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Today Kathy Berardi works in public relations as a consultant and writer-producer in entertainment from Los Angeles, CA and visits Italy as often as she can.

What was your major and home school when you came to Syracuse Florence?

Kathy: I attended Canisius College in Buffalo, New York and I was a communication studies major. Being able to transfer for a semester to another New York State institution with the Syracuse program in Florence was a perfect choice for my cultural interests and streamlined for my academic credits to easily transfer. 

Do you have any anecdotes about adjusting to the culture?

Kathy:  My own family is Italian-American, so the family experience of living with my host mom who I met through Syracuse in Florence, Paola Marotta, felt totally natural. For whatever cultural adjustment I had to make the first few weeks I was there, the fact that I had such a nurturing experience in my new home made everything much easier. I do remember being jet lagged the first few weeks, and sometimes feeling like I had woken up in a dream just because everything in the city felt like I was walking on a movie set of Renaissance Florence. It felt surreal at times for sure in the beginning. 

You have stayed close to your host family. How did staying with them influence your experience?

Kathy: It really did make all the difference in the world. I was the first person in my US family to travel abroad. I was the only person from my college in the US to come to this program. I really did take a leap of faith to come alone to Italy, via the Syracuse program, with the trust that I would make friends. What I did not anticipate is that I would connect so closely with someone like Paola in a way that made us like family for the rest of our lives, as shown by the fact that 20+ years later, we still visit each other and even my daughter who’s 14 calls Paola her Italian grandmother! I made many other close friends at Syracuse that semester with whom I also traveled and explored the rest of Italy and Europe.

Paola made Florence feel like home, and to a larger extent – Italy to also feel like a place I could always return to. I returned for a few months after graduating college the following year before coming back to the US to begin my professional career. After that I returned in January 2023 and she graciously hosted my daughter and I in her downtown Florence VRBO so that we could experience the city like residents and most recently we stayed this past June 2024 with her and her husband in their countryside residence in the hills outside of Florence. I am returning this Christmas to conduct a language study program and technology conference and I am looking forward to spending the holidays with them! 

So in answer to the original question – by literally feeling like she was adopting me as a parent here in Italy – being way more than just a “host” – Paola reconnected me with my Italian heritage and became a part of my life forever, just like family! And I feel I can always return to reconnect with her and Italy because of our bond and the way she really opened up her home and heart to me some 20+ years ago! 

 What did you enjoy the most about the program?

Kathy: I really appreciated the fact that the entire opportunity for this life changing experience came by way of the fact that one day while I was walking down the hall at Canisius College I passed by the International Studies office and saw a poster on the wall for “Study Abroad in Florence”. From that moment onward, Syracuse University in Florence was my bridge from studying just in the US to becoming an internationally educated student, a more well-rounded citizen of the world, and truly open-minded human being. Thanks to the opportunity Syracuse presented to me, I experienced the shift in perspective that I found for me only came from immersing myself in a new culture for a long period of time and experiencing something completely foreign. The lasting effects touch me still to this day when I connect with people of other cultures and languages here in the US and in my yearning to travel to see new places as a lifelong pursuit. 

How did your time in Florence affect your life and/or career?

Kathy:  My time in Florence gave me confidence. I was a junior in college when I studied in Florence. Within one year, I would be out in the job market, interviewing for new jobs in a challenging post 9/11 (2001) economy and relocating to a major US city hundreds of miles from home (having moved for my first job from near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Atlanta, Georgia) to pursue career opportunities. The move within the same country and where everyone spoke the same language seemed like an easy step after living abroad and having to speak a foreign language on a daily basis to communicate like when I lived in Florence. My experience in Florence, in the trusted community provided by Syracuse, for the first time in 2000 gave me the courage and confidence to go anywhere and pursue anything for pretty much the rest of my life. In 2006 I had the opportunity to relocate again – this time from Atlanta to Los Angeles for a Masters in Film from UCLA – and I jumped at the chance with complete ease, once again emboldened in a good way thanks to the personal growth I experienced in Florence. Today I continue to reside in Los Angeles (with frequent trips back to Italy!), and credit my experience in Florence with giving me the confidence to know I will find my way, wherever I am. 

How has Florence and the Villa Rossa changed since you studied here?

