that became a story they’d tell for decades.

Learning to Live at a Different Speed

For a group of Americans used to checking things off a list, Florence had a way of humbling even the most organized among them. Ed, a committed list-maker, quickly learned that trying to run more than one errand a day was asking for trouble. Between random strikes, unannounced religious holidays, and shops that simply closed when they felt like it, efficiency wasn’t really on the table. “If a store was closed, that just meant you now had time to grab an espresso and sit in the piazza for a while and watch the kids play soccer against some historic church,” he said.

Money brought out a competitive streak. Back when travelers’ checks were still a thing, exchange rates and fees seemed to vary wildly from teller to teller, with no obvious logic. Ed and Matt once tested this directly — walking into the same bank, at the same time, to cash in the same amount of checks — and walked out with different rates. Matt came out ahead. Ed, by his own admission, is still a little bitter about it.

Mail was its own adventure. One spring afternoon, Matt got a call from a friend back home who had just landed in Florence, wanting directions to the apartment. Matt figured he’d been given a heads-up and hadn’t caught it — until dinner, when his friend mentioned the letter he’d sent explaining the visit. That letter, postmarked in Minneapolis in early January, arrived three days after his friend had already come and gone.

What Stayed With Them

All three credit the year with shaping not just their careers, but how they’ve approached life since. Bruce went on to open his own architecture practice. Matt has led study-abroad trips of his own, drawing directly on his Syracuse experience, and still finds himself solving problems today with ideas from studio projects that once annoyed him. Ed says the year taught him to slow down, ask questions, and stay level-headed under pressure — lessons that have mattered more in his personal life than his professional one.

Both Bruce and Matt have been back to Florence since — Bruce twice, once with his own two sons in tow. “Thankfully the city has not changed, aesthetically,” Bruce said. “There is a more relaxed feeling when you know you will be living in the city for a good amount of time… to slow down daily life and appreciate that was one of the things I will always remember.” Matt made a similar pilgrimage in 2016, walking his own family past his old apartment building, the old studio space (now, fittingly, a bar), and back around Villa Rossa.

Three decades on, the group’s five has multiplied. Each of them married and started a family, and by Matt’s count the five friends have turned into twenty between them — give or take, since Bruce “blew it” by having two sons instead of the two-and-two split that would have made the math even neater.

Their advice for today’s students is nearly unanimous: use your Italian, however bad it is. Keep a journal or sketchbook and write down everything, every day — the people, the places, the small stuff — because in a few years, you’ll be glad you did. Don’t rush your days off; you’ll know you’ve truly settled in once you can spend one without an agenda. And, as Ed put it, when something goes wrong, “take a step back and look around, and remember where you are and what you are actually doing. That solves most problems.”

Oh — and skip the tripe.

Griffin and Will met by accident — a last-minute plane seat, a roommate’s invitation, an apartment near Villa Rossa with room for one more — and turned it into something that’s lasted years past the semester that started it. What began over shared taste in music and art became weekend trips across Italy, late nights making art together, and a standing Tuesday ritual in Piazza Savonarola that turned into a tradition six friends still hold onto, now bittersweet since losing their friend Isaac. Griffin found a second family in his host parents, Manlio and Vera; Will found the confidence that comes from leaning into the unfamiliar. Back home in New York City, they shared their memories of the semester that changed them.

You met on the Syracuse Florence program. Please tell us about that.

Griffin: It was very serendipitous! On the initial flight to Florence, I was sitting in the middle aisle with my friend and roommate Nick DeSantis when someone rushed on the plane last minute and sat directly next to him. He and Nick started instantly bantering, and that banter led to us meeting our first friend in Florence: Austin Dickieson. Early in the semester Austin hosted some people at his apartment where he was living with five other art students, and Will was one of his roommates. That night Will and I immediately connected over similar music taste, a shared love of making art, and a general instinct that we were meant to become friends.

Soon after that, we began travelling together on weekends, and his entire apartment became my closest friends in Florence. Each night after I finished eating dinner and chatting with my host family, I’d rush over to Will’s apartment to hang out with everyone. We all bonded with each other very quickly, and spent many nights making collaborative drawings, exploring Florence and enjoying each other’s company. After our senior year of college, my friend Dan Janzow and I went to Santa Clara University to visit Will and our other friends from abroad and celebrate their graduation with them.

