End of Course Test: Teaching Through Italy: A Guide to In Situ Studies

Which of the following eras correctly orders Rome’s political history as presented in the opening “city walk”?

In the Forum and Palatine Hill lesson, the tale of Marcus Curtius leaping into a chasm symbolizes:

The House of Julia Felix in Pompeii shows how middle-class Romans combined domestic, agricultural, and leisure spaces.

The Pantheon’s dome is made of uniform-weight concrete from base to crown.

Sixtus V added crosses atop Roman obelisks to symbolize Christian victory over paganism.

The Ara Pacis processional friezes are purely mythological and include no real people.

The Arch of Titus preserves the only ancient visual record of the Temple menorah.

Florence’s Renaissance began primarily through which humble industry?

Filippo Brunelleschi’s dome solved which long-unsolved architectural challenge?

Venice’s location in a lagoon originally developed as a response to:

The Venetian ducat and Florentine florin both became:

In Pompeii, the Vitruvian plan of a Roman house is demonstrated by the sequence:

The “House of the Tragic Poet” is best known for:

Manuscript study unites which two disciplines?

In Pliny’s account, Roman obelisks represented:

The Solare/Montecitorio obelisk functioned originally as:

The Ara Pacis Augustae aligns with the Solare obelisk’s shadow on:

True fresco (buon fresco) painting is defined by:

The Alexander Mosaic was discovered in:

The Greek sculptor Polykleitos is associated with:

Roman verism in portraiture emphasized:

Trajan’s Column served as all of the following except:

The Laocoön group most likely functioned politically as:

The Sperlonga grotto sculptures illustrate:

The Arch of Constantine reused reliefs and panels from earlier emperors to:

In a 500-600 word essay, discuss one of the following prompts:

1. Teaching in Situ—Learning Through Place: One of the chief aims of Teaching Through Italy is to help educators guide students to encounter history, art, and literature in situ—whether walking the streets of Rome and Florence or studying images and texts in their own classrooms. Drawing from at least three lessons in the course, discuss how teaching on site (or bringing the site into the classroom) can transform students’ understanding of the classical world. How does place—the architecture, geography, and physical encounter with artifacts—deepen comprehension of ideas like order, beauty, and virtue? Support your essay with examples from monuments, artworks, or city walks featured in the course.

2. Art as Signum—Forming the Moral Imagination: Throughout the course, Professors Moore and Horner interpret works such as the Laocoön, the Ara Pacis, Trajan’s Column, and the Roman arches as signa—artworks that communicate power, piety, and meaning. As a teacher or guide, how might you help students perceive these layers of significance when studying or visiting these sites? In what ways can classical monuments, viewed in situ or through classroom study, train students to see beauty and symbolism not as distant relics, but as living forms that shape moral and intellectual virtue today?