Kathy: The gardens in the back I think have expanded and the library building has changed and is now bigger and I think the engineering building in the back is also new. The main Villa does look and feel the same though. And the spirit of the school remains the same: welcoming, nurturing, and supportive. When I walked in, the vibe I felt was the same as when I was a student. As a city, Florence remains timeless for me – I do not think it has changed at all, to be honest! 

What advice would you give current students?

Kathy: Trust that it will feel “weird” for the first few weeks and that that experience is totally normal and totally temporary. But also trust that Florence will come to feel like home, your surroundings and new living space will come to feel like home. Time during your study abroad semester will seem slow in the beginning but will fly at exponential pace towards the middle and before you know it – you will be headed back to the US after an incredible semester and you will be incredibly sad, most likely, to leave.  So while you are there, find the time to live like a resident, engage with the community and people in Florence like they are your neighbors, and enjoy the museums, night life, restaurants, train rides to other cities and every opportunity the Syracuse program offers you to explore. Because when you get back to the US and graduate college, you will likely start working and getting back to Italy for a prolonged period of time may take a while as your career journey, and life unfolds in your 20s and 30s. 

In my case it was a very long while – 22 years between the last time I left and when I returned. So enjoy it while you can with the deep appreciation that for this phase of your journey it is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. The day before I left Florence the first time in June 2000, I remember looking over the Arno River on a last nighttime stroll and I saw a church illuminated that I did not yet know. And I remember feeling regret that I did not take the time to cross the river to check out that church while I had the chance in the days, weeks or even months before. And it was at that moment that I decided I would have to return some day, somehow. So definitely – take it all in, study hard, but be a student of culture and study by interacting, experiencing and immersing yourself in the world of the Renaissance around you. 

Professor Leonardo Lastilla, who teaches Vine to Table: Italian Wines in Context at Syracuse Florence, has published a new book of poetry with Nonsolopoesie Edizioni. According to the blurb, Il Dolore della Cognizione (“The Pain of Cognition”):

unveils a feeling that has belonged to each of us at least once in our lives. The poetic narrative draws a line, a basic concept. Where there is love, there is pain. Where there is life, there is pain. We are not exempt from experiencing it personally. It seems to be a toll we have to pay, a duty, to become and be within life. The verses seem to be written in the immediacy of feeling, of experiencing suffering. They are also measured and forged by irony, resentment, knowing how to laugh at oneself, and holding on to one’s ego. Such instinctive feelings contain themselves by giving meaning to existence. The verses have a studied rhythmic quality and include catchphrases that make this poetic sylloge an experiential journey of lived life and what surrounds it.

Queens, NY native Hana Gordon was an art history major at Syracuse when she came to the Florence program in the fall of 1966. She recently returned to the Villa Rossa with her husband Chet and chatted with us about what it was like to be here on November 4 when the calamitous flood overtook the Renaissance city and changed it forever.

“I remember waking up that morning to the sound of someone saying ‘aiuto!’ and it took a minute for me to translate it,” Hana recalls. She was living with her host family near Santa Croce on Corso Tintori. This was back when our students would live with two different families, switching halfway through the semester, but Hana didn’t do that because of the flood.

From her bedroom window she could see the Volta dei Tintori, an archway over the street. “But by the middle of the day, you couldn’t see the arch anymore!” As the waters rose, they knocked down the main door of her building, where her family lived on the second floor. “We went up to the third floor family to eat together and panic together, and my host dad would run out to see where the water was, and it was closing in. Then it started to recede. So that was really something!”

Hana tells us that Syracuse officials contemplated sending students home, but instead they got them vaccines. Hana had to pack up all her things and transfer to a villa/pension in the hills above the city with a few other girls while the city recovered.

She and her fellow students eventually went back to their host families where they finished out the semester. “I was really happy to go back to the same family. My mom was a good cook!”

Once the waters had receded, she started walking around the city. “It was still a little messy, and if you dropped something nine out of ten times, you’d be dropping it into mud.” She also remembers shopping and getting some great post-flood deals. “A lot of the shopkeepers salvaged what they could. Everything was deeply discounted. We were looking at bags for something like $2.” She and her classmates were also sent to Bologna to use the public showers there.