Since then, we’ve remained close and now both live in New York City, where I’m from! Will has met many of my friends from home and has really ingratiated himself into the community I’ve built here, which has been amazing.

Will: I knew several Santa Clara students who I was going to be living with in an apartment in Florence. What an incredible experience! When we first arrived, my roommate Austin had let me know immediately of a few students he met on his flight over to Italy that he befriended, and how I needed to meet them. During the first week we invited some students over to our apartment including Griffin, and he and I immediately hit it off. Griffin and I were constantly together. He and I in particular were always exploring the city, creating art, and documenting and photographing our experiences.

Do you have any funny/touching stories about adjusting to living in Italy?

Griffin: One of the first days in Florence I went to [the grocery store] Esselunga with some of the friends I’ve mentioned above, and we noticed that they sold packs of exactly two beers. For some reason, that quantity of beer was very amusing to us as we hadn’t ever seen it packaged that way in the U.S. At that moment we came up with the idea of Two Pack Tuesday where we would meet every Tuesday night in Piazza Savonarola, and each consume exactly two beers. It ended up being a really memorable ritual, and each week we would invite different people from SU Florence to join us. We still talk about it today and hope to gather everyone together again one day for another Two Pack outside of Villa Rossa. Tragically, our close friend Isaac Scharbach passed away soon after the semester ended, and this future Two Pack meeting will definitely be dedicated to him.

Will: Two Pack Tuesday! What a silly little tradition that has grown to mean so much! We were so amused by the two-packs at Esselunga that the six of us decided to make it a weekly ritual to gather in the park and discuss the happenings of the week over a pair of beverages and great company. And we’re still in touch! All of us remain great friends to this day, and I see Nick and Griffin almost weekly since we all live in NYC. I even also lived with Dan in Massachusetts for a year after college!

It was so tragic to hear about the passing of our friend Isaac right after the program, and it will be such a special moment when we can all gather in Piazza Savonarola and honor him. Special shoutout to Nick, Griffin, Dan, Austin, and Isaac, who I was lucky enough to share a few “Two-Packs” with. I also had an incredible experience playing soccer through the Syracuse program against other programs in the area. The competition was ripe! And it was fun to gather with everyone in the evenings for some good games. So many memories!

What were your host family situations like?

Griffin: My roommate Nick and I lived with an older couple named Manlio and Vera in a beautiful apartment near Santa Croce. My dad has a friend whose daughter lived with them a few years before during her semester abroad and she recommended that we request them as host parents. I’m beyond grateful that ended up happening, because my experience wouldn’t have been nearly the same without them. They are some of the most lovely and caring people I’ve ever met, and we were all immediately endeared to each other. Apparently, before us they hadn’t hosted male students before and were very surprised when we requested them.

During those four months they really made Nick and I feel as if we had always been members of their family. We developed a shared language to communicate with each other that consisted of our basic Italian, their basic English, and Nick’s absurd hybrid of body movements/dance/exaggerated facial expressions. Each night they cooked us some of the best meals of our lives and lovingly shooed us away to go have fun when we tried to help clean up. We all hugged and cried the very last moment we said goodbye before leaving for the airport to head back home.

Will and I returned to Florence last June to visit for the first time since 2019 and had dinner with Manlio and Vera in their apartment. Reuniting with them was really emotional, and was one of the most wholesome, meaningful nights of my life thus far.

Will: I lived with four SCU students and one UVM art student in a lovely little apartment right near Villa Rossa. We made it a ritual to grocery shop at Esselunga almost every day and quickly got into a rhythm of cooking, commuting to class, etc. I even found a gym that I joined with Austin!

How did your study abroad experience influence your life afterward?

Griffin: I really feel that my semester abroad changed everything for me. Since returning to the U.S. in 2019, I’ve developed a strong passion for travel, and I’m more interested in exploring other countries’ cultures than I ever was before. Having grown up as a picky eater as
well, living with a host family broadened my culinary horizons and changed my dietary patterns for the better. I think about my experience in Florence daily, and it’s remained a very important city to me all these years later. In the future I hope to return to Europe for at least a year, as I know I wouldn’t be content with myself if I didn’t attempt to have another similar experience to my time in Florence. I’m even solo travelling to Warsaw and Krakow for the first time in two weeks, something I definitely wouldn’t have had the confidence to do without my semester abroad.

