Italy: Art, Architecture & Global Creativity
Florence • Venice • Bologna | 10-Day Faculty-Led Program
An Immersive Exploration of Art, Architecture & Creative Expression in Italy
Designed for students in art history, architecture, design, visual arts, cultural studies, and related fields, this immersive program explores how Italy became one of the world’s most influential centers of artistic and architectural innovation.
Traveling through Florence, Venice, and Bologna, students encounter Renaissance masterpieces, historic urban spaces, contemporary creativity, and centuries of visual culture. Museums, churches, public spaces, workshops, and conversations with local experts help students examine how patronage, religion, politics, commerce, and place have shaped creative expression.
What Students Explore
ART & VISUAL CULTURE | Examine how artists have used painting, sculpture, and visual storytelling to communicate ideas about religion, power, identity, and society.
ARCHITECTURE & URBAN DESIGN | Explore how buildings, streets, piazzas, and public spaces reflect changing ideas about community, beauty, function, and civic life.
RENAISSANCE INNOVATION | Investigate the artistic experimentation, patronage, and intellectual exchange that transformed Florence and influenced creative culture around the world.
CRAFT & CREATIVE PRACTICE | Experience traditions of craftsmanship and consider how materials, techniques, and hands-on making connect past and present.
CULTURAL HERITAGE | Consider how Italy preserves, interprets, and gives new meaning to historic art, architecture, and cultural spaces.
10-Day Itinerary
A Program, Built to Be Customized
This itinerary is designed to show what an Italy Art, Architecture & Global Creativity program could look like. Specific museums, workshops, site visits, and guest speakers will vary based on your program dates, group size, academic goals, and local availability.
We'll work with your faculty and study abroad team to adapt the program to your course objectives and students. Activities can place greater emphasis on art history, architecture, studio art, design, museums, cultural heritage, urban studies, or another course-aligned theme.
Day 1 | Arrival & Introduction to Florence
Arrive in Florence and begin experiencing the city as a living classroom. Meet your EdOdyssey Program Leader, orient to the historic center, and explore the piazzas, churches, streets, and civic spaces that helped make Florence a center of Renaissance culture.
Sample Experiences:
Arrival orientation • Historic Florence walk • Piazza della Signoria • Welcome dinner
Day 2 | The Renaissance & The City
Explore the artistic, political, and economic forces that shaped Renaissance Florence. Examine how powerful families, religious institutions, merchants, and civic leaders used art and architecture to communicate influence and identity.
Sample Experiences:
Florence Cathedral • Brunelleschi & Renaissance architecture • Palazzo Vecchio area • Urban sketching or visual observation
Day 3 | Masterpieces & Artistic Innovation
Spend the day examining Renaissance art up close through one of Florence’s major collections and important cultural sites. Students consider innovations in perspective, representation, humanism, and artistic technique while connecting individual works to the social world in which they were created.
Sample Experiences:
Uffizi Gallery • Renaissance painting • Sculpture & public art • Faculty-led visual analysis
Day 4 | Craftsmanship & Creative Practice
Explore Florence’s longstanding traditions of craft and making through a local artisan workshop, studio, or hands-on experience. Students investigate how skills, materials, apprenticeship, and design traditions continue to shape contemporary creative work.
Sample Experiences:
Artisan workshop • Traditional craftsmanship • Studio visit • Hands-on creative experience • Oltrarno neighborhood
Day 5 | Florence to Bologna: Art, Learning & Urban Life
Travel by train to Bologna and explore one of Italy’s great university cities. Examine its distinctive arcades, public spaces, medieval architecture, and relationship between learning, civic life, and the built environment.
Sample Experiences:
Train to Bologna • Historic center • Porticoes • Piazza Maggiore • Urban architecture study
Day 6 | Bologna: Art, Food & Creative Culture
Explore how art and creativity extend beyond museums into markets, streets, design, food, and everyday life. Engage with a local artist, designer, cultural organization, or creative professional and consider how historic cities support contemporary creative communities.
Sample Experiences:
Creative professional engagement • Public art • Markets & visual culture • Design observation • Bologna cultural exploration
Day 7 | Bologna to Venice: Designing a City on Water
Travel to Venice and explore how geography shaped one of the world’s most distinctive urban environments. Students investigate the engineering, architecture, trade, and artistic traditions that developed in a city built across a lagoon.
Sample Experiences:
Train to Venice • Grand Canal • Piazza San Marco • Venetian architecture • Urban field study
Day 8 | Venice: Art, Power & Global Exchange
Examine Venice’s historic role as a center of commerce and cultural exchange. Explore how trade connected the city to artistic materials, ideas, and influences from across Europe, the Mediterranean, and beyond.
Sample Experiences:
Doge’s Palace • Basilica di San Marco • Venetian painting • Global exchange • Museum or gallery visit
Day 9 | Contemporary Creativity & Cultural Preservation
Consider how Venice balances its extraordinary cultural heritage with contemporary art, tourism, environmental pressures, and changing urban life. Depending on program dates, explore a contemporary art space, design institution, artisan studio, or cultural preservation initiative.
Conclude with reflection and a farewell dinner.
Sample Experiences:
Contemporary art or design • Cultural preservation • Artisan tradition • Program reflection • Farewell dinner
Day 10 | Departure
Depart Venice with a deeper understanding of how art, architecture, culture, and place have shaped creative expression across centuries.
Sample Experiences:
Breakfast • Program reflection • Departure
Make this program your own
Start Here. Then Shape Around Your Course.
This itinerary is a starting point. Depending on your goals, we can place greater emphasis on areas such as:
Art History
Renaissance art • Visual analysis • Patronage • Museums
Architecture
Historic buildings • Urban design • Adaptive reuse • Public space
Studio Art
Drawing • Painting • Printmaking • Materials • Creative practice
Design
Visual communication • Craftsmanship • Contemporary design
Museum & Heritage Studies
Preservation • Interpretation • Collections • Cultural heritage
Urban Studies
Cities • Public space • Tourism • Community • Sustainability
Global Studies
Trade • Cultural exchange • Identity • Creative influence
We can also adjust the program length, locations, museum visits, workshops, creative activities, reflection, accommodations, meals, and level of EdOdyssey Program Leader support.
Could this work for your students?
Use this program as your starting point or tell us what you’d change. We’ll work with you to align the itinerary with your course objectives, students, preferred dates, group size, and budget.
Have a different academic focus in mind?