An innovative classical high school with an archaeological focus is born in Arezzo

An innovative classical high school with an archaeological focus, in an area rich in ancient remains: this is the new educational proposal of the Liceo Classico “Petrarca” of Arezzo, which will activate it from the year 2021-2022. The curriculum foresees that every year there will be in-depth studies dedicated to archaeology within the framework of the subject “Archaeology and History of Art,” which will have one hour a week in the two-year and three hours a week in the three-year, and everything will also be complemented by extracurricular experiences, with practical activities, excavation internships, laboratory simulations, guided tours, museum research, and digitization. Petrarch students will learn from the start about the study of classical languages and ancient sources, archaeological research methodology, collecting, and industrial archaeology.

The project, coordinated by Professor Francesca Chieli, involves the collaboration of several institutions: the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio of Siena Grosseto and Arezzo, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Gaio Clio Mecenate of Arezzo, the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca of Cortona, the Castelsecco Association of Arezzo, the Museo Archeologico del Casentino Piero Albertoni, and the Centro Studi sul Quaternario of Sansepolcro. For the Arezzo high school, it will also be a way to enhance knowledge of the area’s cultural heritage.

“It is a novelty that we believe to be in perfect coherence with the humanistic formative characteristics of our high school,” says school principal Professor Mariella Ristori. “So it has the ambition to guide young people toward the knowledge and appreciation of this enormous historical, cultural artistic heritage that is typical of our city. We also hope that it can be a cue for them to find job opportunities both in the traditional field and in aspects that could instead be completely innovative. We believe that Arezzo, precisely because of its wealth of cultural heritage, could be an optimal amphitheater for such a course. And we liked to further enrich our educational offerings: we are very convinced that the structure of the classical high school is in itself an excellent proposal both culturally and educationally, even for the younger generations, but in recent years we have been working hard to decline our paths in specific areas as well. So we have a science enhancement, we have given space to language training, and now we are ready to explore a field that is very much in our veins: that of archaeology. We can also do this because in recent years we have opened up a lot to the territory, and many collaborations have already been made with entities in the province that deal with this field. We would like to do it now in a more structured way, in a five-year course with very specific characteristics.”

The topics of study for high school students have also already been defined. The first year will be about archaeology as a Discipline: history, methods, tools and regulatory aspects. Then again, the birth of Classical archaeology, the difference between Antiquarian and Classical archaeology, stratigraphic excavations and excavation techniques, archaeological areas of the Middle East, Aegean civilizations (Crete and Mycenae), Schliemann and the Iliad, the discovery of Troy, the history of Greek art, and the study of sources for classical art. The second year will study early Italic civilization, Etruscan art and Roman art, sources for Roman art (Pliny the Elder, Vitruvius, Ovid, Cicero, Seneca, Prudentius, St. Augustine), with in-depth study of the Etruscan-Roman evidence in the Arezzo area. The third year will instead see the study of medieval archaeology, the cult of antiquity in the Renaissance, and focus on medieval art in the Arezzo area. The fourth year will start with archaeological discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries between popularization and collecting, and will continue with classical archaeology after Winckelmann and archaeology as a discipline. Finally, the fifth year will be devoted to industrial archaeology, its problems of preservation and recovery, and its evidence in and around Arezzo (the Ricci Wool Mill in Stia, the former Sacci-Corsalone cement factory in Arezzo, the Tannino Tower in Bibbiena, Cappellifici and Pelifici in Montevarchi, the Santa Barbara Mine and MINE Museum of Mines and Territory in Cavriglia, the Buitoni in Sansepolcro, the Pescaiola silo in Arezzo, the Bastanzetti Foundry converted into the Energy House in Arezzo, the Burri Museum and the recovery of the former tobacco dryer in Città di Castello).

An innovative classical high school with an archaeological focus is born in Arezzo

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