Will: My experience abroad was maybe the best 4-month stretch of my whole life. And I don’t say that lightly. I did an incredible amount of living and traveling in such a short period of time. And to be completely immersed in another country and culture is something that challenged me and inspired me to get out of my shell in so many ways.

Advice for current students?

Griffin: My main advice is to make the most of every single moment. Before you know it the
semester will be done and you’ll be wishing you were back in Florence! Spend as much time as you physically can just walking around and exploring the city, and as little time as possible in your room on your phone or laptop — there will be time for that when you get back home! During my semester, I wish I had made more of an effort to explore the outskirts of Florence as well, and venture to parts of the city that are less visited by students. Be adventurous and outgoing! Spend time befriending fellow abroad students, locals, and most importantly, your host family.

Will: In life, you are given the opportunity to lean into challenges and discomfort, and I implore any students studying abroad to do exactly that. I wasn’t so sure about where I would go, who I would meet, or really how any of the experience was going to go, but I’m so happy to have tried all of the things I did. When Griffin and I had the opportunity to return to Florence last year, we made an effort to go to all of our favorite places, but we also found so many new ones by just walking around! The world is so big, get out there and look around!

In Fall 1982, Duane Blue Spruce left Slocum Hall for a semester with Syracuse Florence as a fourth-year architecture student, living with a nonna on Via del Pallone and forging an unlikely friendship with an Italian teenager that led to a Thanksgiving dinner and a World Cup-era soccer match. Over 40 years later, he returned to Villa Rossa to see how the program and the city have changed, journal in hand from the only time in his life he’s kept one.

It’s rare for our architecture students to live with host families, but you did. What was that like?

My SU roommate, Don Argus (Architecture), and I shared a bedroom in the apartment of a nonna – Signora Luisa Colzi. She lived about a 15-minute walk from Piazza Savonarola. As architecture students, we didn’t spend much time there except to sleep and eat breakfast. I remember that hot water was at a premium, so we were each limited to 1-2 showers per week. We supplemented this by showering on our weekend field trips outside of Florence!

Do you have any funny/interesting/moving stories about adapting to the Italian culture?

This was my first trip abroad. Even as a jaded New Yorker, I was immediately enchanted with Italy’s historic beauty and with the warmth and hospitality of the Italian people. Italy had just won the World Cup so maybe the whole country was in a good mood! My positive encounters with Italians were a strong incentive for me to learn the language as quickly as possible.

After about a month, I was lucky enough to befriend an Italian teenager named Max. He approached me on the street because he wanted to practice his English and talk about the NBA! He played basketball and was over 6’ tall. Max invited me to dinner with his family, and I also attended one of his basketball games. I invited him and his sister, Alessandra, to the SU Thanksgiving party at Piazza Savonarola where they tried things like stuffing and pumpkin pie for the first time. Later, he took me and a couple of other students to a soccer game between Florence and Torino. The match ended in a scoreless tie, but the stadium atmosphere was fantastic, and we got to see two Florentine players, Antognoni and Graziani, from the World Cup team. It was a day when we really felt like locals.

What did you like most about the Syracuse Florence program?

Aside from the gelato and living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I most enjoyed being able to experience firsthand some of the world’s greatest works of art and architecture. The whole experience was a welcome departure from the isolation and rigors of Slocum Hall and only being able to study these buildings in books or slides. Our curated weekend field trips took us to numerous places outside of Florence that we probably never would have visited on our own. Architecture is best experienced in person and the Florence program gave me that opportunity for 4 months.

How did your study abroad experience affect your life afterwards?

My experience boosted my confidence and my openness to different experiences. My SU campus experience was perhaps a little sheltered. By having to fend for myself in a foreign country at the age of 21, I experienced genuine personal growth. 

How does Villa Rossa and Florence compare now to when you were here in 1982?