A lot has changed in the decades since Hana’s semester abroad. She’s disappointed by how many tourists there are in Florence now. One positive change is the growth of the Syracuse program. “All we saw [of the Villa Rossa] was one classroom and a bathroom!” Countess Bona Gigliucci still lived upstairs, and students had to make do with Piazza Savonarola for their outdoor space. “We met some fellas there, and one girl was going steady throughout the whole thing with one of them,” Hana laughs.

She and her classmates would go home for lunch each day, many of them dozing off in their afternoon classes after the big meal complete with wine. They also hitchhiked to visit other cities on the weekends. “One time an elderly gentleman took us back to our apartment but took us out to dinner first and said that his daughter was in the U.S. and he hoped someone was doing that for her.”

Hana also remembers a couple who worked as caretakers for the program. They were the beloved Sergio and Elia Landi, who later ran our coffeeshop for many years and whose children, Silvia and Fabio, still work at Syracuse Florence today.

After her time in Florence, Hana worked in art galleries, went back to school for library science, and became a high school librarian. After retiring 20 years ago, she began painting in watercolor and pastel and has exhibited widely throughout the Hudson Valley, where she lives. Florence remains a subject of inspiration for her.

Longtime friends Jean Telljohann (née Amabile) and Presley Schwinn (née Neithammer) met while studying at Syracuse Florence in the Fall of 1979. Jean was a comparative lit major from Princeton and Presley was an art history major from Sweet Briar College. Here are some of their reflections on that life-changing semester.

Syracuse Florence classes

Jean: I studied Italian language and literature, art history, and a wonderful English class on literature set in Italy.  I remember reading Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun, Henry James’s The Golden Bowl, and Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.  I wish I could remember the rest of the syllabus!  It was an excellent course.

Presley: The professors were marvelous, especially the opportunity to speak to the class in front of an important piece of art. The sweet fellow who had the café stand was essential, especially for Bacis.

The most vivid memory

Jean: When I began to dream in Italian.

The host family experience

Presley: My signora’s apartment was quite grand and centrally located. Unfortunately, she was quite difficult and so I eliminated meals.

The impact of studying in Florence

Presley: I continued to study art history and ended up being the senior grants writer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jean: Studying abroad in Florence helped me to develop fluency in Italian, which led to further travel throughout Italy, a love of singing and attending performances of Italian opera, and reading Dante and other Italian authors in the original.  I wish I could say that I am still fluent, but I do gather with friends to practice Italian conversation and see Italian films.  I am still in contact with several of my friends from our days in Florence.

A fieldtrip to Rome

Jean: I remember a day trip to Arezzo and a longer trip to Rome, where my friends and I saw The Graduate dubbed in Italian and then stayed to see it again.  It’s funny that that’s the memory that sticks!  One funny coincidence related to the field trips is that in 2000 I returned to Florence and met my friend Presley for lunch and a photo op outside the school at Piazza Savonarola.  Presley was traveling in Italy the same week I was.  When the driver I hired for the day saw the school, he recalled that he had been the bus driver who had taken us on the field trip to Rome!

Meeting the locals

Jean: In 1979, most of the students were girls.  Our group was invited by the Italian Air Force Academy to a dance.  They sent a bus to pick us up at the school and return us at the end of the evening.  We met a very nice group of Italian young men and palled around a bit with them on the weekends afterward.  We were all just friends, no romances, but I think that at least one person from our semester did marry a local Italian man.  The memories from that semester are very strong, so incredibly I can still remember the names of the young men we met, Giacinto, Filippo, Alfio, Pino.  They had come from all over Italy for their required military service.

Impressions of Florence on return trips

Presley: Florence upon return seemed much more crowded but still heavenly. Even found the best gelato store!

Jean: My Syracuse-Florence semester was my first trip to Italy, but I have returned several times since, including for Syracuse Florence’s 50th anniversary celebration.  I used the coincidence of my own 50th birthday as an excuse to attend. In general, Florence seemed busier, but the area near the Duomo, closed to auto traffic, was quieter.

Where they are now

Presley: I work part time at the Chanticleer garden in Wayne as I am passionate about gardening, the landscape, and environmental concerns.

