Eighteenth-century German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote that, “only in Rome is it possible to understand Rome.”
A group of University of Notre Dame students discovered that to be true last semester by participating in the centuries-old literary tradition of "The Journey to Italy."
Students in the Italian studies course, The Literature of the Journey to Italy: From the Renaissance to the Present, participated in a fully funded, week-long trip to Italy — including visits to Rome, Florence, and Naples — through a College of Arts & Letters Teaching Beyond the Classroom grant, which is designed to advance learning through real-life encounters.
In the course, students were challenged to understand Italy’s role in shaping European and American literary imagination; develop skills in close reading, textual analysis, and cultural interpretation; and critically reflect on their own travel experiences in relation to literary models.
“There's a difference between reading about something and seeing and experiencing it,” said senior Gracie Speicher, who majors in environmental science with a supplementary major in Italian studies. “Whenever you’re able to take something from the classroom and see it in real life, it means a lot more.”
Led by Ted Cachey, the Pizzo Family Chair in Dante Studies and Ravarino Family Director of Italian and Dante Studies, and Italian studies Ph.D. candidate Alessandro Matone, eight undergraduate students spent the first portion of the fall 2025 semester reading and discussing the accounts of notable creatives who traveled to, and were influenced by, Italy — books such as Michel de Montaigne's Journal of Travels in Italy, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Italian Journey, Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, and Mary McCarthy’s The Stones of Florence.
Then, in mid-October, students followed in the footsteps of those famous authors.
“You're putting yourself into this tradition by going one level deeper in terms of what Italy has to offer,” said senior Matthew Fishburne.
Encountering Italy through travel literature
Cachey knew he wanted to offer a course that intertwined the history of the journey to Italy and explored travel narratives of some of the best 17th-to-20th-century writers.
“You really get to know these authors and see how travel to Italy changes them,” Speicher said.
The trip built upon the students’ already deep understanding of Italian history, art, and culture. Most of the students had studied Italian and traveled abroad through Notre Dame Global programs in Rome and Bologna, as well as through other internships and teaching experiences, such as a year in Rome as part of the School of Architecture program.
But this experience, they said, was completely different.
“This trip was a continuation of a journey that students had started years before, when they began studying Italian at Notre Dame,” Matone said. “This was a culmination of their language and culture studies at Notre Dame.”
During their time in Italy, the students retraced the routes once taken by high-status aristocrats on the Grand Tour, a traditional early modern practice of traveling across Europe for cultural education and refinement.
“Our first day in Rome, we entered the city like Montaigne and Goethe through the Porta Flaminia, starting our whole trip at Piazza del Popolo,” said fifth-year architecture student Rylan Chromy. “From there, we went to the Spanish Steps, and just followed the path that a Grand Tourist would have taken through the city.”
“Sometimes when you’re traveling, you can get caught up in worrying about what things you should be seeing and just trying to pack it all in. And when you're doing it in an academic way, it forces you to stop and reflect on the things that you're seeing much more.”
-senior Gracie Speicher, who majors in environmental science with a supplementary major in Italian studies.
Once a marquee destination for Grand Tour travelers, the Villa Albani is now typically accessible only to scholars and specialists. During their visit, however, the Notre Dame students were granted a private tour of the estate, which has remained virtually unchanged since the mid-eighteenth century.
“You get more time to see some of the more culturally significant things, as opposed to what’s just the most popular,” Fishburne said.
The itinerary intentionally highlighted the authors that students encountered in class, allowing their works to come vividly to life. In Rome, students visited Goethe’s apartment, and in Florence they took in the breathtaking cityscape that Mary McCarthy memorably described from the vantage point of San Miniato al Monte.
“There was a connection between the syllabus, the readings we did, the work we did in class, and the work we did on place in Italy,” Matone said.
Although the week was full of site visits and excursions, the trip offered a more intentional and thoughtfully curated experience for the students.
“Sometimes when you’re traveling, you can get caught up in worrying about what things you should be seeing and just trying to pack it all in,” Speicher said. “And when you're doing it in an academic way, it forces you to stop and reflect on the things that you're seeing much more.”
Fostering a global community
The trip allowed students to connect more deeply with their classmates, Cachey and Matone, and faculty at Notre Dame Rome.
Students met with a variety of Notre Dame faculty while in Italy, including Charles Leavitt, the William Payden Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, who met the students at the American Academy in Rome — where he is currently a Rome Prize Fellow — and Chiara Sbordoni, an associate teaching professor of Italian at Notre Dame Rome. Faculty back in South Bend, including associate professor of film studies Olivier Morel, and art history professor Heather Hyde Minor, also helped students prepare to understand the city and art they would encounter on the trip.
During their travels, students also enjoyed more personalized experiences, such as dinner with Sbordoni and her family and an outing to an AS Roma football game. Students said these moments become some of their most cherished memories from the week.
“It was going beyond the classroom in not necessarily just a geographical sense, but also going beyond the classroom with people that we had only really interfaced with in a classroom,” said senior Beau Steller, who majors in economics and Italian.
A lifelong appreciation
As students work on their capstone project for the course — in which they will create their own travel narratives — many reflect on their experiences in the context of the authors who came before them.
“The reasons why someone would travel to Rome centuries ago, you still see that transformation and those motivations still today,” Speicher said.
For Chromy, drawing is a unique way to connect with the Grand Tourist travelers.
“They're taking sketches of everything they see,” he said. “I made sure that I got a sketchbook specifically for the trip.”
The trip showed students that not only are they part of this long line of travelers to Italy, but also that their own connection to the country is a dynamic, lifelong affair.
“Every time I visit Italy, I always wonder, ‘Is this the last time?’” Fishburne said. “I've just been really grateful and surprised that the next time came pretty quickly.”
For Cachey and Matone, who hope to offer the course again, the class’s impact only deepens once students are back home.
“We’ve tried to model a meaningful, elevated conversation about Italian culture and history,” Cachey said. “My hope is that students continue to nurture that conversation with others throughout their careers and their lives.”
