Academic Profile
The Istituto Venenzia has been offering language instruction for Italians and foreigners since 1994. Program
participants have an opportunity to study Italian with students of all ages and from around the world. No previous
knowledge of Italian is required. Italian is offered at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. Because the
program in Venice is small, courses are offered on the basis of individualized study, unless five or more students
enroll in a course. A professor is assigned to work with a student. The student and professor meet for an hour a
week to go over the material to be covered and assignments of the previous week. Students do not meet in regular
classes with other students, but rather have the concentrated attend and exclusive guidance of a single professor for
each course; assignments are often tailored to the student's special interests. The language of instruction is English
with the exception of the language courses.
Course Offerings
Program I: Super-Intensive Italian Language Program. Student may register for a total of 12 credits only in this
program.
Program II: Venetian Civilization and Culture. Students take six credits of Italian language and two four-credit
courses. Students must take a placement exam before registering for intermediate-and advanced-level language
courses.
Course Descriptions
A. Super-Intensive Italian
(300 hrs, 12 credits)
4 hours per day, 5 days a week
Weekly seminars in Italian culture and art history tours are mandatory for all intensive Italian language courses.
B. Italian-Liberal Arts/Studio Art
(60 hrs, 3 credits)
Levels: There are five levels of Italian instruction. All beginners start at the first level (1). All other students,
regardless of their language competency, are tested by the Istituto Venezia instructors before classes begin. The
test determines the level in which they are placed.
Italian Levels:
Level 1- This course addressed beginning students who have no knowledge of the Italian language. At the end
of the course, students are able to communicate in the most frequent daily situations, using basic vocabulary and
grammar.
Level 2-This course is designed for students who have a basic knowledge of Italian. It allows the student to
increase his/her communication ability, expanding basic vocabulary and grammar.
Level 3-This course aims at strengthening comprehension, communication, and writing skills by using
advanced grammar.
Level 4- This course builds a good command of the language. The student develops complex grammatical
structures and enriches his/her vocabulary, thus improving fluency.
Level 5- This is an advanced course that can be repeated by those who want to reach a high level of fluency.
The course investigates different aspects of the Italian language.
Venetian History, Politics, and Society from the 12th to the 20th Century
(60 hrs, 4 credits)
The central aim that underlies the course is "to study the history of Venice, from the birth of the Republic to the
present, watching and seeing (in the historical and modern city) the testimonials of it and the progressive
changes."
To realize this goal, the course is designed to combine class lesson and visit to the sites of secular class lessons
and visits to the sites of secular historical importance: The Basilica of Saint Mark's, The Ducal Palace, and the
Arsenale; the commercial sites of the city and the modern industrial sites in the suburbs; the future solution for
the program of high water; the mobile dam in Pellestrina.
Venetian Art and Society from the 12th to the 18th Century
(60 hrs, 4 credits)
The course aims to introduce and explore the specificity of Venetian art and architecture: the origins,
development, and affirmation; their elaboration of influences from both East and West; their originality and
social, political, and cultural role in the life of the Serenissima Republic; and their relationship with
contemporary Italian artistic centers like Florence and Rome.
Classes are for the most part in the form of field trips. Venice is a city that, like few others, has kept almost
intact its ancient appearance and urbanistic structure. The history of its artistic development can therefore be
read as in a live book, simply by identifying the clues left everywhere for us to find, in each wall and façade,
church and palace, bridge and well. Masterpieces not only can be viewed in the city's museums, but also can be
admired in the exact sport for which they were made, thus offering the rare possibility of a much deeper
understanding of the artwork as devised by the artist. Moreover, the direct experience of the actual
masterpiece-otherwise studied in art books, isolated from its context-offers the possibility of analyzing the
interaction with previous and following artworks coexisting in the same place, and stimulates the student to
identify the net of relationships linking artistic production throughout the centuries. Of equal importance are
the visits to nearby significant artistic centers, where different artistic traditions have developed, cities like
Ravenna, Padova, and Vicenza, whose links with Venice underline at the same time the interaction of different
cultural influences and the uniqueness of Venetian art and architecture.