Jean: I am retired from my second career as a museum administrator and am now busy with family, volunteer work, and travel. I also serve on Princeton University’s Advisory Council to the Department of French and Italian.

On May 16, drama history professor Eric Nicholson and communications professor Elia Nichols, both professional actors, performed two lovers’ debates from Isabella Andreini’s Lovers’ Debates for the Stage at the University of Verona.

The performance accompanied a book presentation of this text co-translated and co-edited by Dr. Nicholson with Pamela Allen Brown ​and Julie D. Campbell and published by the University of Chicago/ITER Press in 2023.

Isabella Andreini was a successful theater actress, writer and poet in the late 16th century, even performing with her husband for the 1589 wedding of Ferdinand I de Medici to Christina of Lorraine.

On May 10, the Villa Rossa’s historic aula magna was packed with study abroad professionals gathering to discuss the mental health of students, staff, and faculty. The event was co-organized by Syracuse Florence and the Forum on Education Abroad and the speakers covered everything from U.S. politics to coping strategies.

The seminar was a great success with participants making invaluable connections with counterparts in their industry and gaining helpful insight into challenges facing study abroad professionals.

This spring, students in upper-level Italian classes took part in a special tandem language exchange, which is a required part of their course: their partners were Italians enrolled in university courses as part of their ‘third act’.

Italians use the expression terza età (“third age”) to refer to people 65+, and there are many options for those who want to make higher learning part of their golden age. There is even an association for Italian terza età universities (Associazione Nazionale delle Università della Terza Età). In their mission statement here, they explain that volunteer instructors make it all possible, donating their teaching time in the spirit of the medieval universitas and the belief that learning is a gift.

The terza età learners who came to converse with our students were enrolled in a L2-level English class at the Università della terza età in the coastal Tuscan town of Livorno.

This is what some of our students had to say about the experience:

During the class, Hollen and I spoke with five elderly women who attend a third-generation university. They explained their school to us and the courses they find intriguing. … One of the ladies mentioned it was her dream to visit New York.

We all share a love for music and movies—we were especially connected through our enjoyment of the movie A Star Is Born, featuring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. We agreed that the soundtrack is incredible and that Bradley Cooper is very handsome. The experience was very heart-warming for us because it bridged a gap between language and age. Seeing these elderly women driven to acquire new knowledge and be involved in a community that fosters connection was incredible.

Hollen Spain, Kelly Troop, Bridget Gardella (ITA325)

I really enjoyed the conversation I had with the two women. They’re from Livorno and we talked about their experiences living there, as well as doing a comparison between life in Livorno and life in New York City, which is where I am from. Afterwards, we spoke about the differences between Italian food and American food. One of them is vegetarian and we spoke about life without eating meat. She told me that there are many elderly Italians that don’t eat meat. I said that I can’t live without eating meat.

Afterwards we spoke about Giorgia Meloni and Donald Trump. I learned a lot about Italian politics. They told me that they don’t support Meloni and I told them that I’m not a fan of Trump either. Then we talked about American politics. They told me that they’re worried about a scenario in which Trump wins and they hope that he doesn’t.

We then spoke about why they chose to learn English. They told me that they did it to stay busy in old age. They then asked why I chose to study Italian. I told them that I took an introduction to Italian when I was a freshman in college out of interest, and I really enjoyed it. I decided to continue my studies in Italian. This was a great experience for me and I would like to do it again sometime soon.

Oliver Polsky (ITA325)

Last week, my Italian class talked to women who go to a free-age university. This experience was very interesting because we don’t have these universities in the United States. My friend and I talked to two women who were learning English! We talked about their courses and the university in general. They were from Pisa, where their university is. During this conversation, one woman told us that she was a nurse which interested us because my friend and I want to become doctors! So, we talked about the differences between medicine in the United States and in Italy. It was a great conversation and their English skills completely surprised me! I am so happy that I had this opportunity to speak with these women!