I kept a journal during my semester in Florence. It is the only time in my life that I have kept a journal. When reading my journal, what stands out is how wonderfully tech-free our lives were! Living phone-free and pre-internet in Florence allowed for a lot of spontaneity, chance encounters, and the freedom to be fully present in the city. Florence today is as beautiful as ever. Of course, there are more tourists now but areas of respite, such as Piazza D’Azeglio, are still as accessible as they were in 1982. Trattoria La Casalinga was a favorite spot in 1982 because it was good and it was cheap. I was glad to see it was still there after 44 years. Still delicious.

In 1982, SU occupied the main floor and the garden of Piazza Savonarola. My architecture studio was in Piazza Donatello. On my recent visit, the staff were very welcoming and let me wander around the facilities. I was most impressed with the upstairs classrooms and the separate library building. The students are very lucky to have these physical resources. Special thanks to Valentina Brocchi for her hospitality in showing me around.

We recently welcomed Greta and Ettore, two students from Duca d’Aosta Salvemini high school in Florence, for a three-week internship with the Academic Department. The experience formed part of the hands-on learning component of their curriculum and allowed them to explore the daily life of an international academic institution from within.

For Greta and Ettore, the internship was first and foremost an experience of discovery.

During their time at Syracuse Florence, they were introduced to the world of study abroad and gained a closer understanding of how an international academic program operates. They observed the many roles, responsibilities, and forms of collaboration that support students, faculty, and staff behind the scenes. Day by day, they became familiar with the rhythm of a professional office environment, where punctuality, communication, attention to detail, and respect for shared spaces all contribute to the smooth functioning of the community.

For students at this stage of their educational journey, an experience like this offers much more than practical training. It can become a first meaningful encounter with the culture of work: learning how to be part of a team, how to adapt to a professional setting, and how to contribute with responsibility and care to a shared goal.

Their internship also encouraged them to look at Florence from a new perspective. Through their work with the Academic Department, Greta and Ettore explored local volunteer associations, community engagement opportunities, and organizations active throughout Florence. In doing so, they encountered a city that extends beyond its familiar image as an international tourist destination. This perspective is central to the mission of Syracuse Florence. As a study abroad center, the University encourages students to move beyond the classroom and engage meaningfully with the city around them. Through field studies, internships, and community engagement, students are invited to take part in the life of Florence and to build relationships that deepen their understanding of the place in which they study.

As part of their internship, Greta and Ettore also contributed to the Villa Rossa Archive, a project of special significance to Syracuse Florence. They supported research related to the Gigliucci family, whose history is closely connected to Villa Rossa, the main building of the Syracuse Florence campus. By reading historical materials and gathering information, they contributed to the ongoing effort to preserve and share the legacy of the family, the villa, and the many stories that have shaped our presence in Florence.

The experience also offered a broader reflection on the role of experiential learning. Hands-on opportunities allow students to connect knowledge with real contexts and to understand that learning does not take place only through books, lectures, and exams. This can be especially valuable for young students who are still beginning to imagine their future paths. Time spent in a professional environment can help them recognize their strengths and become more aware of the many possibilities open to them.

At the same time, experiential learning is most powerful when it builds on a strong educational foundation. As Teaching and Learning Manager Dr. Laura Fenelli reflected, the European educational model remains deeply rooted in theoretical learning, critical thinking, and intellectual development. Far from being a limitation, this foundation helps students become more versatile, adaptable, and capable of approaching complex situations with curiosity and depth.

In this sense, Greta and Ettore’s internship was not simply an introduction to the workplace. It was an opportunity to see learning as an active process. Their three weeks at Syracuse Florence allowed them to discover not only how an international academic center works, but also how knowledge can move beyond the classroom and become meaningful action.

Inspired by a Syracuse Florence course, graduating senior James Kuhns is building a platform to connect American tourists with the city’s hidden artisans.

James Kuhns came to Florence two years ago as a study abroad student and after returning to the U.S. he couldn’t stop thinking about a leather jacket—one he’d watched craftspeople build from scratch at the Scuola del Cuoio. “I’ve been thinking about that leather jacket for two years,” he said. “I need to go back.”

Now a business graduate of Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Kuhns returned to Florence in April for ten days, funded by two university grants, to interview Florentine artisans for his senior thesis. His goal was to design a digital platform that helps American tourists find and connect with the city’s authentic craftspeople.

