The Walled Towns and Towers of Tuscany

Online Course

SNAPSHOT

Lecturer: Kate Bolton-Porciatti
Sessions: 3 x 90 minutes
Dates: 15, 22, 29 April, 2024
Times: Monday @ 7.00pm AEST
Group Size: Maximum of 15 screens
Price: $150 AUD SOLD OUT

TWO WAYS TO WATCH

Can't make a date above? Don't worry... this course will be recorded, allowing you to watch each session at your convenience for up to 14 days. Simply sign up below and we'll send you a link on the first business day following each live session, ensuring you never miss a class!

Overview

Many of the most beautiful towns and cities of Tuscany have grown up around medieval defensive structures: watch-towers, fortifications and battlements that stand witness to the turbulent and often factious history of the area.

In this three-part course, partly filmed on location in Italy, cultural historian Kate Bolton-Porciatti leads a series of ‘armchair journeys’ through different regions of Tuscany, tracing the origins and growth of its walled towns and towers and reflecting on how their evocative skylines have indelibly shaped the local landscape.

 

YOUR EXPERT LECTURER

Kate Bolton-Porciatti (MPhil.) is a professor of Italian cultural history at the Istituto Lorenzo de’Medici in Florence, where she teaches BA and MA courses in the humanities. She also lectures regularly at the British Institute, Florence, and at the Chigiana Academy in Siena. Before moving to Italy permanently in 2005, she was a senior producer and broadcaster for BBC Arts & Classical Music in London and has won prestigious Jerusalem and Sony Awards for her programs. She has published extensively as an academic, a critic and a journalist. Her MPhil thesis set the music of early 15th-century Florence in its social and cultural context.

 Session info

  • The medieval cities of Lucca and San Gimignano and the walled town of Pienza – the jewel of the Orcia Valley - conceived as an 'ideal Renaissance city'.

  • The picture-book medieval hill town of Certaldo, home to the 14th-century writer Giovanni Boccaccio; the early 13th-century fortified village of Monteriggioni, immortalized by Dante in The Divine Comedy; and the majestic ‘Gothic dream’ of Siena.

  • From medieval Montalcino, girdled with vine-draped hills, to San Quirico d’Orcia and Montepulciano – towns shaped by popes and dukes and the passage of merchants and pilgrims

 Suggested Reading List

Jones, Ted.  Florence and Tuscany – A Literary Guide for Travellers.  I.B Tauris & Co, 2013.

Macadam, Alta.  Blue Guide – Tuscany. Blue Guides, 2009.

Moffat, Alistair. Tuscany: A History. Birlinn, 2011.

 

Booking

SOLD OUT

 

How it works

Our online courses are hosted live on Zoom, a free online education platform. If you don’t already have an account with Zoom, you will need to sign up at www.zoom.us. To join with video, you'll also need a device with a camera (such as a computer, phone or tablet with a webcam). Otherwise you can join with audio only.

An online ticket booking is required, made above. Each booking is for one computer screen use, not person. Our online booking system is powered by Stripe, with secure payment processing that accepts all major credit cards.

A confirmation of purchase will be sent to your email with a Zoom link to use for every session in this course, along with a reminder email sent 2 hours before each session.

When joining the Zoom meeting, you will enter a virtual ‘waiting room’. Please ensure that your Zoom screen name matches the name you booked under, so that the lecturer can admit you from the virtual ‘waiting room’ into each session. Your lecturer can help you troubleshoot any technical issues on the day.