Villa La Pietra, built more than 550 years ago at the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, is home to NYU Florence. Studying in this very special place allows you to be part of the vibrant local and international communities that call Florence their home. Life may not be what you make of it but it is surely what you make of the opportunities that life presents you with; NYU Florence offers students endless opportunities………..are you ready to make the most of them?
Through talks, workshops and discussion groups the Terra Firma Firenze and Museum Meetings programs aim to facilitate a deeper appreciation of the place you have chosen to study, to more fully enjoy it and to use it as a mirror reflecting wider issues in the world related to environmental sustainability, the arts, conservation, the food we eat and general human wellbeing.
Museum Meetings Museum Meetings consist of a series of conversations dedicated to various aspects of art and museums, including art history, photography, anthropology, collecting, curation, techniques and media, conservation, and the role of museums and archives in society today. It originates in the Acton Collection at Villa La Pietra and expands to other art spaces in Florence and Italy. It is designed to attract a multidisciplinary group of students, not just those studying art or art history. All the meetings are conceived as discussions and envisage an active participation. Francesca Baldry, Collection Manager at Villa La Pietra, organizes the meetings and welcomes suggestions from students.
NYU Florence is different from any other Study Abroad site. Its campus is made up of Villa La Pietra’s world-famous gardens and the bucolic agricultural landscape that surrounds them. As a small, but perfect, 37 acre Tuscany Villa Estate it does produce food but its main purpose for more than 550 years has been the wellbeing of the community it serves. Today, that community is the students and staff that form the NYU Florence family.
Pliny wrote “I always feel energetic and fit at my Tuscan villa, both mentally and physically.” [Epistles, V. vi.45].
Broadly, the estate may be divided in two parts: the formal gardens where students may participate in outdoor classes, revise for upcoming exams or simply relax, take the sun and enjoy a homemade picnic in beautiful surroundings; the olive groves and the walled garden, the Pomario, form NYU Florence’s Community Farm which acts as a Green Laboratory of learning opportunities for a range of courses and extracurricular activities. From this semester the Farm will also start to supply the on-site cafeteria with fresh, zero-miles, produce in a way that is also good for our environment.