The project traces back to Syracuse Florence where Kuhns took “Made in Italy: Business, Craftsmanship, and Branding Success” with Professor Simone Anselmi—a course that took students to La Marzocco espresso machine factory, jewelers in the city center, and the leather school he still thinks about. “All of these experiences really allowed me to see into the beating heart of Florence,” he said. “That being those artisans.” Anselmi has stayed closely involved, helping Kuhns build connections and shape his ideas over the past five months. “You need to have an idea that art and business can be connected,” Anselmi said. “Otherwise, you can’t appreciate this town.”

A Slow Dying Breath

The thesis opens with history—from the guild era and the Renaissance through the fashion shows of the 1950s—before arriving at an urgent present. Rising rents have pushed artisans from Florence’s historic center to peripheral neighborhoods tourists rarely visit. Only 3.3% of Italy’s 260,000 artisans are under 35, leaving an aging demographic with few people to inherit their craft. “It’s not an overnight thing,” Kuhns said. “It’s like the slow dying breath.”

Tourism, paradoxically, is part of the problem. Anselmi put it bluntly: visitors arrive on short itineraries, stick to the Duomo-to-Ponte Vecchio circuit, and often leave having bought fake “Made in Italy” goods without ever encountering a real workshop. “Tourism is going up and the artisans are not taking any benefit,” he said. Kuhns calls this the “Disneyfication” of Florence—marketing that funnels tourists toward a handful of landmarks and away from the living city. “It’s not necessarily the tourist’s fault,” he said. “That’s all the marketing they’ve seen.”

The Platform

Kuhns’s answer is a platform—part TripAdvisor, part cultural guide—that would map verified, authentic artisan workshops so visitors can cut through the souvenir noise. His target is neither the day-tripper nor the ultra-wealthy collector, but the middle: curious American travelers willing to venture a few blocks off the tourist circuit. “Those are the artisans that are suffering the most,” Anselmi said. “Authentic, fantastic—but struggling.”

The project has already survived one pivot: an earlier idea to sell artisan goods overseas collapsed when new tariffs made it unworkable. “Not everything works out the first time,” Kuhns said. The pivot sharpened the focus—instead of bringing Florence to Americans at home, help Americans find Florence when they’re already here.

When James spoke with us, he was on day two of ten, already deep in fieldwork—interviewing a bag maker, cold walk-ins to workshops, connections built through Anselmi and former colleagues. “I could read all the literature,” he said, “but I don’t know until I talk to them.” The early conversations had confirmed his hunch: younger artisans are passionate but lack the marketing infrastructure to reach new customers. He hopes the app can fill that void.

“There’s a true piece of heritage and Italian culture that is slowly dying,” he said. “How do we breathe some life into that?” He had eight days of interviews still to go. And, presumably, a leather jacket to finally buy.

What if studying Classical Mythology meant racing through the Uffizi in search of a sarcophagus, or taking a selfie with a mythological statue at the Pitti Palace? That’s the premise behind the #100Myths Project — a semester-long adventure designed by Stefania Berutti that turns Florence itself into a classroom.

The project grew out of a practical challenge: museum visits are too short to cover everything. Rather than rush students past the artwork, Berutti designed a series of scavenger hunts that sent them exploring on their own — identifying mythological characters in vases, statues, and paintings, and photographing themselves alongside the finds. The results were immediate: students who seemed disengaged in the classroom lit up in the galleries, racing up staircases and debating details on ancient vases.

The final assignment pushed things further: each team had to write an original story featuring mythological characters from Florence’s museums, then turn it into a scavenger hunt for their classmates to play. Both teams set their stories in contemporary Florence — no AI, just their own creativity. One team even ventured into the Boboli Gardens; a site never covered in class. They had made the city their own.

A scavenger hunt may sound frivolous, but Berutti sees it as a way to drive students to slow down, read captions, and look carefully at works of art they might otherwise walk past. Creative writing does something similar: over eight years of leading writing labs tied to archaeology and ancient history, she has watched students use storytelling to forge a genuine connection with ancient cultures — feeling the responsibility of giving old myths new meaning.

