January 11 was a special day for Italian language lovers in our school. On that day, as every year, young enthusiasts of Italian culture gathered in the school hall to celebrate the Italian Culture Day.
We were honored by the presence of a wonderful guest – prof. Roman Sosnowski from the Institute of Romance Philology at the Jagiellonian University. In his lecture “In the circle of the Medici: sons of Lawrence the Magnificent”, he presented the history of the famous family that used to rule Florence and Tuscany. Apart from the events in the political life of the rulers, the professor also presented the adventures of the everyday life of the family.
After the lecture, Martyna Raczek from class 3c gave us her performance. Her phenomenal performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s aria “Vieni, vieni o mio diletto” made a great impression on us.
Then it was time for presentations prepared by Italian language students. Kaja Murzyn from class 2a2 took us on a journey to the capital of Italy, to Rome. She introduced the history of the main monuments and less known places of the Eternal City. Another presentation was prepared for us by Gabriela Kasza from class 1b2, who talked about Italian holidays and traditions. We learned that for Italians the unlucky number is not 13 (as in Poland), but … 17! There was also information about art and Italian artists. I’m talking about a presentation by Karolina Kruźlak and Anna Galos from class 2e. There was also a presentation about coffee, which is a showcase of Italy and the methods of its preparation, which were introduced to us by Gabriela Pietras from 1c. The last presentation showed the history of Italian cinematography over the years: “Old and modern Italian cinema” was introduced to us by Gabriela Wiśniewska and Konrad Kemski from class 2a1.
After a delicious meal – as you can guess it was Italian food, specifically cartocciata catanese from the city of Catania in Sicily – we were full of energy and we moved to the next point of the program. It was the Knowledge About Italy Competition conducted by prof. Paulina Leśniak. It required knowledge of the history, geography and culture of Italy, as well as the curiosities contained in previous presentations.
After the commission was able to check the results, the musical performance continued. The first performer was Gabriela Pietras, who played the song “Ti Amo” from the repertoire of Umbert Tozzi on a ukulele. Then it was time for the joint karaoke songs of Italian partisans “Bella Ciao”, accompanied by a guitar duo – Marcin Janis and Marceli Jędryka from 1d.
After many exciting attractions, it’s time to end the meeting. The prizes for the winners of the Competition and the co-authors of the meeting were presented by the Director, Iwona Fedan. After the solemn speech, the holiday unfortunately ended. Nevertheless, nice, warm memories like sunny Italy will stay with us for a long time.
Julia Steczko, 2g
