Submitted by Sydney Ballenger the 2024 Spring program in Rome, Italy…
This week marks my last full week of school! Next week, we have a short three days before a long weekend to study for finals. I can’t believe it is already the end of the semester, but I feel ready to finish strong and go home. It has been an incredible experience, often unbelievable, amazing, and exhausting at the same time. This week, in my on-site sociology class, we visited Villa Farnesina, located just off the banks of the Tiber River. The Villa was less than a five minute walk from campus and I realized as we entered, that I had walked past it many times this semester and not realized what it was. The Villa Farnesina is a renaissance era villa, located in Trastevere, built for the Pope’s banker in the early 1500s. It is beautiful, decorated with frescoes painted by artists like Raphael. The frescoes on the bottom floor display some of Raphael’s only secular works, depicting the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The frescoes are well preserved and beautiful. The Villa Farnesina also features an attempt at unity between the outdoors and indoors, with frescoes of gardens painted around the bottom floor and huge windows assimilating the indoors with the outdoors. In Rome, art and history is everywhere and the villa we visited in class is just one example of the sheer abundance of both in every corner of Rome. One semester will never be enough time to explore it all, but I look forward to my last two weeks of exploring. (Submitted on April 22,2024)