Kay Di Salvo (ITA325)

During this event, we had the opportunity to have conversations with people of the third age who attend the University of the Free Age and practice our Italian language, and for them to practice their English. We talked about many aspects of our lives such as what plans we have for our future careers and what career they did when they were young. One of them when she was young was a nurse who studied in the city of Pisa, Italy. Before that she studied at the University of Bologna Psychology. The other older woman was a teacher for students in the intermediate school, she was an Archeologist teacher. Still, when she has time she gives lessons to students through Zoom and online. Their English was very good, they said that they had been studying English for 2-5 years and also explained to us that the reason for them studying a language and taking courses such as Art History in English was because it was better learning something new than being at home and doing nothing. For them doing this was a “hobby” that they always looked forward to doing during the week. They were nice people to have conversations with and were very patient with us when it came to talking in Italian. I think that was a nice idea to have this event and I hope this event remains in our university for future students from this course.

Jorge Parada (ITA325)

On Sunday, May 12, Florence Mayor Dario Nardella gave the commencement speech at Syracuse University. In addition to mentioning great Italian writers like Dante and Calvino he encouraged the graduating class to “be like the Mud Angels” (the foreign students who helped Florence recover from the terrible flood of 1966). He also stressed the importance of listening and paying attention to your surroundings, and of being passionate and compassionate in the pursuit of your dreams.

The mayor’s invitation to serve as the 2024 Syracuse commencement speaker drives home the special relationship that has developed between Florence and Syracuse since our program was founded in 1959. As Nardella told Syracuse University News here, “thanks to the relentless commitment of its leadership, the Florence program has been able to convey a deep understanding of our cultural heritage so that students can make the values it embodies their own.”

“His emphasis on peace and community engagement left a lasting impact,” remarked Syracuse Florence Director Sasha Perugini, who joined the mayor on the home campus for the exciting event. You can watch Mayor Nardella’s commencement speech here.

Last summer, Lisa Evans (Spring 1982) revisited Syracuse Florence with her son and recounted seeing the funeral of Countess Bona Gigliucci, the daughter of Count Mario Gigliucci who designed the Villa Rossa for his family, in Piazza Savonarola (seen behind her in the photo above). Lisa kindly shared some photos and memories with us.

On Returning to the Villa Rossa

For decades a return visit was interrupted by a busy life. In August I finally made a trip to Florence, along with my son. I was excited to share the city that my semester at Syracuse taught me so much about. On our last day in Florence, we visited Villa Rossa. When I walked into the building, I was transported back 40 years. Much has changed, but the feeling of being in that beautiful building was so familiar. In one room I recalled my Italian Literature class, and reading Dante’s Inferno.

The wooden mailboxes are still hanging on the wall in the foyer! Before email and text, finding a letter addressed to you in your slot, was a great day. Lastly, the spiral staircase holds a memory. When we arrived for the semester, we were assigned a local family to live with. We all lined the spiral staircase and looked down upon the families, waiting for our name to be called , and a family to go home with. It was so stressful and exciting. Standing at the top of the stairs and looking down, I was taken right back to that time. 

On the Funeral of Countess Gigliucci

I don’t ever recall being introduced to the director, or of running into him at the school. So when I was sitting in the piazza in front of the school, and I saw him walking solemnly behind a group of what obviously were mourners, I knew that something important was happening. The event really stuck out to me ( I can remember it 22 years later). Here were about 20 people, dressed in black, walking in a group very slowly in the road around the entire piazza. No one talked to each other, and there was no music of any kind, which I remember struck me because the group all seemed to be in step with each other. They were gone and out of sight as somberly as they arrived. 

On Italian Class in the Garden

As soon as the weather warmed up that winter ’82 semester, we all spent a lot of time in the back garden. Lunch picnics were daily. I found the photo of our beloved Italian language teacher (this was a required class, and no one complained. We all wanted to be able to speak Italian in our “adopted” country). I don’t remember her name, sadly. She was beautiful, fun and taught us very enthusiastically! She would hold class outside in the garden as much as she could. I had forgotten about the beautiful bougainvillea!

On Field Trips

The other photo [below] is of classmates enjoying a rest stop, during a school day trip. We all loved the school organized trips, either day or overnight. No one would think of skipping one. We had some amazing experiences, which we got to share together as new friends, and learn from the professors who organized the itinerary.

This was Jesse Shapiro’s term project for Professor Dorothea Barrett’s class Sex, Politics and Religion in Italian Literature.

