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Here is
Faith trying to believe she is actually in the Coliseum
in Rome. |
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Classics and Art History major Faith
Savill '10 spent Fall 2008 studying Art History and Italian in
Rome - all over Rome, in fact: “All my art classes met in museums and
churches. The only time I was in the classroom was for the final
exam.” Thanks to class trips and free Fridays, Faith also roamed in
towns all over Italy, including (of course!) Florence, Pompeii,
Venice, and Assisi. She even managed weekend trips to Barcelona,
Budapest, and Amsterdam. “I totally believe everyone should study
abroad, I mean, for me growing up in New England and going to Saint
Michael’s even Arkansas would be abroad, but you should always do
something that makes you not comfortable.”
Certainly Faith’s roommate was not comfortable the day they left at
4 a.m. for a day-trip to Assisi. After a bus ride with 50 nuns
praying the rosary and the announcement that Mass would be
celebrated first thing upon arrival, Faith realized that this
remarkably inexpensive tour was in fact a pilgrimage. “My roommate
was freaking out,” she says, but an elderly Franciscan friar
realized what had happened and offered to show them around Assisi.
“He had grown up there and he knew everything - each little symbol in
the Giotto paintings. It was the most informative tour I ever had.”
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| The Roman Pantheon by
night. |
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Faith’s apartment in Rome was right by the Pantheon. “It just blew
my mind every single day that going to the Pantheon was like walking
to Alliot. All of Rome was like that…the trolley ran right along
where Caesar was killed, people were living in apartments in the
Theater of Marcellus, you could go to Mass in an incredibly ornate
Baroque church…” From the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill,
looking down at the whole Forum and the Coliseum, “it was cool to
think you could be an Emperor and sit up there and think, ‘Hmmm’…”
Besides the food (“I had Italian pizza every day”), Faith loved “all
the art - museums and churches.” She found herself increasingly
irritated by the legacy of Mussolini: “Mussolini wrecked a lot of
stuff; there’s a lot they can’t fix now…” Grateful to have taken
History of Rome before she went, Faith also found her knowledge of
Latin made her much in demand with her classmates to translate
inscriptions. Faith’s advice to anyone preparing to study in Rome:
1) learn some ancient Roman and modern Italian history (“I wish I’d
known something about Garibaldi and Vittorio Emmanuele”), and 2) get
a good map and walk everywhere. |
