Tuesday night, April 30th, our friends in the Archaeology and Classics, Art History, and Fine Arts programs led AUR in an enthusiastic revival of the ancient Roman Spring festival dedicated to the goddess Flora. Professor Paul Gwynne, adorned with colorful festival regalia of his own making, acted as master of ceremonies and urged all present to embrace the exuberant festival spirit in the name of renewal, fertility, and life. Professor Elizabeth Wueste, bedecked in a theme-matching floral pattern, introduced an enthralled (yet also appropriately rambunctious) audience to the history, religious function, and sheer joyful madness of Floralia.
The function ended on a high note of loud cheers and raising of cups in honor of Flora, in gratitude to the charming masters of ceremony, and, surely, in secret celebration of the end of a long semester that began in the gray and cold of Winter and then ushered into the warmth and colors of Spring.
Not yet content, the cheerful crowd marched out of the Auriana Auditorium, into the streets, and off to the Masina Building to pay tribute to the Muses that inspired this semester's bountiful crop of prints, paintings, mixed-media, mosaic, and other art produced by our Fine Arts students.
Surely, our thanks for a majestic show that gladdens the heart, must also extend to the dedicated instructors who transmitted passion and technique, in equal measure, to the wonderful artists. So, thank you, professors Timothy Allen, Mei Chen Tsang, Valeria Gasparini, Jean-Jacques du Plessis, Fabio Brilari, Francesca Guiducci, and Kristien De Neve!
For a taste of art produced by AUR students, take a look at Remus: The Literary and Art Magazine of The American University of Rome, published every Spring.
Volume XV is just about to be released, on May 2nd, with a launch party in AUR's swanky Student Lounge at 7pm. Our thanks, once again, to our friends Elizabeth Wueste and Paul Gwynne for announcing the launch and inviting the cheerful Floralia crowd to attend.
And for the classicists, below is the slide show Professor Wueste used to get in the festive mood, with verses from Ovid, frescos of the Three Graces uncovered at Pompeii, paintings of Spring by Botticelli, an overview of the locations where Floralia was celebrated, and (why not?) more Ovid!
