All students take four courses taught in English and an Italian language course. While all classes are held at Casa Artom, each professor sees the city of Venice as their classroom and often take the students out exploring.  Local Italian professors teach language courses and courses within other disciplines. In our case this Spring semester, Art, History, and Economics are offered.  Local staff coordinate Venice Today, a 1.5 hour pass/fail course all students take.  In addition, the Wake Forest Resident Professor, my darling husband, teaches two courses from his discipline, Business Strategy (using his very own textbook), and just for this semester, Merchants of Venice:  From Marco Polo to 21^st Century Global Capitalism. Classes are scheduled Monday through Thursday, leaving a three-day weekend to explore Venice or travel to other destinations.

Sign me up!  Absolutely!

I have sat in on all the classes this week except Italian and Business Strategy. A mini orientation of the Italian language made me realize that ordering a cappuccino was enough for me.  As long as I use the words buon giorno, scusi, si, no, per favore, grazie, come?, prego, arrivederci, and ecco, I will be good.  Page on the other hand wants to speak nothing but Italian.  He has a talent for it!  As for Strategy, mine is to keep up with these students and absorb what I can of Italy.

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Today we toured the Peggy Guggenheim Collection next door.  All modern art with cubism, surrealism, and abstract art, it is one of the premier collections in the world featuring over 300 works by over 100 artists of the 20^th century.

Peggy Guggenheim bought Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal in Venice, where she came to live after WWII.  In Venice, she became a celebrity, known for her butterfly sunglasses, designed by Edward Melcarth, which she wore everywhere as she navigated the city in her private gondola and her accompanying dogs.

 From 1951 Peggy opened her house and her collection to the public annually in the summer months. During her 30-year Venetian life, she continued to collect works of art.  In 1970 she donated her palazzo and in 1976 her works of art to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

Venice was built on 118 islands in the middle of the Venetian Lagoon at the head of the Adriatic Sea in Northern Italy.  It was in the 5^th century that these Venetians began to take refuge in the muddy flats to escape the barbarians who descended from the north and took advantage of the failing Roman Empire.  The first homes here were huts.  The first buildings were churches.  The islands were lined with tree trunks and inserted vertically into the ground for stability in the mud.  Over the tree trunks they put white stone which was not corrosive to salt from the water.  Eventually, the tree trunk “pilings” petrified and became stone. Thus, the strong foundation under what looks like floating buildings!

Venice was made up of sailors familiar with trade that made them wealthy.  By 1212 AD the cities of Baghdad, Cairo, and Constantinople were trading with Venice.  The main industries were shipping, glass making, and book making.

Then, there were the doges!  These men were elected to run the government here for centuries.  The Palazzo Ducale was very impressive when I toured it years ago.  Turns out it will be one of our field trips. 

Most of the history of Venice classes will be walking tours.  Our American professor, Monica, who is married to a Venetian and who lives with him in Switzerland, has two grown daughters and has a great knack for storytelling.  I have attended both her classes this week which were lectures and slides.

Most come on Saturday by water taxi, but all are here by Sunday afternoon. Room assignments are made ahead of time by Joy. Most rooms have two or four beds and look like a typical dorm room with a desk and closet for each student. The mosquito netting is used during the warm months because there are no screens on the windows…yet. The faculty apartment has newly installed window screens and we are told the entire house is going in that direction. AC is not in the picture so each room gets a standing fan, too.

The library and two conference/class rooms, four bedrooms, bathroom, laundry room, and living room are on the bottom floor.

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Upstairs are three more bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living/sitting room with piano, and faculty apartment.

We have two doors: the main one is at number #699 next to Guggenheim Museum whereas the #700 entrance, where the bell is, is only used for guest arrivals and deliveries.

The Venice Campus is built around a courtyard and has living quarters for students both on the ground floor and the floor above. These are connected by a winding staircase also leading to a mezzanine with administration offices and a small bathroom.

