Spring Term

Our spring terms give students from any faculty a chance to take a three week course. Complete credits that you are missing for graduation or take a course to satisfy your curiosity while studying in Tuscany.

We offer 300 and 400 level courses from various faculties at the University of Alberta.
All of the courses include day-long field trips to take you off the beaten track, and there are no course prerequisites.

Courses are offered in spring I (May) and spring II (June). Students can take up to two classes in a term, and can register in one or both spring terms.

All courses include field trips. There are no pre-requisites for Cortona courses. Additional courses may be offered if there is sufficient demand. 

 Spring I 2025

HIST 300 The Grand Tour

This course considers the main elements of the “Grand Tour,” a historical trip across the main centres of Europe undertaken to gain an appreciation of culture such as architecture, language, and art. The Tour’s cultural and political elaborations in Europe will be examined with a focus on significant works of artists and writers mainly from the 18th and 19th century who traveled to Italy. These works contributed to the aesthetical paradigm of the Italian landscape with its archaeological sites, cities, monuments, and habits of local populations. The previous heritage of Italian humanists to the Grand Tour and its later transformations into the pop-culture of modern tourism will be considered.

POLS 486  The state and nation from ancient to postmodern

What does it mean to be a state, and how did the modern state develop? In an increasingly globalized world, what does sovereignty mean? Why do states pursue supranational integration and how do states balance the desire for sovereignty with the need for cooperation beyond their borders? What makes states successful and how has the Italian state been transformed by nationalism, globalization and its membership in the European Union? This course examines these questions of state development through a lens of Italian history of fragmentation and unification, ranging from the Roman empire, medieval city states, 19th century Risorgimento to the present day.  Field trips include Florence, Rome and San Marino.

Spring II 2025

HADVC 211 Renaissance City

In 1347-1351, the Black Death, a widespread and catastrophic epidemic, created economic, social, and religious upheaval across Europe. It is from this disaster that the Renaissance city emerged. New structures such as wide and straight streets, palaces, offices, gardens, fountains, theatres, villas appeared in the landscape and created the modern forms that we can often still experience in today’s cities.  Field trips to Gubbio, Rome, Florence, and lessons on-site at Cortona allow us to observe the original structures of the Renaissance city and compare them with the components of modern cities. This course aims to furnish a wider comprehension of the architecture, urban, cultural, and social components of a crucial period in the history of the city that has influenced the environments where we live, study, and work.

POLS 354 Conflict and Democracy in Modern Italy

This course examines the politics of the last century in Italy through the lens of democracy, its breakdown, and the rise of populism of the right and left. We visit Siena to learn what a 14th century fresco can tell us about good and bad government, Bologna to learn about the partisan resistance in World War II and the impact of political terror, and Rome to see how interwar fascism left its mark on the architecture of the city. 
No prerequisites.