Event Details
Tue, May 03, 2022
18:15 – 21:00
Limonaia
VILLA LA PIETRA
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Firenze, italia
In collaboration with Istituto Professionale Alberghiero B. Buontalenti in Florence
Although a Tuscan Villa Estate produces food, its main function is to promote the wellbeing of the community that calls it home. Villa La Pietra’s history extends over half a millennium to the 1460s, a lapse of time during which it has produced food in a largely sustainable manner thus ensuring its survival into our current age of climate change and food insecurity. Now in the care of New York University, the estate’s agricultural land and the centuries-old Pomario or walled garden form a Green Laboratory of academic learning known from now on as NYU Florence’s Community Farm.
Here, all NYU Florence students can experience the true taste of Tuscany as they take part in the annual olive harvest. Students following the Introduction to Marketing course are able to design the label that proudly claims the liquid gold as ours (nostrale) on the bottles of olive oil that students and staff use to dress their food in the on-site cafeteria. Food, Culture and Globalization students gain greater understanding of their studies as they experience, on a daily basis, a landscape shaped by centuries of food production and, during the Spring 2022 semester, students of the Photography & Imaging: Digital course have put theory into practice as they created a photographic record of the build-up to the Community Farm’s official launch.
NYU has chosen to grow its vegetables using the no-dig system, transforming the estate’s green waste into compost, eliminating the need for synthetic fertilizers, safely locking up carbon in the ground, feeding the microorganisms essential for both healthy soil and the nutritious food that grows in it – food that travels meters not kilometer to the cafeteria’s kitchen and the mouths of the NYU community that eat it.
However, community extends beyond the boundary of the La Pietra estate to include the Florentine community that our students come from all over the world to be a part of during their Tuscan stay. The University and the Community Farm are proud to consider the Istituto Buontalenti as its academic partner. Communicating in a mixture of English and Italian, NYU students work alongside those of the Istituto harvesting crops at Villa La Pietra and cooking them at the Istituto in a unique hands-on farm-to-fork experience. As young adults, these students are about to make their mark on the world. Although they have similar concerns about the world and its future, they have very different experiences of it, which they share during such experiential activities.
The Community Farm allows students to better understand how choices in the way food is produced can affect the environment and that the choices they make in what they eat can make a huge difference to their lives too. At the same time, it facilitates more profound learning, better inter-cultural communication skills and a deeper appreciation of different perspectives on the world we, as a global community, have to work towards making more resilient.
PROGRAM
6.15 p.m. Mocktails made and served by students of the Istituto Buontalenti
6.45 Welcome
Larry Wolff and Perri Klass, Co-Directors, NYU Florence
Lorenzo Ricci, Associate Director, NYU Florence
Cecilia Del Re, Assessora Urbanistica, Ambiente e Agricoltura Urbana, Turismo e Innovazione, Comune di Firenze
Maria Francesca Cellai, Dirigente Scolastico, Istituto Buontalenti
Nick Dakin Elliot, Horticultural Associate, Villa La Pietra, NYU Florence
7.00 Crafting a Communal Poetics of Food Production, by Eric Himmelfarb, Ph.D Candidate, NYU Steinhardt
7.20 Student Project to Design a Label for Bottles of Villa La Pietra Olive Oil, by Raffaele Donvito, Lecturer, NYU Florence
7.40 Invitation to take refreshments in the Pomario, look at the no-dig system in action and ask questions of those involved in the project
7.50 – 9.00 Refreshments, made by students of the Istituto Buontalenti using produce from Community Farm
In collaborazione con l’Istituto Professionale Alberghiero B. Buontalenti a Firenze.
Sebbene per tradizione in una Villa Toscana si produca sempre del cibo, suo compito primario è quello di promuovere il benessere della comunità che considera la Villa casa propria. La storia di Villa La Pietra si dipana per più di cinquecento anni, a partire dagli anni 60 del quattrocento, un lasso di tempo durante il quale è stato prodotto cibo con modalità in gran parte sostenibili, assicurandone così la sopravvivenza fino alla nostra epoca, dominata da grandi cambiamenti climatici e dall’ insicurezza alimentare. Adesso, grazie alla cura della New York University, la terra coltivabile della proprietà e l’antico Pomario o “hortus conclusus”, compongono un laboratorio verde di sapere accademico che verrà da ora in poi chiamato NYU Florence’s Community Farm.
In questo luogo, tutti gli studenti di NYU Florence possono gustare il vero sapore della Toscana partecipando alle raccolta annuale delle olive; gli studenti che frequentano il corso “Introduction to Marketing” possono ideare l’etichetta che con orgoglio indica quest’oro liquido come nostrale, ponendola su quelle bottiglie di olio d’oliva che gli studenti e lo staff usano per condire il cibo nella caffetteria del campus. Gli studenti del corso “Food, Culture and Globalization” acquisiscono grande conoscenza sul campo, immersi giornalmente in questo paesaggio forgiato da secoli di coltivazioni. Durante il semestre di primavera 2022, gli studenti del corso “Photography & Imaging: Digital” hanno potuto mettere in pratica la teoria dei loro studi documentando fotograficamente la realizzazione dell’orto, in previsione del lancio ufficiale del Community Farm.
NYU ha scelto di far crescere le verdure con una pratica no-dig, trasformando i rifiuti organici della proprietà in compost, eliminando l’uso di concimi artificiali, bloccando in modo sicuro il carbonio nel suolo e nutrendo i microorganismi essenziali per una crescita sana della terra e del cibo che cresce in essa—cibo che “viaggia” per metri e non per chilometri, fino alla cucina della caffetteria e in seguito nelle bocche di coloro che sono parte della comunità di NYU.
Naturalmente, questa comunità si estende oltre le mura della proprietà de La Pietra abbracciando quella comunità fiorentina della quale i nostri studenti, provenienti da ogni parte del mondo, desiderano così tanto essere parte durante la loro permanenza in Toscana. L’Università e la Community Farm sono orgogliose di avere come partner accademico in questa iniziativa l’Istituto Buontalenti. Alternando inglese ed italiano, gli studenti di NYU e quelli del Buontalenti, dopo aver raccolto i prodotti a Villa La Pietra, li cucinano all’Istituto, vivendo un’esperienza unica “dalla terra alla forchetta”. In quanto giovani adulti, si preparano a lasciare la loro impronta nel mondo e, sebbene condividano preoccupazioni simili per il futuro, ne hanno un’esperienza diversa che diventa condivisione grazie a queste attività.
Nella Community Farm gli studenti riescono a comprendere in modo efficace quanto fare scelte su come produrre cibo abbia un impatto sull’ambiente, e che le scelte su ciò che mangiano fanno la differenza nella loro vita. Allo stesso tempo, l’apprendimento diventa più profondo, vengono stimolate le abilità comunicative interculturali, e si impara ad apprezzare differenti prospettive sul mondo che noi tutti, in quanto comunità globale, dovremmo impegnarci a rendere più resilienti.
PROGRAMMA
18.15 Mocktails preparati e serviti dagli studenti dell’Istituto Buontalenti
18.45 Saluto
Larry Wolff e Perri Klass, Co-Direttori, NYU Florence
Lorenzo Ricci, Associate Director, NYU Florence
Cecilia Del Re, Assessora Urbanistica, Ambiente e Agricoltura Urbana, Turismo e Innovazione, Comune di Firenze
Maria Francesca Cellai, Dirigente Scolastico, IPSSEOA “B.Buontalenti”
Nick Dakin Elliot, Horticultural Associate, NYU Florence, Villa La Pietra
19.00 Eric Himmelfarb, Ph.D Candidate, NYU Steinhardt
Crafting a Communal Poetics of Food Production
19.20 Raffaele Donvito, Lecturer, NYU Florence
Student Project to Design a Label for Bottles of Villa La Pietra Olive Oil
19.40 Passeggiata nel Pomario con la possibilità di vedere la pratica del no-dig farming e fare domande alle persone che si occupano direttamente del progetto.
19.50 Rinfresco preparato e servito dagli studenti dell’Istituto Buontalenti
21.00 Fine evento
Featured Biographies