Down stairs in the four bedrooms are:  #1 Lillian, Helen, Crystal;  #2 Anna, Caroline, Riley;  #3  Brett, Benjamin, Jake, Spencer;  #4  Jonathan, Jackson, Kevin

Upstairs in the three bedrooms are:  #1  Emily, Hannah;  #2  Caroline, Megan;  #3  Elaina, Avery

I was able to find all this on the internet:

In the late 1960s Wake Forest University conceived the idea of offering students a semester of study in Europe and in 1971 acquired what was once the American consulate in Venice. In 1974 the University purchased the property outright from the American government, and it was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Camillo Artom, who had fled fascist Italy and become a doctor and biochemical researcher at Wake Forest’s medical school. His wife Bianca Artom taught Italian at Wake Forest, and served as the first Director of the Venice Program. Through her personal contacts in the city, Wake Forest was able to hire the famous art historian Dr. Terisio Pignatti, who taught the art history course at Casa Artom for more than thirty years.

Casa Artom is a grand 19^th-century, two-story house sited in the residential neighborhood of Dorsoduro; it faces the Grand Canal and sits between the Peggy Guggenheim Museum and Ca’ Dario.

The site where the house rests became an object of fascination long before it became Casa Artom: it appears in many art works including views of the Gran Canal painted by Canaletto, mid-19^th century etchings as well as Monet’s Venetian paintings. The earliest surviving document that mentions Casa Artom’s location is the will of Matteo Venier (September 3, 1326) stating his ownership of the “domus de Turre”, the “house of the Tower”. The tower gave to Venier’s descendents the nickname “dalle Torreselle” (“of the Towers”) and the narrow canal that runs along Casa Artom the name “Rio delle Torreselle”. The Venier family was a powerful patrician clan whose name you can still read on several streets and courts in Venice. What remains of the original palazzo are the Gothic base visible along the Rio delle Torreselle and the decorative elements at the southeast corner from the same age.

I love the terracotta tiled roofs of Venice. I also like how close they are to each other and almost create a visual landing. What I don’t like is the story Joy told me! Last semester after a heat wave in the autumn, many of the students were keeping the doors open off the terrace at night to let the breeze through the house. All is secure since we are walled in on two sides and have a “moat” or canal on the other two sides. However, one night a critter got inside the house. After lots of screaming and running around (by the students, not the critter) someone chased it back outside and everyone kept the doors shut after that. Apparently, critters get around by running across the rooftops! Needless to say, Page and I are no longer leaving our doors open! I do miss that cool night breeze. I am playing with all the windows now!

Joy arrived yesterday! This bubbly former WFU student who lived in Casa Artom as a biology student, is our IPA (RA – “Resident Assistant” – is not the correct title anymore!) IPA stands for “International Program Assistant”. When our 19 students start showing up this weekend, she will get them all acclimated and assigned to bedrooms. Joy showed me her little dwelling in this large house. Believe it or not, she lives under the marble staircase (between floors) where the staircase bends. One of those little square windows in front of the house is her bedroom window! She has three rooms and uses the main house kitchen and living areas. Her mom, a NC teacher, will be visiting during her Spring Break.

Being a visual person, I need to see the lay of the land before I can begin to understand the story or history of a place. I found some google maps of Venice and a little history of this house.

The second picture here is a print hanging on our wall in our living room. Quite an old map, I would say! It is amazing that for centuries this is what Venice looked like – always occupied!

A closer view shows where Casa Artom is compared to the upper right where you see St. Mark’s Square. The Grand Canal has lots of activity!

Casa Artom is to the right of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. Lots of trees over there, but we are thankful for our little courtyard on the lower left of the property. You can also see the upper terrace with potted plants alongside the faculty apartment. Just below the faculty apartment are the library and two classrooms. Up on the left corner is a sliver of a patio only a foot or so from the edge of the neighboring museum. I figured out how to get out there today! In the living room is a door that looks like a window. Outside is a lovely long narrow terrace with a purple metal table and two chairs overlooking the Grand Canal. BINGO! I found the perfect spot to sit with a glass of wine! Story goes that Wake students would step foot across the gap over to the museum. Now alarms go off if you try that stunt! In the lower left corner you see a strip of green that is actually two walls running side by side leading away from the formal front door up the the house front door. Nobody uses that door! We all use a door on the lower right corner. I will find out more about why that is in the coming days.

