A Ten-Day Academic Journey Through Italy

June 7–16, 2027 | Florence, Tuscany, and Rome

Ralston College is pleased to announce its inaugural public travel program, a ten-day intensive journey through Italy exploring beauty, the theme of Ralston’s 2026–27 MA in the Humanities.

Over ten days in Florence, Tuscany, and Rome, participants will engage with the role of beauty in the Western tradition of art and thought through primary texts, seminars, and direct encounters with works of art, architecture, landscapes, and living traditions. Moving from Classical antiquity through the medieval world and into the Renaissance, the journey will ask how beauty has been understood, experienced, transmitted, and embodied—and what the pursuit of beauty might demand of us.

If beauty is the “splendor of truth,” how do we ensure that our attraction to beautiful objects and people helps us, rather than hinders us, in the pursuit of beauty as a transcendent reality? Why have human beings so often found beauty in experiences of suffering and loss? What does the transformation of art and architecture from Classical antiquity through the medieval world and into the Renaissance reveal about Pagan and Christian understandings of human and divine beauty? And how might our perception of beauty in symmetry and order inform not only artistic creation, but our understanding of human community?

These questions will be pursued in the places in which many of them first took form. From Virgil and Plutarch to Dante and Michelangelo, participants will encounter poets, artists, and thinkers through their texts and works, but also through the landscapes, churches, streets, and monuments in which their ideas were formed.

In Florence, close encounters with Botticelli, Fra Angelico, and Michelangelo will open questions about beauty, proportion, desire, the human figure, and the relationship between the human and divine. In Rome, the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, Palazzo Massimo, Pantheon, Roman Forum, and other sites will allow these questions to unfold across the Classical and Christian traditions.

The journey is organized in partnership with Alithea Travel and will be led by Dr Anna Corrias, Professor of the History of Philosophy, and Dr Nicole Blackwood, Professor of Art History, who will weave together philosophy, literature, history, art, and architecture through directed readings, close looking, and shared conversation.

Gathering alumni and friends of Ralston College, the program will also extend beyond informal study. Shared meals, readings, conversations, and time together will create space for sustained reflection and intellectual friendship. By pursuing these questions in an environment of fellowship and free inquiry, participants will confront beauty as a profound and challenging reality.

The trip will take place June 7–16, 2027, with nights in Florence, the Tuscan countryside, and Rome. Space is limited to 35 participants.

For the complete program, itinerary, accommodations, pricing, and booking information, please visit In Pursuit of Beauty: A Ten-Day Academic Journey Through Italy with Ralston College.