The assignment is very open. You can do anything you like, so long as it is an original analytical engagement with something we read. Jesse’s project was about postmodernism. He writes in the style of Italo Calvino in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, using the second person. The script is a reworking of the postmodern film Being John Malkovich, which I used as an example of postmodernism when explaining it to the class. In the film, people line up by a little Alice-in-Wonderland-type door. The door leads to a slide; you go down the slide and end up in the mind of the American film star John Malkovich. Malkovich may be doing anything at the time you enter his mind – making love, eating a sandwich, you name it. Fifteen minutes later (and this is my favorite bit), you are ejected from the mind of John Malkovich and dumped on the hard shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike. Jesse wrote a scene that wasn’t in the film but could have been.

Dr. Dorothea Barrett

Calvino’s “Being John Malkovich” not by Calvino, by Jesse Shapiro

If you chose to be here and not anywhere else at this specific moment in your life, I am very concerned for you. In fact, there might even be something wrong with you. You wonder what it is like to be someone else, which is normal. You never won an Oscar. You have never been on Broadway. People do not recognize you on the street. Odds are, you probably do not think you are “good enough” as it is. I mean, if you did, that would probably be a bad thing. People who think they are good enough are typically the worst kind of people.

Whatever the reason may be for your experience today, whether it be insecurity, desire, hatred, depression, sex, I will not judge you. If these feelings are common, I guess you are common as well. Is this bad? Well, that is not for me to say. I am simply the facilitator of questions. I am neither here nor there. Whatever you do, do not look at me like a salesman of any kind.

The fact of the matter is you are here right now. You are on the 7 and a ½ floor of an office building at a filing company, have waited in line for 8 hours with your head cranked to the side because the ceiling is 5 feet tall, and the time has arrived for you to step into the portal. The portal is a secret, but pretty much everyone knows about it. So, crouch down. Lower! Fling yourself inside the man that interests you more than you are interested in yourself. A sad thought truly.

To tell you the truth, which is a dangerous subject, most people waste their time there. 15 minutes. That is all you get. Baffles me that you are shocked that you got what you signed up for. You are inside the head of John Malkovich. He could be on the toilet, on the phone with his mother, having passionate sexual relations, or taking a nap. If you came without a plan, that is a waste of $250. Are you serious? Again, it baffles me. Maybe you will be different. This is what I tell myself. Most people are the same, though.

As I stare at you across the desk, I see someone who saw the ad to “Be John Malkovich for 15 Minutes” and thought to themselves, “wowwww, that sounds incredible.” Again, interesting. Most people do not even look at the ads in the newspaper. It is only out of some sort of desperation that they would take any sort of action.

To be John Malkovich is like being inside of a movie. Most of the people that come to my office claim to love movies. They love to talk about all the movies they have been planning to watch for ages, the movies they have been hunting for without success, the movies dealing with something they have been working on at the moment, the movies they want to own so they will be handy just in case, the movies they could put aside maybe to watch this summer, the movies they need to go with other movies, the movies that fill them with sudden, inexplicable curiosity, not easily justified.

Do people even get pleasure out of movies anymore? I find that all the movies today just get more and more and more screwed up in the head. Someone gets brutally murdered on screen and people laugh. Is this funny to you?

You look down and think that you do think that brutal murder is funny. Don’t you worry, it has already been established that you have a screw loose. Again, this is completely normal and there are no refunds here at the John Malkovich experience.

So you are looking at this portal that takes you into a man that has accomplished more than you have or will ever accomplish in your life. The wind shakes you to your core. The nervous energy is building up a little bit inside of you. Please do not be alarmed. Everyone experiences this feeling. You are not special. It almost feels like a slip and slide.

I see on the sign up sheet that you never wrote your name down, sir. “Why would I sign up? I mean, it seems like we are all the main attraction anyways.”

I ask the man again. “Sir, I need your name for tax purposes and in case you make a mad dash for it. We have a non-refundable policy.”

“My name… you want to know MY NAME!”

This man needs to calm down. You are always calm. “I am the art. I am the vision. I am the entertainment that everyone waits in line to see. You see, Craig, you really, really messed up.”

This guy is a classic lunatic that we get all the time at the John Malkovich Experience.

Nothing to worry about. Do not be alarmed in the slightest.

“I AM JOHN MALKOVICH,” says Mr. Malkovich.