Summer Session

Participants in this program will live and study in the Tuscan city of Siena, engaging in travel and cultural encounters in Tuscany and Rome. Known as the cradle of Italian language, Tuscany has always wielded a powerful influence on the imagination of artists, writers, poets, historians, scientists, and bankers well beyond its own regionality.

The Yale Siena program in beginning Italian offers a full-immersion experience abroad, combining intensive language study with a family-stay in this splendid medieval city located in the heart of Tuscany.  Literary and historical readings, cinematic representations of Tuscany, in depth tours of the city’s monuments and museums, as well as field trips to Florence, San Gimignano, Pisa, and the Tuscan countryside.  Particular attention will be devoted to the defining ritual of Sienese life: il Palio, the splendid medieval horse race run in the city’s central Piazza del Campo.

Through intensive intermediate language and culture courses, students on this program will critically discuss Tuscan imagery, as expressed in literature, history, art, architecture, science, and folklore, with a special focus on Siena. The study material will include literary and historical readings, cinematic representations of Tuscany, in-depth tours of the city’s monuments and museums, as well as field trips to Florence, San Gimignano, and Livorno. Through a close analysis of different kinds of genres and authors, from poems to satirical magazines, from Giovanni Boccaccio to Dino Campana, the course will explore the richness of the Tuscan cultural history and its influence on the Italian culture tout court, as well as the emergence of the Tuscan language as the standard language of Italy.