Program Schedule (download)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Meet your Fellow Alumni at the Welcome Dinner Reception hosted by Helen and Peter Bing
The Grand Hotel
Piazza Ognissanti, 1
(enter on Via Montebello)
http://www.grandflorence.com/
6:45 p.m.
Welcome Remarks:
Doctor Ermelinda M. Campani, Spogli Family Director, The Breyer Center for Overseas Studies in Florence
Professor Giuseppe Mammarella, Director Emeritus, Stanford Program in Florence
Professor Norman Naimark, Director, Bing Overseas Studies Program Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies, Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies & Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at FSI and Hoover Institution
Mrs. Helen Bing
Monday, June 21, 2010
9:30 a.m.
Arrive at Palazzo Vecchio
Address: Via dei Gondi, 1 in Piazza della Signoria. You will enter not from the door behind the statue of David but through the side door behind the Neptune statue (you will see the back of that statue on your right as you enter, make sure to bring photo ID).
10:00 a.m.
Meet at the Salone dei Cinquecento, Palazzo Vecchio
Welcome: Matteo Renzi, Mayor of Florence
Introduction: Professor Norman Naimark, Director, Bing Overseas Studies Program Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies, Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies & Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at FSI and Hoover Institution
10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Keynote Address: Why Stanford in Florence? Professor Gerhard Casper, President, Emeritus, Peter & Helen Bing Professor in Undergraduate Education, Professor of Law, & Senior Fellow at FSI, Stanford University
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Roundtable Discussion - Alumni Panel
“Beyond Florence: The Past, Present and Future of the Study Abroad Experience” Chair, Mr. T. Robert Burke, Class of 1964Panelists:
Mrs. Susan Cromwell Adamson, Esq., Class of 1978
Mr. Michael Armstrong, Class of 1970
Mr. Jim Breyer, Partner, Accel Partners, Class of 1983
Mr. Samuel Chiu, Stanford University, Class of 2010
Mr. Nicholas Clements, Director of Risk Oversight, Citigroup, Class of 2000
Mr. Cameron Jewell, Assistant, Relativity Media, Class of 2006
Mrs. Jo Bufalino Libaw, M.D., class of 1973
Ms. Sarah Naimark, MA in International Relations, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Class of 2003
12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Questions for the panelists from the audience
Rest of afternoon free or special classes and visits with Stanford Professors, Stanford in Florence Faculty and Florence Experts.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
10:00 a.m.
Meet at the Aula Magna, Università di Firenze
Address: Piazza San Marco, 410:00 a.m. - 12.00 p.m.
Roundtable Discussion
“The ‘Status Quo’: European Politics and Economics”Welcome: Professor Alberto Tesi, Rector, University of Florence
Introduction: Professor Richard Saller, Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of Humanities and Sciences and the Kleinheinz Family Professor of European Studies
Chair, Professor Leonardo Morlino, Professor of Political Science, Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Florence and President, International Political Science Association
Panelists:
Professor Gerhard Casper, President, Emeritus, Peter & Helen Bing Professor in Undergraduate Education, Professor of Law, & Senior Fellow at FSI, Stanford University
Professor Roberto D’Alimonte, Professor of Political Science, University of Florence
Professor Judith Goldstein, Janet M. Peck Professor in International Communication, Kaye University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Professor David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University (Class of 1963)
Professor Giuseppe Mammarella, Director Emeritus, Stanford Program in Florence
Honorable Ronald P. Spogli, Former U.S. Ambassador to Italy (Class of 1970)
12:00 p.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Questions for the panelists from the audience
12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Closing Remarks
A light lunch will be served in the garden from 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Rest of afternoon free or private special visits with professors from the home campus, Stanford in Florence professors and local experts
Evening free
Salone dei Cinquecento
This most imposing chamber was built in 1494 by Simone
del Pollaiolo, on commission of Savonarola who, replacing
the Medici after their exile as the spiritual leader of
the Republic, wanted it as a seat of the Grand Council
(Consiglio Maggiore) consisting of 500 members. Later the
hall was enlarged by Giorgio Vasari so that Grand Duke
Cosimo I could hold his court in this chamber. During
this transformation famous (but unfinished) works were lost, including the
Battle of Cascina by Michelangelo and the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo.
Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned in 1503 to paint one long wall
with a battle scene celebrating a famous Florentine victory.
Leonardo had finished painting part of the wall, but it wasn't drying fast
enough, so he brought in braziers stoked with hot coals
to try to hurry the process. As others watched in horror, the wax in the
fresco melted under the intense heat and the colors ran down the walls to
puddle on the floor. Michelangelo never even got past
making the preparatory drawings for the fresco he was supposed to paint on
the opposite wall -- Pope Julius II called him to Rome to paint the Sistine
Chapel, and the master's sketches were destroyed by eager
young artists who came to study them and took away scraps. The surviving
decorations in this hall were made between 1555 and 1572
by Giorgio Vasari and his helpers, among them Livio Agresti
from Forlì.
They mark the culmination of mannerism and make this hall
the showpiece of the palace. On the walls are large and
expansive frescoes that depict battles and military victories by Florence
over Pisa and Siena
L’Aula Magna del Rettorato
The Grand Hall of the Chancellor’s Office of the University of
Florence
The Grand Hall of the Chancellor’s Office, located in Piazza San Marco, is situated in a building commissioned in 1515 by the young Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino and grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had ordered the construction of two large and well-designed stables “for use by horses of great respect and esteem.”
Eight decades earlier, in 1434, Niccolò da Uzzano had chosen the same plot of land to erect, at his own expense, a building for the University of Florence according to Lorenzo di Bicci’s design.
The University’s ties to the place were rediscovered in 1859, when the provisional Tuscan government (installed following the expulsion of the Grand Duke during the Risorgimento movement) founded the “Institute for Practical and Specialized Superior Studies” (“Istituto di Studi Superiori pratici e di perfezionamento”). This historic link was documented at the request of Pasquale Villari, the Minister of Public Instruction, who wished to underscore the building’s situation “in the site of the old stables, where the Florentine study once was”
In 1878 renovation efforts began, and in particular the decoration of the Grand Hall’s ceiling was entrusted to the painter-decorator Enrico Ghigi: on the ceiling, in light blue and in Neo-Baroque style, a few small angels hold up the Savoy coat of arms and a crown, in honor of the Savoy family that had at that time bolstered the rise of Italy; several other angels also hold up a bay leaf, perhaps to emphasize the reverence and sanctity of academic study in a hall utilized often for meetings among University officials.
The present arrangement of the Grand Hall was effected between 1958 and 1967 according to the design by the engineer Arduino Matassini and the architect Mario Negri, after the Department of Letters and Philosophy was relocated to Piazza Brunelleschi.
Translated from the Italian by Scott Cauble, ’12
All former students and their families are invited to participate in the Stanford in Florence Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration. Each individual is responsible for making and paying for travel arrangements and hotel reservations for everyone in his or her party.
Registration Costs:
Alumni: $300.00
Young Alumni: $250.00 (those who graduated in June, 2000,
or later)
Families and Guests (cost per family member/guest): $250.00
Children under twelve: Complimentary