At HSIA, students learn to make the great art and architecture they see (from Greek, Roman and Etruscan to Italian Medieval and Renaissance to Contemporary), the great literature they read (Greek, Latin Italian and English), a part of their lives forever; they take it home with them when they leave! Learning at HS is not academic, but rather site-specific and interdisciplinary, experiential and firsthand. We give students a direct and lively experience, in particular, of the Classical and the early Italian Renaissance worlds.

We see classes as doors into the great art and architecture here; students read the poems of Propertius, whose hometown was Assisi, in the Latin seminar, and then go to see his frescoed villa, read in-situ inscriptions which refer to his family, and get to know well the Roman Assisi he lived. Assisi has many Latin inscriptions still in situ, an amphitheater, temple, walls, gates, tombs, cisterns and houses, so students can really get to know this little Roman city firsthand.

Or in the Renaissance class, they read Robert Browning's poem Fra Lippo Lippi to help them connect to the Fra Lippo Lippi joyful Renaissance fresco cycle in Spoleto; Or students climb down 6th b.c. frescoed Etruscan tombs and learn about the Ancient Greek painting they are studying in the morning. Or they use Vitruvius, whom they study in the morning, to help them understand the differences between all the types of columns we see during their travels. Students also do individual research periodically in the Humanities Spring library and then act as tour guides for the rest of the group when we are on trips.

Trips are an extremely important part of the HS experience. Students visit all the small Umbrian towns near Assisi, and learn a great deal from the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance, Baroque (etcetera!) works of art they contain. They make day-trips each week, to Ravenna, Tarquinia, Florence, and some years, also Venice or Rome.

At the end of the program, HSIA goes south to tour Pompeii, Paestum, and the Amalfi Coast. This trip lasts 7 days, and it is a wonderful way for students to experience an ancient Greek city (Paestum) and an ancient Roman one (Pompeii) and get to know another part of Italy (Campania) well.

Students keep a trip-book/diary and, while they are on trips, record their impressions of what they see and experience in sketches, prose, poems, collages, or watercolors. Staff gives students feedback on these diaries; other students do as well; our aim is to help students learn to connect individually and constructively with the great art and architecture we travel to see together, to make it theirs. This helps it to become a useful and constructive part of their lives.

Two afternoons a week, we have activities. In past years, these have included Collage as a way of seeing, Landscape painting in the fields around HS; pastoral poetry, summer poems from Theocritus to Pound, in which students write their own summer poems, and an Umbrian cooking class conducted in Italian with lots of gestures, always a favorite.

Our HSIA director got her degrees at Harvard and Columbia and taught at the University of Perugia for several years. She now devotes herself exclusively to Humanities Spring programs. Other faculty have come from Italy, England, Australia, and Austria; we have new visiting professors each year. HS faculty and staff includes poets and painters, as well as art historians, archaeologists, and classicists.

HSIA home-base is a restored turn-of-the-century schoolhouse with nooks and crannies; every room at HS is different. We are in the hills outside Assisi in the Subasio national park, with views of hills, plum trees, fields, dogs, kitten, ducks. Our HS van takes students into Assisi evenings for ice cream, the gentle hum of piazza life, with its impromptu concerts (classical and jazz). Other evenings, students stay home to do homework with the help of Italian students from the local classical high school, stargaze, go for walks, bake cookies or cakes. At least one night a week, HSIA attends a concert, ballet, or opera at the nearby Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds, Umbria Jazz or elsewhere.
Home-base when we go south is a charming Villa, in Castellabate, near Paestum, (a short walk from a beautiful beach!).

Conversation is at the heart of the Humanities Spring experience, both inside the classroom and out. We are a small community (of about 20 people) – and a jokey, tolerant atmosphere prevails. At HSIA, we all learn together.

Students need have no previous knowledge of Latin, Greek, Italian or art history to attend Humanities Spring in Assisi. Our only prerequisites are enthusiasm, open-mindedness and the desire to learn. We believe that different outlooks and backgrounds make the HSIA experience more fruitful and stimulating for everyone!

Admission is based exclusively on the Humanities Spring application.

Humanities Spring in Assisi 2024 will run from July 21st to August 11th and cost 3,600 euros (about 3,900 dollars). Students who apply by March 15th are automatically eligible for our 250 euro EER (early enrollment reduction).
Work-Study and merit scholarships (Helping Hand) are available to students who would not otherwise be able to participate in the program.
HSIA work-study also now includes the opportunity to work as counselor-in-training at our HS Kids program, for Italian children learning English in theater, cooking, and art labs (which runs both directly before and directly after the HSIA session).

HS is committed to making it possible for enthusiastic and dedicated students to attend. If you are seriously interested in coming to HSIA 2024, please go ahead and apply and we will try to work things out together.