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Learning a new language is always a wonderful opportunity to discover new cultures, traditions, legends, and music.

Listening to songs by Manu Chao (Spanish, French, Portuguese, English), Negresses Vertes (French), Louise Attaque (French), Robbie Williams (English), Red Hot Chili Pepper (English), Bruce Springsteen (English), Jarabe de Palo (Spanish), Eros Ramazzotti (Italian), Lucio Dalla (Italian), Franco Battiato (Italian), Tarkan (Turkish), Jobim & Morelenbaum (Portuguese/Brazilian), Dalaras (Greek) and being able to understand the lyrics, the feelings, and the world represented in their music is a great experience that allows you to discover new history, new points of view, and new, interesting realities.

Watching a movie by Luc Besson, Quentin Tarantino, Federico Fellini, Pedro Almodovar, Francois Truffaut or Roberto Benigni in original language transmits an experience and  understanding lost in translated films.

Learning a foreign languages gives you the keys to open the deepest door to the soul of a country. It allows you to read the books and the poems of its most interesting authors; and understand original language news without any filter between you and the journalists, between you and the reality represented in the newspapers of the world.

Learning a new language means obtaining a fundamental tool to better understand the world, its inhabitants, and its cultures; allowing you to communicate with less prejudice and limits.

Learning Italian gives young students the opportunity to deeply understand a population representing one of the most important Western Countries by virtue of its culture, history and economy.

In fact, Italy, besides being one of the most industrialized countries in the world, has a rich and powerful history reflected in the incredible beauty of its towns and principal cities (Rome, Venice, Florence, Verona, Parma, Bologna, Naples, Palermo, Lecce and many, many others). 

All throughout the country, you can find the magic of its time-honored traditions in the tastes of its regional cuisines, in its monuments, statues and paintings, in its universities, in its design, and in its technologies.

Italian is moreover the Language of moda (fashion),  pittura (painting), opera, pop music, architettura (architecture), calcio (soccer), vino (wine), liquori (liquor), motori (cars and motorcycles), design, cinema, letteratura (literature). 

Just to list some names:

Moda - Gucci, Ferragamo, Prada, Versace, Armani, Dolce&Gabbana, Benetton, Diesel, Energie, Ferrè, Moschino, Fila, Ellesse; Pittura -  Botticelli, Caravaggio, DeChirico, Raffaello, Michelangelo, Burri, Modigliani; Opera - Aida, Turandot, Traviata, Trovatore, Otello, Nabucco, Manon Lescaut, Cavalleria Rusticana, Elisir d'Amore, Le Nozze di Figaro; Pop Music - Zucchero, Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini, Nek, Jovanotti, Battiato, Lucio Dalla, Paolo Conte; Poesia - Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Pasolini; Architettura - Renzo Piano, Aldo Rossi, Carlo Scarpa and, from the past Brunelleschi, Arnolfo di Cambio, Bernini, Palladio; Science - Galileo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Zichichi, Rubbia; Calcio - Baggio, Del Piero, Vieri, Inzaghi, Toldo, Buffon, Maldini, Totti; Vino - Chianti, Vernaccia, Barbera, Valpolicella, Amarone, Brunello, Barolo, "Supertuscans", Lambrusco, Spumante; Liquori - Martini, Campari, Amaretto di Saronno, Grappa, Limoncello, Sambuca; Buona Cucina - Pasta, Pizza, Gelato, Nutella (!); Motori - Ducati, Aprilia, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Piaggio, Fiat, Minardi De Tomaso, Moto Guzzi, MotoMorini, Cagiva, MV Agusta and also Pirelli&Magneti Marelli; Design - Pininfarina, Giugiaro, Bertone; Cinema - Roberto Benigni, Nanni Moretti, Sergio Leone, Federico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, Giuseppe Tornatore, Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci, Dario Argento, Dino Risi, Fernand Ozpetek, Gabriele Salvatores; Letteratura - Umberto Eco, Dario Fo, Italo Calvino, Primo Levi, Alessandro Baricco, Antonio Tabucchi, Stefano Benni, Andrea Camilleri...

Understanding Italian means having deep contact with the history and spirit of people that have reached excellence in every field where quality, good taste, design and artistic sensibility are the indispensable ingredients for the international success of production.

Learning Italian allows you to enter the circle of 66,000,000 Italian speakers worldwide (around 58,000,000 in Italy and in Switzerland, 1,500,000 in the USA, and the rest all over the planet!).  Italian is also a Romance language - based on Latin - which makes it easier for you to learn other Latin-based languages in the future, such as: Spanish, French, Portuguese or Romanian.  Could all these reasons be why Italian is the 4th-most studied foreign language in the world (after English, Spanish and French)?

Learning Italian in Florence means breathing the atmosphere in a city with one of the highest concentrations of Art Masterpieces in the world. The greatest artists of the past competed in sculpting statues, painting frescoes, and building magnificent buildings, towers and bridges; transforming the city into a living open air museum, where every corner is rich in history, beauty and life.

In Florence, it's also possible to admire some of the most famous museums in the world, such as the Uffizi and the Accademia. However, its narrow streets, its boulevards, its hidden gardens, and its lively squares are where the city offers its greatest "Art."  In these places, you'll come across statues, palaces, fountains, churches and frescoes that define the everyday experience of living in Florence, making every footstep an enchanting experience!

Moreover, Florence is the city of Dante Alighieri, the father of Italian Language; in 1321, he wrote The Divine Comedy, a moralizing tale in "volgare," the language spoken by the people, based on the Florentine dialect. This developed into the Standard Italian language, the only written Italian language, and created a culture that unified the different regions of Italy (from Sicily to the remote Alpine Villages).  Moreover, Florence has given birth to many others, including Roberto Benigni (the director of "La Vita è bella" (Life is Beautiful) and many other films), Machiavelli, Meucci (the recently recognized inventor of the telephone), Boccaccio, Amerigo Vespucci (the man that America is named after), and Lorenzo Dè Medici.

And don't forget that Florence is in the center of Tuscany, a region characterized by magnificent cities of art (Siena, Arezzo, Lucca, Pisa, San Gimignano, Pienza, Cortona) and incredible landscapes (Chianti, Maremma, Alpi Apuane, the Islands of the Archipelago).

Did you know that Florence is 1-hour by car from ski slopes, 50-minutes by car (or train) from Versilia's beaches, 40-minutes by car from Chianti Valley and 2-3 hours by plane from all the most important European cities?

studentsVille suggests that everyone spend a period of their life in Florence, as well as in all the other wonderful cities (especially for students) in the world, such as: Bologna, Rome, Naples, Valencia, Barcelona, Madrid, Salamanca, London, Liverpool, Lion, Bordeaux, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Sydney.

Travel, speak with people, listen to new music, try new foods, understand other cultures, new arts and new ways of life... this is the simple secret to create a better world based on mutual comprehension and respect.  This is the only way to build a strong, profound peace between the different people and different nations of the world.

studentsVille welcomes all students and wishes everybody an unforgettable period of their lives in Florence!

- By Marco De La Pierre (studentsVille founder)