The #100Myths Project was made possible thanks to a Syracuse Teaching Innovation Fellowship, with support from Director Sasha Perugini and Assistant Director Rachael Smith. In September, Berutti will host a webinar to share her tools with colleagues — because whether the lens is Art History, Mythology, Fashion History, or Ancient History, Florence’s museums have something to offer every discipline. The #100Myths Project could become a model for interdisciplinary teaching across the Syracuse faculty.

Photos by Sasha Laurenzo.

Food Studies professor Olivier De Maret led ten days of immersive learning across the island

This May a group of Syracuse Florence students traded the familiar cobblestones of Tuscany for the sun-drenched markets and volcanic hillsides of Sicily. From April 30 to May 9, they traveled the length of the island as part of Culinary Crossings, a Signature Seminar designed and led by food studies professor Olivier De Maret that used cuisine as a window onto centuries of Mediterranean history, culture, and exchange.

The seminar was exclusively food-focused unlike a previous travel seminar led by De Maret in collaboration with retired photography professor Stefania Talini. “This time around we focused on getting to know the people that make up the island’s food system,” he said.

Markets, Farms, and Family Tables

The ten-day itinerary moved students through some of Sicily’s most distinctive culinary landscapes. In Palermo, they dove headfirst into the city’s legendary street food culture with a guided tour of the Ballarò market — one of the oldest and most vibrant outdoor markets in southern Italy — complete with tastings. De Maret remarked on the contrast to Florence: “Especially the energy we witnessed in Palermo’s outdoor markets, as well as the kindness, openness and hospitality Sicilians showed us.”

From Palermo, the group traveled east to the island’s rolling interior, stopping at the Azienda Agricola Fiumefreddo near Troina before continuing to the Baroque city of Siracusa, where they were based for four nights. Days out of Siracusa brought visits to the Bonajuto chocolate factory in Modica — Sicily’s legendary chocolate-making center, where the ancient Aztec-influenced method of cold-processing cacao has been practiced since the 1700s — as well as a cooking class in Noto and a visit to Il Biviere, an organic citrus farm in Lentini.

The seminar concluded near Etna, where students visited the Fattorie Romeo del Castello in Randazzo, a historic wine and farming estate on the volcano’s northern slopes, before a final dinner together in Taormina.

“Transformed by These Experiences”

The highlights of the trip were the two farm visits: Fiumefreddo and Romeo del Castello. “In both places, we were warmly welcomed into family homes and involved in daily activities,” said De Maret. “Besides learning new skills such as gardening, we felt the care and joy put into the production, preparation and sharing of food in very intimate contexts. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that most of us were transformed by these experiences — including the families hosting us.”

Why Sicily?

The choice of Sicily as a destination was itself pedagogically significant. De Maret sees the island’s cuisine as a kind of living archive of the Mediterranean world — layered with the influences of Greek, Arab, Norman, Spanish, and Italian cultures that have passed through over millennia. “Sicily and its cuisine provide a fascinating lens through which to approach these exchanges,” he explained, “and reflect on what makes Italian cuisine Italian, if anything.”

That question — deceptively simple, endlessly complex — was central to what he hoped students would take away. “The multiplicity of meanings associated with Sicilian cuisine, and how the history of the island and contemporary interests shape it,” De Maret said of the seminar’s core lessons. Beyond the specifics of Sicilian food, he hopes the experience planted a more lasting habit of mind: “I hope that students now see the value of thinking through food in order to understand the world and their place in it — and that they will keep thinking critically about broader social and cultural processes at play in kitchens and beyond.”

Culinary Crossings: Food Culture, Identity and the Mediterranean is offered as part of the university’s Signature Seminars initiative, which supports faculty-led travel courses that extend classroom learning into the field.

We are proud to share that Professor Laura Fenelli, SU Florence’s Teaching and Learning Manager and instructor of the class Walking Florence, recently took the stage at this year’s Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino — Italy’s largest and most celebrated international book fair — where she presented a talk entitled Art Saved by Girls: Education, Exclusion, and Empowerment of Women Artists from the Renaissance to the Modern Era. Her title was a play on this year’s theme “Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini” (The world saved by kids).