Eric Himmelfarb
PH.D. CANDIDATE, NYU STEINHARDT
Eric Himmelfarb is a third-year doctoral candidate in Food Studies at NYU Steinhardt, researching the impact of poetic practices on work towards food justice and food sovereignty. Since 2015, he has taught a course in the NYU Department of Nutrition & Food Studies entitled “Food in the Arts: The Poetic Voice.” Prior to beginning his doctoral work, he spent over six years at City Harvest, an anti-hunger non-profit organization located in New York City

Nick Dakin-Elliot
HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATE, VILLA LA PIETRA
Nick Dakin-Elliot, as Horticultural Associate, is responsible for the gardens and grounds of Villa La Pietra and, as Garden Manager, the garden of Villa Torre di Sopra, both in Florence, Italy. Previously, he was senior lecturer in horticulture at Pershore College of Horticulture in England. He has written for a wide range of publications on horticultural issues and was a contributor to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Dictionary of Gardening. He has also given classes for the Society as well as organizations as diverse as the Seychelles government, New York Botanical Gardens and the Landscape Museum of Verbania, Piemonte.
He studied ornamental horticulture at Askham Bryan College, York and the University Botanic Gardens, Cambridge and studied education at the Universities of Wolverhampton and Worcester in England.

Raffaele Donvito
NYU FLORENCE LECTURER
Raffaele Donvito (PhD) is Associate Professor (with National Academic Qualification as Full Professor) of Marketing and International Management at the University of Florence. He has been Research Fellow of the Department of Economics and Management at the University of Florence since 2000. He has been Lecturer of Introduction to Marketing at Leonard N. Stern School of Business – New York University in Florence since 2009. He has been Visiting Professor at the Leibniz University of Hannover since 2008. His research interests include fashion and luxury marketing, brand management, international marketing, retail marketing, and marketing communication. He is Marketing Consultant for public and private organizations. His published research outputs have appeared in refereed international journals including Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business Research, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Qualitative Market Research, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Journal of Marketing Trends. He is Associate Editor of Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, and editorial board member of Italian Journal of Marketing. He received several academic awards including the Best Conference Paper award at 2015 Global Fashion Marketing Conference.