Down by St. Mark’s Square we were delighted to see all the Christmas lights still decorating the area. Lights strung over the narrow alleys in the retail sections were so pretty considering it gets dark so early.

Back at our house we realized how very quiet it was since were were alone in the house. There are no cars on the island and few people walking around at night. A bit eerie, but nice!

The apartment is bigger than I expected, but not as spacious as the Worrell House in London or the Flow House in Vienna. However, the master bedroom is so large that it has windows on opposite sides of the room. One side faces the outer wall of the house along a small canal while the other side has four wood framed glass doors that open out onto a terrace. The terrace overlooks the courtyard below with trees and gardens. Quite lovely!

Arriving at the Marco Polo Airport in Venice was exhilarating! Sunny skies awaited us as be gathered our luggage (all of it!) and proceeded to the water taxi service that Laura, the house manager, arranged for us. Within minutes we were transported to the front door of Casa Artom where Laura and Massimo (the IT guy) greeted us. Upstairs in our apartment I took off my boots and lied on the bed. We made it! Before long we were unpacked and claiming drawers, shelves, and sides of the bed. After a five minute meeting with Laura whose office is downstairs, and meeting Katie, the daily housekeeper, Page went with Laura to Simply, our neighborhood grocery store, to get a few things.

We are now sitting in Munich airport. It is 10 am. The flight overnight from Washington was superb, with roomy seats and good food in Economy Plus seating.

But getting onto this United Airlines flight was another story. Weather in Washington didn’t delay our Greensboro flight. But the dreaded mechanical issue on their commuter plane did. How many times have we heard and experienced this story!?

We arrived Dulles at 5:10, and our international flight departed at 5:30! We sprinted from gate A1 to gate C2, and made it onto the flight with about 3 minutes to spare. We were both bathed in sweat. We have no idea if our checked luggage also made it.

But then after a free Bloody Mary we settled in for the long flight. Following one hour of de-icing we took off. After dinner and a movie we went to sleep for a couple hours. Our flight path took us directly over Scarborough, England, where my 9th cousin Paul West lives. At 6:45 am I looked out the window and saw his house.

Then a few minutes later we saw the sun rising over the Alps to the south of Munich. It reminds us how beautiful Germany and Austria are.

We are about to jump into the unknown!  Not that we haven’t been to Venice before, but this will be different!  Our first visit was in October of 2011 while we were living in Vienna, Austria.  We spent a few nights in a hotel and did the tourist thing.  It was breathtaking!  Our second visit was this past June because we had never seen the inside of Casa Artom and kind of wanted to see the lay of the land – especially the professor’s apartment.  It did not let us down!

Packing never gets easier.  If I have a favorite shampoo (I do), I need to pack a couple bottles.  I used to think you could buy anything anywhere, but not so.  CVS has seen me several times this past week!  I have piles of clothes all over my bedroom.  Of course, I will mix and match tops, pants, and skirts, but what if the weather turns really warm in the spring?  Page wears the same clothes all year long.  Sheesh!

The house is closed up and services turned off.  Good friends came by to do a walk through since they will be checking in periodically. 

Tomorrow we get taken to Greensboro (Piedmont Triad International Airport).  It will be Wednesday morning when we arrive in Venice at the Venice Marco Polo Airport.  Woohoo!  I think I am ready!

It is January 2, 2020, and only 5 days until we fly off to Venice for our four-month stay at Casa Artom. The Christmas tree has been taken down, and all the holiday decorations are stored away. We’ve brought up suitcases to gauge how much room we have for packing. Errands are being run to pick up last minute odds and ends. The bills are all paid. We are gathering forms and paperwork we may need during our time away. So much to do! It’s hard to believe, after all these months, that our next greatest adventure is upon us!

Stay tuned here for our ongoing updates about life in Venice.