“In 1971, Linda Nochlin asked: why have there been no great women artists? The answer lies not in a lack of talent but in the denial of access to art academies. This event is dedicated to the young women who, from the Renaissance through the modern era, sought — and sometimes found — a place in art education, thereby safeguarding the right to create art for themselves and for future generations.”

The Salone del Libro, now in its 38th edition, welcomed over 254,000 visitors across five days, bringing together readers, authors, and publishers from around the world in Turin. It was Professor Fenelli’s first appearance at the fair — and her first time presenting publicly from a project she has been developing, before an audience that turned out to be larger than expected.

Reflecting on the experience, Professor Fenelli shared:

“It’s been a week since my trip to Turin, but the excitement is still very much alive. My first time at the book fair, my first time as a speaker, the first time I spoke out loud — in front of a larger-than-expected audience — about the project I’m working on. Above all, thanks to everyone who came to listen, because there’s nothing better than sharing your passions with an attentive audience.”

Professor Fenelli’s talk is part of a broader research project for a high school textbook that she is working on with Loescher, one that bridges her deep expertise in Italian art history with a commitment to amplifying overlooked voices — themes that enrich her teaching here at Syracuse Florence.

We congratulate Laura on this wonderful milestone and look forward to following her work as it continues to grow.

Far more than a mere academic exhibition, our Final Art Show is a truly special moment in which our entire community comes together to celebrate the culmination of months of dedication, growth, and creative exploration.

As guests wander through the gallery, the atmosphere comes alive with shared curiosity. Visitors lean in closely, carefully examining the intricate details of portraits, evocative sketches, and striking illustrations that immediately capture the eye. The true highlight of the evening, however, lies in the dialogue the exhibition inspires. Our student artists have the unique opportunity to stand alongside their work and guide the audience through their creative process. They share the inspirations behind their pieces and explain the deliberate choices that shaped their vision: from the emotional weight of a particular color palette and the subtle storytelling held within a delicate gradient, to the structural meaning conveyed through a bold form or line.

Every piece on display serves as a window into a student’s inner world, revealing each artist’s highly individual way of perceiving and interpreting the reality around them. Driven by a profound need for self-expression, our students channel their experiences, ideas, and emotions into tangible forms.

For spectators, the experience becomes deeply immersive. As the senses are awakened, each artwork invites us on a meaningful journey, one that challenges our own perceptions and leaves us inspired long after the exhibition ends.

An Environmental Design alumna from the class of 1989 reflects on navigating Italian life without Google Translate, a meaningful return to Villa Rossa, and how a semester abroad planted the seeds for a 27-year career in art education.

What was your home school and major when you studied here in 1989?

Home school was the College of Human Development at Syracuse University. I was majoring in Environmental Design (Interiors). 

Why did you choose to come to Syracuse Florence?

I had many friends who had done the program abroad the year before and wanted to experience the same. I was so interested in the architecture and Italian culture since I am 1/2 Italian. Sad story is a had 2 friends on the Pan Am 103 flight. Those friends were returning from abroad in London just months before. 

Do you have any funny/touching stories about adjusting to Italian culture when you lived here?

Trying to fumble our way through the language with no Google Translate was hysterical. Learning how to grocery shop. Something about how you lined up with your carts in alternating directions?  Exchanging Lira for Francs, deutsche marks and Schillings when traveling. Getting to see mass with Pope John Paul II on Father’s Day. 

You married past and present during your recent return to Florence, painting around sketches you had created while a student here. How did your study abroad experience influence your career and life afterward?

I did work as an Interior Designer for 12 years but was being pushed away from the creative process and more into project management. I switched to being an art teacher 27 years ago. The best thing that is still with me is the importance of my sketchbook. I use the term “visual notetaking” with my students even to this day. 

What was it like returning to Villa Rossa?

Returning was amazing. I had all sorts of happy feels. I was so young, had barely traveled, and was in awe of Florence and Italy in general. I am very eager to return. Would love to teach there if you ever needed someone! 

Advice for current students?

Advice…stay on top of your work. Sketch EVERYWHERE. Experience it all. Sites, food, people. It goes by so fast. It’s an amazing opportunity to be there. Do not take any of it for granted.