Peter Cullen is still the man. 2 weeks ago I told him about my interest in the Italian Renaissance and asked him if their were any more classes I could take on it here. Immediately, he offered to allow me to do an independent study with him, a directed reading class of the history of the Rennaisance, with an emphasis on how it relates to Urbino!
For 3 hours we went over maps of Italy as it existed hundereds of years ago and discussed all the different factors that made Italy so important: spice trade, cultural legacy, papacy... We met at the state archives, which is located underneath a elementary school which was dedicated by Mussolini. At the archive he helped me interpret a census from 1581, among other documents. The reason they took a census that year(and not any others) was not for tax, or immigration reasons, they only counted men and women and did not bother with the children. That year, the Marches were hit with a terrible grain faminie and the purpose was to discern how many mouths they'd need to try to feed.
After a short break I had Peter again for his contemporary Italian history and Geography class. This time however, there were a few more people in the class with me! The main thrust of the class is to understand why Italy works the way it does today. Italians think about issues differently than americans. They have learned and are immersed in a very different history than Americans. This affects the way their political and economical institutions function today, in addition to affecting their ability strenghten their infrastructure. If you want to build a new road, or building in Italy you must first order a lengthy archaeological survey. And because you are in Italy, the researchers usually find something of "great" historical importance. This make building a wallmart here a whole lot harder than in the States. However, I don't know if that thought makes me terribly sad!
